Originally Posted by
K. Jones
Yeah, this tracks as easy to determine for me. Marvel came around the Silver Age in 1960, and while it was probably a good 9 years away from the Civil Rights Movements in the late sixties, Stan and Jack and the rest were certainly going to head in that direction once it came, and their premiere characters where still only TEN YEARS OLD when more diverse characters, even at the slow start they did begin getting introduced, started to enter the picture (that said, Black Panther, early draft original form, debuted in what, 65? pretty early on). So while Marvel had a pretty whitey-white solid core of O.G. Early Sixties characters, it wasn't the deepest bench ever and allowed for plenty of new blood to come in and take up a big chunk of the dynamic once they did.
DC's characters launched in the 1940s. They were around and popular for THIRTY YEARS before the Civil Rights Movement really took off. That's a LOT of characters that became beloved and A-List sellers before anyone moved on social change. For the most part I'd say that, excusing any of the parlance of the times or context of the times, writers tended to be pretty progressive. But there's still just a Thirty-Year Bench of characters to use that people want to see before you even get to introducing any black, asian, latino or otherwise characters. A lot of their Golden Age characters are straight up grandfathered in - in particular Batman, Superman, so forth. And Silver Age revamps like Flash and GL are still white guys for another 10+ years until John Stewart comes into the picture, which of course, Denny O'Neil. When you look at who the big number generators still are for DC ... it's characters from 1960 and PRIOR. It's Batman, Joker, his A-List are all Golden Age excepting only Ivy, Harley and Bane, really. Flash's core comes from the 60s themselves, as does Superman's - Superman is a special case - several of his Golden Age stuff survives into A-List, but obviously Otto Binder's titanic contributions in the late 50s and early 60s are the real fulcrum on which Superman pivots. Green Lantern's stuff is all early 60s Fox. Justice League is Early 60s.
Now! That being said ... I think this is an issue that requires nuance. Because while it might be the exception and the 1 in 100 exception, DC did have Wonder Woman. And Golden Age Wonder Woman is effing advanced. Even now. Advanced enough that there's decades-long spans where basic ass writers don't know what to do with her. Her back-log and chronological contributions are also nuanced. Her make-up is as much a mix of Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age and Modern Ideas as anything. There's as much Golden Age Marston in Modern WW as there is Bronze Age Perez and startlingly LESS Silver Age. I'm entirely not sure what that says about the 50s and early 60s, but I could probably guess, since it tracks somewhat with women in the workplace in WWII 1940s shifting or getting told to shift back into the happy 1950s housewife bullshit motif until proper late 60s Feminism smashed back into Wonder Woman. (I'm curious to see if WandaVision tackles any of that, actually.)
But I ultimately think it comes down to that. Stiff competition with the grandfathered in 40s characters. Look, I'll read anything and love good characters, but it's hard not to say that there's not a prevailing interest in Batman and Superman compared to late-comers from the late-60s or early 70s like Bumblebee, Mal Duncan or Black Lightning. Ironically in multiple media and good modern comics, but also some cutting edge 60s and 70s comics, Black Manta of all characters proved to be energized and unique. He's obviously a horrible person but nowadays we have the fun dynamic of Aqualad to balance that good/evil thing out. But it's relevant that he's the first Black Super-Villain. And he's like ... a proper villain. Barely even sympathetic. Joker-level villain. He wasn't in the Sixties, though. Manta started masked and essentially faceless for his first several appearances, and the retcon that he's black (and vile enough to use his blackness to manipulate other black men into being henchmen) came in the 70s. Ultimately I feel like this original incarnation of the character has sort of shifted into something more ... well I want to say respectable, but I don't mean ethical. Black Manta is very, very mercenary and very pragmatic and ruthless. Efficient, cold and calculating. It has less to do with being some kind of racially motivated individual and more to do with him just being very, very competent. Which makes for a good nemesis to be sure. Somewhere in the universe a very, very, very White Hero has a black nemesis and it has absolutely zero to do with Aquaman being a blond-haired blue-eyed Irish-Merman and Manta being black. It's ... accidentally color-blind. Which feels progressive for the 70s, frankly, and I think we can respect and easily transition into being a more unique Modern Incarnation, which they seem to have done.
I went with black characters because they have launched earlier than other representative groups. I also think Marvel didn't fall into the Catch-22 of diversified Legacy Characters. They started unique IPs and didn't replace fan-favorites with newcomers until more recently when it's trendy and more of a cliche. Not that these characters always take off, and it's still tough competition when you've got like 10 Bat-Family books to compete with. Five less Bat-Family books could mean another Blue Beetle (admittedly, a Legacy) or another something. The ironic flip of course is that, contrary, you through Batman in the title because of the historical Outsiders ... and you've got a book that features a black man, a black kid, a japanese woman, a half-chinese girl, vaguely middle-eastern/asian Ra's al Ghul. Even back in the day when the Outsiders were a fair bit "whiter" you had Geo-Force repping Eastern Europeans at least. I mean mix it up a bit, yeah?
So yeah, long story short ... DC had a huge lead, a head-wind or grandfathered in Popular Characters before they got around to introducing minority characters so even their classics have a 30 year very pale set of heroes and villains to have to stand out from. Marvel's diversification came within the first decade of Marvel Comics, so while there were many heroes and villains, they had room to breath and grow and get popular. And then adding to that, actual financial sales, popularity, what people were buying, and a slight tradition bent toward their classic characters meant DC couldn't help but continue to focus on their classics. Because DC is a company, and profits keep artists and writers paid and companies operational. A mix between an Early-20th Century head-wind of IP with a strong capitalistic focus. Not totally strict, but definitely not loose enough for some of us more progressive fans.
And it's important to note that 1940s, or rather, Late 30s! characters, spawned from a different literary tradition. An admittedly flawed and rather Eurocentric one to be sure, but something like Batman is an evolution of Gothic Literature from the latter half of the 19th Century fused with the early-20th Century's fixation on outlaw/crime noir/vigilantism/detective fiction. It's spun out of Westerns as well (failed law systems and vigilante justice). It's about the Industrial Revolution, the FEAR of female empowerment (hence, the femme fatale archetype) and basically about what manly men do in a world where mannishness is no longer required just for survival. Batman is the offspring of your Wildes and Stokers and whoever elses of the day. It's Gothic, Romance, or Noir. Those aren't exclusively white concepts by any means, but that's where that guy and a lot of the other Golden Age vigilantes sprang from.
But don't run another Sidekick or Legacy when you can do something new. Or better ... grab ahold of vintage, classic DC minority character and go all out epic on it. Seriously ... MAL DUNCAN. Or CYBORG. I could pitch you a dozen ideas for each that would hold my attention more than the next WildStorm Revival bullshit campaign.