Why Has DC Neglected The "Ethnic Super Friends"?

[Futbol]

By "Ethnic Super Friends", I mean the character's that were created for the Hanna Barbera show. Character's like Apache Chief, El Dorado and Samurai (Black Vulcan is basically Black Lightning) have potential and are well known outside of comics, so I don't know why DC has never integrated them into the DCU.

Sure, they got updates for JLU and YJ, but never for the comics! Why?

[ross61]

By "Ethnic Super Friends", I mean the character's that were created for the Hanna Barbera show. Character's like Apache Chief, El Dorado and Samurai (Black Vulcan is basically Black Lightning) have potential and are well known outside of comics, so I don't know why DC has never integrated them into the DCU.

Sure, they got updates for JLU and YJ, but never for the comics! Why?

Because they’re racist caricatures.

[El_Gato]

I enjoyed the recent Young Justice incarnations of the characters and would love to see them intergrated into the DCU. Long shadow (Apache Chief) and both the male (Toshio) and female (Asami) versions of Samurai/Wind Dragon from JLU/YJ could be incorporated as is, but I'd rather get the adult version of El Dorado, since we need more adult Hispanic superheroes.

I think El Dorado already exists in the DCU, since the El Diablo mini depicted him as leading Justicia (Mexican JL).

[Buried Alien]

Because they’re racist caricatures.

They could be reinvented to not be so, however. Check out how on the CW FLASH TV series how Vibe (Cisco Ramon), originally created in the 1980s as a racist stereotype of urban Latino youth culture, has been thoroughly reinvented as a much better character.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[ed2962]

I thought in the past it was a rights issue and they didn't want to pay to use them because they were cheesy anyway. I guess now they have access to those characters, but it would take some editor really wanting to use them and putting in the effort to revamping them.

[Kuwagaton]

The rights thing is why they used Vulcan instead of Lightning and why the JLU characters were so veiled iirc.

The fact that they kinda sucked, well... everyone on that show was goofy. I'd say you can at least reinvent Samurai and El Dorado, but you can also just invent new characters since you'd technically be doing that regardless.

[Dr. Poison]

I've never thought of Black Vulcan as a copy of Black Lightning. Black Vulcan could fly, turn into pure electrical energy, and travel in time. I like both Black Vulcan and Black Lightning and don't see why they can't co-exist. I'd love to see Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, El Dorado, Rima, and Samurai properly inducted into the Justice League.

[Jim Kelly]

Black Lightning could fly, turn into pure electrical energy, and travel in time.

Weren't those powers that developed later?

Apache Chief and Samurai sound like generic names. Imagine if they were Arizona Governor and Lieutenant, would that be anything special? I think they're just generic substitutes for actual DC characters with better codenames.

It seems to me that Apache Chief was a modern-day reinvention of Super Chief aka Flying Stag. But Flying Stag was Iroquois and lived in the 15th century. Samurai seems to borrow aspects from Sonny Sumo and Rising Sun.

I like the Rima based on GREEN MANSIONS, but that character belongs to the 19th century. I don't like to think that the modern Rima is the same person--maybe she's a jungle girl that carries on the legacy of Rima.

[Elmo]

They did some cool stuff with Samurai in later comics but that's all I can remember. I have no interest in seeing those characters again

[vitruvian]

Weren't those powers that developed later?

Dr. Poison got it backwards... at the time, Black Lightning was pretty street level, with no flight, transformation, or time travel. He was an Olympic athlete and great street fighter who could shoot or punch electricity and also use it for a low-level force field some of the time. Black Vulcan, invented for Super Friends for rights reasons, was the one who had the high level abilities, even though they made little sense with his name (which would have suggested flame or perhaps metal-based powers).

Apache Chief and Samurai sound like generic names. Imagine if they were Arizona Governor and Lieutenant, would that be anything special? I think they're just generic substitutes for actual DC characters with better codenames.

It seems to me that Apache Chief was a modern-day reinvention of Super Chief aka Flying Stag. But Flying Stag was Iroquois and lived in the 15th century. Samurai seems to borrow aspects from Sonny Sumo and Rising Sun.

I like the Rima based on GREEN MANSIONS, but that character belongs to the 19th century. I don't like to think that the modern Rima is the same person--maybe she's a jungle girl that carries on the legacy of Rima.

Apache Chief bears little to no resemblance to Super Chief; if you've ever seen the cartoon, his sole ability seemed to be growth. Same with Samurai; despite the name, he had fairly generic wind powers similar to those of Red Tornado.

Rima could easily be justified as being the same one from Green Mansions just by going with an alternate ending to the book and having her encounter the Fountain of Youth (either the one in Florida encountered by Rex and Detective Chimp, or another one in South America), thereby living since then and gaining a lot of experience. Heck, the talking to animals thing could be justified by her having already encountered the Fountain.

[j9ac9k]

I liked the JLU interpretation of them, but their origin as manufactured would make them a tough sell as comic book characters intended to have any longevity.

Also, they'd need a reason to exist other than being "the ethnic Superfriends."

[Zero Hunter]

I didn't like the JLU versions that much really. The YJ versions on the other hand were pretty damn cool. A group of teens getting powers after being experimented on by aliens is a classic hook. I ma hoping that with Static on the team in season 3 of Young Justice we get and episode of him and Beetle working with the others again.

The classic Superfriends versions really are just bad racial sterotypes though and should be left in the past.

[Dr. Poison]

Weren't those powers that developed later?

Apache Chief and Samurai sound like generic names. Imagine if they were Arizona Governor and Lieutenant, would that be anything special? I think they're just generic substitutes for actual DC characters with better codenames.

It seems to me that Apache Chief was a modern-day reinvention of Super Chief aka Flying Stag. But Flying Stag was Iroquois and lived in the 15th century. Samurai seems to borrow aspects from Sonny Sumo and Rising Sun.

I like the Rima based on GREEN MANSIONS, but that character belongs to the 19th century. I don't like to think that the modern Rima is the same person--maybe she's a jungle girl that carries on the legacy of Rima.

Sorry, I meant Black Vulcan.

[DragonsChi]

It be awesome if Longshadow from Young Justice got transported to the DCU. He was/is a great character with huge potential.

The way they used Astral Projection as a powerset was one of the best I have ever seen.

[SiegePerilous02]

Their names are stupid. Does Samurai do anything particularly Samurai-like besides being Japanese?

El Dorado can teleport apparently, but I don't see what that has to do with a legendary golden city/empire/king.

All my knowledge of them is based entirely on Seanbaby's Superfriends page. If his versions made it to the comics, I'd buy every issue.