Why haven't any of the Black Male X-men caught on other than Bishop?

[Perfection/Emma 2]

Sunspot isn't black.

His father might be African or native American but his mum is European ancestry.

Sunspot is mostly viewed as black but let me say this as a biracial. Not every black person agrees with the One Drop Rule. While many would view Sunspot as black there are people who see him as otherwise

[Big Joe]

On the main topic, I want to say "they didn't try hard enough" and "they didn't dare enough", I guess. Bravest story choice they made with a black character recently was making Bishop a genocidal ******* more than a decade ago. For characters to really catch on they have to be consistently used, and for them to be consistently used they need to have a compelling backstory and interesting personal traits. Main issue is that we don't live in a golden age for comics anymore, so it's not like Marvel is getting a bunch of new readers every week. So, if they try to push black characters and realize it doesn't sell as much as they'd like, they'll probably put them back in the background. It's complicated. I wish they pushed more black male characters, but I don't see anyone outside of an eventual Al Ewing doing it.

I wonder if some of this is to do with the age we're now living in. I was a teenager in 1975 (I know, ancient) and remember being completely blown away by the All New All Different team, but that wasn't because of diversity, it was because it was bloody well written (and drawn). I found it interesting at the time how those characters grew over the first few years (remember it was bi monthly for quite a while too), they weren't overused they became popular naturally. There wasn't consistent overuse, a character like Wolverine was just gradually expanded on by being very sympathetically written over a decent period of time. Would anyone have been trying to make him become his own sub genre? I certainly don't think so, it was just that he was well written by a really good writer.

There is no reason other character can't be written like that, however, are modern comics fans prepared to put up with the wait for a character to naturally make the steps from relative obscurity to super stardom? It seems to me the need for a push on characters is not quite right, there's a need for them to be written properly and expanded on naturally. But in my view pushing them too hard can result in a break, and helps nether the character or his/her fans.

[jpmst17]

sunspot is one of my faves. he was getting a push in the avengers and with the new mutants movie but fizzled out after no surrender. hopefully he can join cyclops' squad

[chamber-music]

I like Sunspot, Synch, Bedlam, Prodigy and Anarchist.

It has been mentioned many times before that Sunspot rarely gets drawn to look biracial anymore.

Prodigy needs his powers back.

Terry Crews played Jesse Bedlam in Deadpool 2 although Crews looks more like his villainous older brother Christoper (King Bedlam) physically.

[jalsrix]

There are many black people here, since in countries like Brazil slavery ended less than 150 years ago, therefore the slave trade lasted far too long. There was also the mixing between escaped slaves and native tribes and, naturally, white people. Sunspot is black because he's the son of a black man who may or may not be descendant of african people + native people. My dad comes from a native american family, but some people see him as black since his skin is pretty dark, same for my baby sister. For a lot of people in my country "black" is just someone with dark skin, not necessarily someone who "looks african" or whatever. Of course, I'm talking about my personal experience and the POV of people from my country, it might be different in places like Argentina or Uruguay since, y'know, South America isn't just an homogenous lump of earth where everyone shares the same cultural views, no matter what north-americans might think of us. You'll get different answers depending on who and where you ask about the definition of someone "black" here.

Thanks for this very good answer. So the African slaves were also imported in South America and not North America.

So 'black' doesn't necessarily mean 'African descent' in South America.

How do south Americans call the pure native tribes? I haven't been to South America so please forgive my ignorance.

[nandes]

I think there's way too many major issues for us to be talking about individual things like powersets and characters designs. Let's just take a look at the main line-ups in the last two big X-relaunches:

X-Men Gold: rehash of the Claremont line-up post-DPS. No characters created after the 80's.
X-Men Blue: the original X-Men + two Wolverine and Storm stand-ins
X-Men Red: oh hey! an actual original line-up with diverse characters from various decades.
Weapon X: Wolverine-adjacent characters + Warpath and Domino. No characters created after the 90's.
Uncanny X-Men: seems new at first but essentially we have the main players from the 90's Blue/Gold line-ups (with Laura as a Wolverine stand-in) + Polaris and Northstar thrown for some background page action. Only characters created after the 90's are the X-kids.
X-Force: rehash of the original X-Force line-up (minus Sunspot for whatever reason).

Add to this recent nostalgia wave the fact that there wasn't enough black representation in X-Men for readers to be "nostalgic" of, the lack of black creators working for the X-franchise, the way characters created after the 90's are seen as easily disposable, the lack of a clear forward vision for the franchise instead of simply catering to nostalgia... you could go on and on.

[Triniking1234]

Thanks for this very good answer. So the African slaves were also imported in South America and not North America.

So 'black' doesn't necessarily mean 'African descent' in South America.

How do south Americans call the pure native tribes? I haven't been to South America so please forgive my ignorance.

Yeah. We don't go around calling everyone with dark skin "black". Trinidad has East Indians, Latin Americans and First People with dark skin. "Black" is reserved people with African genetics.

