Why doesn’t DC have any successful minority superheroes?

[Futbol]

A very simple question that I think warrants a discussion. In terms of comics, why doesn’t DC have any long lasting minority superheroes capable of holding a title? Their competition makes it look easy and can boast having 3 superheroes with over 100+ issues to their name, with two more on the verge of crossing that milestone soon. They say numbers don’t lie... Well in DC’s case they reveal a hard truth!

1) Cassandra Cain~ 79
2) Blue Beetle~ 72
3) Jason Rusch~ 56
4) Steel~ 53
5) Jessica Cruz~ 46+
6) Simon Baz~ 46+
7) John Stewart~ 36
8) Black Lightning~ 36
9) Cyborg~ 33+
10) Ryan Choi~ 25

Just to make things a little better for DC, here’s the Milestone heroes:

Static~ 57
Icon~ 42
Xombi~ 28

PS: A character like Moon Girl is on the verge of surpassing Cyborg, Black Lightning, and John Stewart and already surpassed Ryan Choi. Damn!

[Thor2014]

When DC gives a minority character a 'push' they usually tend to feature them prominently in the Justice League book more often than not. During the 2000s Vixen was a mainstay of the league, Black Lightning had a solid run in the roster around the same time. That's why Cyborg was promoted to the League in the N52 and John even replaced Kyle as the League's lantern back in the day.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

DC has several minority characters who have the potential for greatness. I'm happy to finally see Black Lightning with a show, even if it is a CW show.

When DC gives a minority character a 'push' they usually tend to feature them prominently in the Justice League book more often than not. During the 2000s Vixen was a mainstay of the league, Black Lightning had a solid run in the roster around the same time.

Yeah, which is why Flashpoint had such a devastating effect on representation in the DCU. When you start from scratch, it also means erasing all the contributions that characters of color have made to the League. The JLA went from having this long, diverse list of past and present members to...just 6 white people and Victor, who didn't really fit in with the JLA and stays in the Watchtower all day.

[skyvolt2000]

A very simple question that I think warrants a discussion. In terms of comics, why doesn’t DC have any long lasting minority superheroes capable of holding a title? Their competition makes it look easy and can boast having 3 superheroes with over 100+ issues to their name, with two more on the verge of crossing that milestone soon. They say numbers don’t lie... Well in DC’s case they reveal a hard truth!

1) Cassandra Cain~ 79
2) Blue Beetle~ 72
3) Jason Rusch~ 56
4) Steel~ 53
5) Jessica Cruz~ 46+
6) Simon Baz~ 46+
7) John Stewart~ 36
8) Black Lightning~ 36
9) Cyborg~ 33+
10) Ryan Choi~ 25

Just to make things a little better for DC, here’s the Milestone heroes:

Static~ 57
Icon~ 42
Xombi~ 28

PS: A character like Moon Girl is on the verge of surpassing Cyborg, Black Lightning, and John Stewart and already surpassed Ryan Choi. Damn!

One company STANDS behind their guys even in the face of racist backlash mainly lead by those who never read the books.

One believes that they can do as little as they can and expect success.

For all those calls that DC does diversity better than Marvel-the SUPPORT was never there. Despite a book like New Superman was 100 TIMES better than America Chavez. Shade the Changling Girl is way better than America Chavez.

Moon Girl does well in trades as does Ms Marvel, Miles, Cho and for a time Sam Wilson as Cap America.

Also look at your roster.

Excluding Steel, Jaime, Jessica & Simon- SOMEBODY at DC had an issue with those guys-be it an editor or even the head of the company.

How does Cassandra Cain become pitch toxic after being the most successful minority female at BOTH companies with a solo? How does she at one point get edited out of books when you had MANY writers wanted to use her.

This is not a case of fans hating characters-it's a case of the folks in charge not wanting to be bothered.

We look at Black Panther and the push for him. That should have been John Stewart, Static, Vixen and heck even Cyborg.

Miles Morales has done more in 7 years than Cyborg since New 52.

[Carabas]

Does DC have many particularily long-lasting white male straight characters? Other than Bats and Supes.

[Thor2014]

Does DC have many particularily long-lasting white male straight characters? Other than Bats and Supes.

Not really and the most of the ones who do are members of the Bat-Family.

[El_Gato]

Does DC have many particularily long-lasting white male straight characters? Other than Bats and Supes.

Off the top of my head, Aquaman, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Wally West, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Nightwing, Tim Drake, Superboy and probably Kyle Rayner. Technically Swamp Thing too...

[ross61]

You give Marvel way too much credit. It’s really not successful efforts over there except for a few.

[Thor2014]

I think it's time for both Black Lightning and Vixen to have in-continuity books. Both characters have been strongly pushed since the 2000's, that push has led to both characters appearing on television. The Black Lightning show is getting all sorts of buzz and both characters have greater brand recognition than ever before.

[ayanestar]

Off the top of my head, Aquaman, Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Wally West, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Nightwing, Tim Drake, Superboy and probably Kyle Rayner. Technically Swamp Thing too...

Two out of these examples are part of the Batman franchise also I'm not sure if I would go so far to call Red Robin "long-lasting" except we are counting his Robin run. We should probably also define what we understand under "long-lasting" because if we only count the recent years I would only name Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Flash. I'm not counting Batman related titles.

