Superheroes: Diversity in Comics and Media

                 

The inclusion of diverse superheroes has been part of the comic book genre for a while now. Some earlier examples include the black superheroes, John Stewart (Green Lantern) and Prince T’Challa (Black Panther), while more contemporary additions include characters such as Jane Foster (female Thor), and the first black Latino superhero, Miles Morales (Spider-Man). Introduced in 1966, Black Panther is the first black superhero and one of the earliest examples of diversity in comics. Since his creation over 40 years ago, even more diverse superheroes have been added to the comic book genre, and I’d say that this is a sign that diversity is here to last and to be improved on. 

However, comic book writers and artists must be careful with how they portray these characters, making sure to avoid stereotypes and other offensive implications. For example, in Green Lantern, issue #76, Hal Jordan encounters a black man on the street who enlightens the hero that his actions have ignored the deep-seated issue of racism. While this issue does bring into light the problems of racism into the comic book universe, and this is a good thing, the illustration of the black man might be taken offensively. His facial features are unrealistically crumpled, and since none of the white characters in the comic are drawn in the same way, this seems to be a reflection of his race. Therefore, including diversity is great, but people must continue to be careful with how they are representing these diverse characters as well.  

For the media, diverse representations of superheroes have only recently been added, and it has taken much longer for the big screen to adopt these characters than comics. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the black superhero, Black Panther, was first introduced in Marvel comics in 1966, in an issue of Fantastic Four, before being given his own comic. His movie debuted in February of 2018. There is a huge time gap between these two dates. This disparity could be caused by the fact that movies reach much larger demographics than comics and therefore could result in larger public outrage from conservative audiences, especially in the U.S., where racial tensions run high. Further, Hollywood has often been accused of being racist and of typically casting only white males for lead roles. Women actors are also not as well-paid, or cast into as many lead roles as their male counterparts. However, the emergence of the Black Panther (2018), as well as the upcoming promise of a first female-led superhero movie, Black Widow, means that the media has started to include more diverse characters, and I believe this change is to last. Black Panther was a huge cultural and commercial success, which means that people can no longer claim that movies with diverse casting are certain to flop.