[PrezValentine]

Thanks for this very good answer. So the African slaves were also imported in South America and not North America.

You're welcome And yes, african people were enslaved here, too. Besides lasting longer than in the north, I'm fairly sure they brought more africans here than in the north.

So 'black' doesn't necessarily mean 'African descent' in South America.

It's a point of discussion here, so yep, the concept isn't that established for some people. There are those who follow the idea that only descendants from africans may be called black, others go for a different definition, with stuff like skin tone and facial traits coming to mind.

How do south Americans call the pure native tribes? I haven't been to South America so please forgive my ignorance.

"Indians" or "indigenous" is the generic term inherited from the colonizers. There are obviously specific names for the remaining tribes. I'm kind of ashamed that I don't know the names of the tribes my maternal grandpa and paternal grandma come from, since they likely don't remember. Most of them live close to Amazonia.

[maxi_miceli]

There are many black people here, since in countries like Brazil slavery ended less than 150 years ago, therefore the slave trade lasted far too long. There was also the mixing between escaped slaves and native tribes and, naturally, white people. Sunspot is black because he's the son of a black man who may or may not be descendant of african people + native people. My dad comes from a native american family, but some people see him as black since his skin is pretty dark, same for my baby sister. For a lot of people in my country "black" is just someone with dark skin, not necessarily someone who "looks african" or whatever. Of course, I'm talking about my personal experience and the POV of people from my country, it might be different in places like Argentina or Uruguay since, y'know, South America isn't just an homogenous lump of earth where everyone shares the same cultural views, no matter what north-americans might think of us. You'll get different answers depending on who and where you ask about the definition of someone "black" here.

I can confirm it's similar in Argentina, black here just means that your skin is black, I had a friend in HS who's nickname was "black" who was of greek descent, funny enough now that we are having African inmigration for the first time most people call them "africans" not "black", what most people mostly consider "black" is what in the US is called "latino"

On the main topic I really wish they would push Sunspot more, he deserves to be on the main team

[Captain Nash]

I honestly think that part of the problem is Storm. I hate to say this because she is one of my favorite characters, but because she is SO high profile, writers may feel like they are showing diversity just by using her, and having one other somewhat high profile black mutant with Bishop. They feel their "quota", either imagined or mandated, is filled because her importance, history and presence fills it. News to them, just because of all that, does not mean it makes up for the lack of other black mutants, and specifically to this topic black male mutants especially.

It's why Sunfire, a C lister at best at this point, is the male asian representation, Psylocke (aside from the beginning and very recently) and Jubilee, in their minds, made up the "Asian representation".

I should clarify that I don't agree with that stance nor is it possibly even intentional, but I think it's what happening unintentionally.

[thechronic92]

Thanks for this very good answer. So the African slaves were also imported in South America and not North America.

South America and the Carribean had more slaves than North America.

[Snoop Dogg]

I honestly think that part of the problem is Storm. I hate to say this because she is one of my favorite characters, but because she is SO high profile, writers may feel like they are showing diversity just by using her, and having one other somewhat high profile black mutant with Bishop. They feel their "quota", either imagined or mandated, is filled because her importance, history and presence fills it. News to them, just because of all that, does not mean it makes up for the lack of other black mutants, and specifically to this topic black male mutants especially.

It's why Sunfire, a C lister at best at this point, is the male asian representation, Psylocke (aside from the beginning and very recently) and Jubilee, in their minds, made up the "Asian representation".

I should clarify that I don't agree with that stance nor is it possibly even intentional, but I think it's what happening unintentionally.

Bingo.

10char

[Big Joe]

I should clarify that I don't agree with that stance nor is it possibly even intentional, but I think it's what happening unintentionally.

Sadly I think you're probably right. It is a sad state of affairs, and makes me think the writers and editors are more than a little lazy.

[Silver Fang]

Well, now that it's been established Sunspot is black. lol

Honestly, there's not much push because the X-Office is stuck in certain eras. I can't say they're stuck in the 90's, because some characters were great in the 90's and still suck now. lol Going back to the 90's would be a blessing for some characters, but characterization is the one thing writers & editorial aren't willing to correct. They just reset costume & retell the same stories with worse-written versions of the characters. lol

Bishop was the biggest-name black male the franchise had. Even being a bigger character in the cartoon. Meanwhile, Storm is the biggest female name. So really, those two are used as the token black characters to fill the quota. And Bishop is only recently coming back from the brink of character assassination to fuel & be the villain of a white character's story. Sad as it may be, white is still the default setting for main characters. The black characters exist for token representation and / or comedy relief in some case. The fact Sunspot & Monet have been turned white over the years shows the bias with Marvel. Hell Darwin is a black character, but because his power is to adapt for survival, so he turns into a white man on occasion!!!

[mogwen]

Remembers me of a discussion in Busiek and Perez's Avengers, where Duane Freeman, the liaison government agent assigned to the Avengers ask them if they unconsciously select for their white members first. It's a good run about the peception of heroes and the power of opinion.