Anyway Marvel might be putting out more titles with diversity but nothing I've read in recent years was any good especially America must have been the worst thing I've ever spend my money on and I used to love her in Young Avengers. I give them A+ for effort but the writing wasn't my cup of tea. I personally don't even care about long-lasting just give me good stories. The Midnighter solo and the Midnighter/Apollo mini series? One of my favorite DC books in recent years. The new Green Lanterns? Excellent. P.S. I would like a well written Blue Beetle book in the near future. No wonder it gets cancelled every time.

[El_Gato]

Two out of these examples are part of the Batman franchise also I'm not sure if I would go so far to call Red Robin "long-lasting" except we are counting his Robin run. We should probably also define what we understand under "long-lasting" because if we only count the recent years I would only name Superman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Flash. I'm not counting Batman related titles.

Anyway Marvel might be putting out more titles with diversity but nothing I've read in recent years was any good especially America must have been the worst thing I've ever spend my money on and I used to love her in Young Avengers. I give them A+ for effort but the writing wasn't my cup of tea. I personally don't even care about long-lasting just give me good stories. The Midnighter solo and the Midnighter/Apollo mini series? One of my favorite DC books in recent years. The new Green Lanterns? Excellent. P.S. I would like a well written Blue Beetle book in the near future. No wonder it gets cancelled every time.

I was merely going by the characters with over 100 solo issues, which was the criteria the OP specified. Of course I could be wrong since it was all off the top of my head. Anyway I second that "good Blue Beetle" book... Let's get him to 100+. Cass also deserves another book since her first book wasn't cancelled because of low sales but because TPTB didn't want multiple Bat female books.

To answer the OP, DC seems to have a problem with selling titles outside The Trinity and Flash. Heck the GL titles, Aquaman, and Green Arrow are currently struggling in the sales department.

[j9ac9k]

Doesn't Connor Hawke count? He lasted awhile I think...

[9th.]

Doesn't Connor Hawke count? He lasted awhile I think...

Poor Connor, I liked him

[wafle]

DC> Marvel in Diversity. DC does diversity waaaay better than Marvel. Marvel does U.S. based diversity, their diverse characters are always obsess with being a diverse character, that just does not ring true outside of the U.S. It's so bad in marvel than they make things like America Chavez... to this day the people who i'v seen hate it the most are Mexicans, and as one im glad, because it was cringy and embarrassing.

So in a way you could say Marvel does diversity for the most privileged, the people living in the richests country's in the world, while DC does when it feels natural. Ill take Maya Ducard any day over America Chavez, even if she barely appears anymore, in fact i rather Maya never appears than if she came along every so often to complain about how her skin color make her important and oppressed or something. And America it's not even the only one... recently marvel did the mini Falcon guy... why most every hispanic use the hated spanglish? because that's what the most priviledge hispanics do, speak spanglish and live in the richest country in the world, the rest of the Spanish speaking world hate's it.

So if you ask me, ill take DC over Marvel falseness every day, part of the big reason i stopped reading marvel is i just didn't recognize the universe anymore, my favorite heroes where gone and replaced, to this day, DC has yet to replace my bridge character Damian Wayne, though there is a tumblr campaing to make him brown because rich kids have nothing better to do, he is still the original, the moment they change that, im taking my brown behind out of DC comics, i like Damian as he is, i don't need people to be my same skin color to feel represented, that's a very first world nation thing.


As to why? i imagine $, market speaks, and though priviledge Americans have tons of money to control the market unlike other's, so gladly in the US the demographics haven't move that much to make the radical unrealistic change's marvel did that ruined their universe for me and for many other's who stopped buying (their sale's are pretty telling if you ask me.)

[Crazy Diamond]

DC> Marvel in Diversity. DC does diversity waaaay better than Marvel. Marvel does U.S. based diversity, their diverse characters are always obsess with being a diverse character, that just does not ring true outside of the U.S. It's so bad in marvel than they make things like America Chavez... to this day the people who i'v seen hate it the most are Mexicans, and as one im glad, because it was cringy and embarrassing.

So in a way you could say Marvel does diversity for the most privileged, the people living in the richests country's in the world, while DC does when it feels natural. Ill take Maya Ducard any day over America Chavez, even if she barely appears anymore, in fact i rather Maya never appears than if she came along every so often to complain about how her skin color make her important and oppressed or something. And America it's not even the only one... recently marvel did the mini Falcon guy... why most every hispanic use the hated spanglish? because that's what the most priviledge hispanics do, speak spanglish and live in the richest country in the world, the rest of the Spanish speaking world hate's it.

So if you ask me, ill take DC over Marvel falseness every day, part of the big reason i stopped reading marvel is i just didn't recognize the universe anymore, my favorite heroes where gone and replaced, to this day, DC has yet to replace my bridge character Damian Wayne, though there is a tumblr campaing to make him brown because rich kids have nothing better to do, he is still the original, the moment they change that, im taking my brown behind out of DC comics, i like Damian as he is, i don't need people to be my same skin color to feel represented, that's a very first world nation thing.


As to why? i imagine $, market speaks, and though priviledge Americans have tons of money to control the market unlike other's, so gladly in the US the demographics haven't move that much to make the radical unrealistic change's marvel did that ruined their universe for me and for many other's who stopped buying (their sale's are pretty telling if you ask me.)

DC does diversity by not promoting their characters past a certain level. Oh, they'll be allowed to show up on TV and movies (maybe), but in the comics they'll know their place beneath the "iconic" characters. Some are cool with that, others aren't. Marvel at least tried (to a point) to actually push said characters in events, leading in books, and stuff like that.

Compared to Image, Valiant, Dark Horse, self-published they're actually behind. Hence all the catchup both companies are doing.

I don't think you've seen much of the United States if you think that it's full of rich college students.