“Say It Loud!” Tyroc and the Trajectory of the Black Superhero (part 1)
Part one in an exploration of how the trajectory of Tyroc’s character provides a blueprint for thinking about the arc of other black superheroes.
Striking Back: Black Lightning and Reading Race (part one)
The clumsy way superhero comic books of the post-Civil Rights 1970s explicitly address race can provide a site for imagining productive racial consciousness for black characters, while also highlighting the limits of that kind of resistant reading.
Marvel Five-in-One: Prominent, Notorious and Invisible Black Lives of the Marvel Universe
Exploring the limits of diversity in a white supremacist framework through a five-in-one look at 1978’s Marvel Two-in-One.
Additions, Corrections, Retractions
An overview of posts in need of revisiting.
The Man Who Lived Twice! (If You Can Call That Living): Marvel’s Brother Voodoo
The fourth in a series of posts about black superheroes. Marvel Comics’ Brother Voodoo—a character to feel really conflicted about.
Robocop: Representation By Erasure & The White-Washing of Detroit.
For a movie set in Detroit, it seems awful white.
Super Hegemonic Team-up! Spider-Man, Daredevil & “The Death of Jean DeWolfe”
In this story, Spider-Man and Daredevil demonstrate a hegemonic framework for understanding urban crime (part of SUPER BLOG TEAM-UP #4).
“And Then We Take It Higher” – Interpreting Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue”
Poor black and brown people in the West joined by music and their relation to power.
Black Lightning Always Strikes Twice! – Double-Consciousness as a Super-Power.
Jefferson Pierce’s “blackness” is explored in relation to his superheroic identity, but doesn’t get anywhere.
“Invisible (Watch)Men: The Impossibility of the Black Superhero”
Miles Morales or Trayvon Martin are more likely to be victim of a “heroic” vigilante than to be one.
“I AM A MAN!” Machine Man, Robot Desire and Racial Assimilation
The generic “human” these robots want to be is a white human.
Captain Marvel & More Black Iron Man
Rhodey’s armor allows him to literally don the guise of a successful white man, to “pass” in the world of (mostly) white superheroes.
Four-Color Color-Blindness: Black Iron Man
Reed Richards is not so fantastic when it comes to understanding race in America.
Spider-Man is Black
Spider-man is Black. Or at least, he could be. . .
