Whether
"Hancock" ends up as a fantastic attempt at creating a
franchise around an original hero, or just a pure messy
product of a big star known for hits like "Wild Wild West"
and... ugh... "Men in Black" will be irrelevant in the end.
Because even after the receipts have been counted, the
message is loud and clear. "Hancock" is a try for a
superhero that's anything other than Caucasian. In a season
of comic book movies where all the major men in tights are
white, "Hancock" seems to be Will Smith's own Superman. It's
his superhero. And that inspired this new list. Our top 10
Minority Superheroes. Most of whom could make for some
interesting movies. Oddly enough I had a tough time finding
great minority superheroes, wouldn't you know it?
I could
have opted for more Asian choices but they're already quite
prominent in comics and pop culture with the same glut of
stereotypes, but with much more accessibility. Hispanic and
African American Superheroes, though? The pot strains it
thin, but I was up for the challenge.
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Static Shock |
No, not
the lame comic book Static, I mean Static Shock, the
revamp from television that fixed the mistakes from
the cliche character from DC turning him in to
someone interesting, complex, and exciting. He was
so entertaining to watch in fact, that he eventually
became a part of the DC Animated Universe canon.
Originally created in the secondary label of DC
Comics, "Milestone," Static was your ordinary
superhero who'd occasionally make crossovers with
lame knock offs like Steel and Supergirl, but never
really had anything to do. Then there was the
television series and pretty much all of that
changed. In the much needed change, Static is Virgil
Hawkins, a young boy whose mother was killed one
night on the job as an EMT.
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The series explored
Virgil's attempts to grieve her death, all the while
being hit with an experimental gas that turns him in
to an electrified superhero facing a city who hates
his kind of super powered metahuman. The series was
so influential is grabbed some great cross overs
with the Justice League, Virgil inevitably popped up
in an epic storyline of the "Justice League"
television series, and ended with one Daytime Emmy.
Static Shock was always a very positive and
entertaining superhero who faced real world issues
like a school shooting, drugs, and questioning the
love of his own mother on many occasions, all the
while fighting a variety of interesting super
villains, all of whom were thankfully minority.
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Night Thrasher |
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For a long time,
Night Thrasher was one of my favorite
Superheroes/anti-heroes. He was a part of that
entertaining super team "The New Warriors" and
hid behind one of the cooler costumes I can
fondly remember. A face mask with a grate
covering his face, an all black ninja costume,
and arm controlled billy clubs that made him a
character I always wanted to see more of. You
could imagine how happy I was when he grabbed
his own mini series from Marvel. Sure, his
origins and every ability he possesses is a rip
off of Batman in some sense, but his color
scheme matched with his strong leadership
abilities of the New Warriors back in the
nineties made him as interesting a character
with none of the real momentum from Kane's
creation. He was often very quiet, tough, and
put up a fight for almost any super villain he
and his team confronted in the series, and he's
still a fond memory of my youth where comics
were my life.
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Nick Fury |
Have no
assumptions when you catch this choice. I
was born admiring and reading a white Nick
Fury with white sides over his brown hair,
and a background that extends in to World
War II. I was born with the original Nick
Fury, thus I think he should remain the
original Nick Fury. But that's not to say
that this revamp of the character isn't one
hell of a great creation. How many prominent
African American characters are there in
Marvel, really? It's tough, even if
unintentional. This Nick Fury was born of
the revamped Marvel Universe where Fury made
appearances in the Ultimate Universe
tussling with Spider -Man, The Avengers,
even the Incredible Hulk becoming a dominant
force in both verses while Mark Millar
connected him to the likes of folks such as
Wolverine and Iron Man. If you don't know
this already: creator Mark Millar modeled
this Fury after actor Samuel L. Jackson with
the actual consent of the
actor. Which explains his potential leading
role in the upcoming Avengers movie, and his
cameo in "Iron Man." This Nick Fury is a
Fury for the modern age, and while my
loyalties lie with the classic Fury, I have
to show some respect to Millar for taking
such an important character and giving him a
twist that revived him for new readers.
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Stealth |
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Maybe you
know this character, perhaps you don't,
but back when I was trying to invent my
own web comic, I happened across Stealth
and read the first two issues. We had
many options for a slot on this list,
but I'm admittedly a fan of this series
and felt it warranted some recognition.
Then I realized how jealous I was of
creator William Satterwhite for
imagining such an interesting and
compelling homage to Spider-Man with his
very own superhero called Stealth. He's
a little bit of the inner city realism,
matched with some damn fine writing that
undermines every such stereotype to
retain a dignified look at young Allen,
a boy who is struck by lightning and
survives to discover that he's been
granted mysterious super powers that
enhance his strength, intelligence, and
healing ability. If you haven't read it
yet, "Stealth" is an entertaining web
comic that's granted some success that's
hardly minor. It
continues on with its popular
web series, but retains its quality even
in light of its notability among many of
the other thousand web comics online
right now. Try reading the comic
sometime, it's pretty damn cool.
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War Machine |
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In the nineties,
one of my favorite superheroes was also War
Machine. I've always personally found Iron
Man to be a very lame second tier Marvel
character who had potential to be
entertaining but was much too irritating and
boring to read most times. There was War
Machine, though. He had some great dark gray
armor matched with white armed with almost
endless weapons. I remember bringing home
the mini-series from the news stand and
found James Rhodes to be so much more an
interesting character than Tony Stark ever
was. When Stark was apparently killed, War
Machine took up the job of fighting his
greatest villains and did the job, up until
Stark returned from the dead. That's comics
for you, isn't it? There were seeds of
foreshadowing in the "Iron Man" movie as
Rhodes contemplated the idea of War Machine
in the film, and that should be something.
Rhodes has always been the thrilling second
hand to Stark who keeps up the military end
while trying to knock some sense in to the
man on occasions that warrant it. War
Machine was always so much cooler than Iron
Man. There, I said it. |
SLIDE OVER TO PART TWO OF THE TOP 10 MINORITY
SUPERHEROES>>
-
Felix Vasquez Jr.
6/30/08
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