Favorites – 12 Favorite Black Characters in Comic Books

You know, I really haven’t done much for Black History Month here. I tend not to do much in February anyway. Heck, I’d rather talk about us any other time. Why regulate blackness to one month anyway? Maybe I shouldn’t complain since a lot of history could and does get swept under the rug. It’s also possible that I’m just filling up space with this paragraph. After all, I’m usually a dude with few words.

Since it’s Black History Month and Black Panther is finally coming to theaters, it’s time to get to this post. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but never knew when to do it. While there aren’t many, there are some cool black characters in comics. While some of them aren’t necessarily my favorites, there are some I really like. I especially like when they’re actually well-written. I’d probably say that Marvel uses them better but DC has good ones too. So, here are some of my favorite Black characters from comic books. It’s also not in any order either. First, I have some honorable mentions:

• Bishop (Marvel) – Lucas Bishop’s up here mostly because he may be the second black superhero I ever ran across. For those who don’t know, he’s another X-Man from the future. I first saw him on the 90’s X-Men cartoon. I thought his power set (he can absorb energy and use that energy) was pretty cool. There’s also the fact that was one of the only X-Men who had sense to carry weapons. That being said, I was not a fan of what the writers did with the character around the late 2000’s. How can you turn one of the only black dudes on the X-Men into a villain? At least he’s not like that now.
• Falcon (Marvel) – Sam Wilson isn’t really one of my favorites. Guys who fly and can communicate with birds aren’t my thing. I also haven’t read much of anything with him in it. Still, I did like his turn as Captain America when he was written by Nick Spencer. Yeah, it’s the guy who made Steve Rogers into a fascist. We can’t all be perfect. Also, Anthony Mackie has been killing it in the MCU. Maybe he gets to wield a shield in a later movie?
• Black Lightning (DC) – Then, there’s DC’s first black superhero. As you can tell by the name, Black Lightning has power over electricity. I really didn’t see any of Jefferson Pierce until Infinite Crisis. He was pretty cool in Brad Meltzer’s run on JLA. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much from him since then. I haven’t even gotten to watch the CW show yet. I’ve heard that it’s good, so here’s hoping I can get some more Lightning goodness there.
• Bronze Tiger (DC) – Ben Turner, aka Bronze Tiger, is pretty much in the antihero side of things. While he has been a villain (especially on CW’s Arrow), he’s sometimes a good guy. I talked about him last month. While I haven’t read a lot on him, I like what I’ve read so far. He’s just a dude who’s awesome at martial arts. That’s cool to me. If you saw what I was posting last month, you’d see that.

Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! - Icon #10

Today’s Super-Homage is one that I’ve talked about before: Icon. He was created by Dwayne McDuffie for Milestone Comics and was featured in his own title in the early 1990s’s. I talked about him back in February when I looked at a trade that has his series’ first eight issues. He shares some similarities to Superman in that he’s an alien who crashed on Earth and he has a secret identity. The similarities stop there though. Originally named Arnus, he crashed on Earth in 1839 and took the form of an African-American baby. He was named Augustus Freeman and kept his alien heritage a secret for over a century. It isn’t until the 1990s where he (at the behest of a young girl named Raquel) decides to become a superhero and clean up the city of Dakota.

Today’s issue is Icon #10. I did think about looking at an issue where he and Superman actually duked out, but it’s part of a crossover called "Worlds Collide." I haven’t read the total crossover, so this one seemed best. If you want to hear some discussion about those issues, head over to From Crisis To Crisis: A Superman Podcast where they went in-depth with that crossover between DC and Milestone. Dwayne McDuffie wrote the issue. M.D. Bright provided the pencils. Mike Gustovich handles the inks. James Brown (not the singer but that would be cool) and David Montoya handles the colors. So, let’s see what happens when Icon chases after some gangster

Icon #17

Writer: Dwayne McDuffie

Pencils: M.D. Bright

Inks: Mike Gustovich

Colors:  David Montoya and James Brown (Good God! Hey!... Had to do it.)

Letters: Steve Duturo

Editor: Matt Wayne

Trade Tales! - Icon: A Hero's Welcome

It seems that I’m on a bit of a “black superhero” kick this month because I got another one for today: Icon from the Milestone Universe. In the 1990’s, a group of black writers and artists got together with DC in order to create a universe where the heroes are minorities. One of the writers was the late Dwayne McDuffie, a favorite of mine. Another hero that came from this universe was Static who had his series and later cartoon series, Static Shock. The universe lasted for a few years but died off because of low sales. In the late 2000’s, DC tried to incorporate some of these heroes like Static and Icon into the then-current DCU. DC even had tried to bring Static into the New 52. I’m hearing that the co-founders of Milestone are getting stuff back together, so we might see these characters again.

Anyway, back to the hero of the post. Icon aka Augustus Freeman is pretty much the Superman of this universe.  Icon was one of the first books released by the company. The trade has the first eight issues of that book. I first read this when I found it in the public library. I eventually added it to my collection. McDuffie, who was also writing Static Shock at that time, is the writer. Green Lantern artist M.D. Bright provided the pencils. Mike Gustovich provided the inks for all eight issues. A variety of colorists and letterers did the eight issues.