DC Africana Appreciation

[lemonpeace]

Wow. How many Starmen exist? I never knew there was a black Starman.

He's not really a "Starman" per say, he's an short-lived reboot of the Legion character Star boy. However, I do believe when they redid the character and made him white again that version took the name Starman after a bit.

[Anthony Shaw]

Haha yeah, the dead eyed death stare makes more sense in context

I see him walking my way....I'm crossing the street.

Very true but I think his first issue (the golden-aged thinking) informs his second (weak black characterization). Maybe it's a stretch, I'll admit, but Johns clearly writes from a place of high reverence for the old guard but that also creates a bit of emotional distance from certain characters he doesn't love because they weren't the focus for him growing up. This unfortunately usually means the black men who weren't always written the strongest back in the day. That's my theory at least. However, I do believe he is capable of doing them justice if he gave them the focus they deserve (Reggie was an intriguing character right up until he was revealed to be little more than a stooge for Ozymandias) but he hasn't done so effectively thus far.

The crazy part is that plenty black characters were written better during the time he grew up, particularly during the 1980's. John Stewart enjoyed great characterization Pre-Crisis. It was Post-Crisis that his life fell apart. It is very interesting that Geoff undid so much Post-Crisis history with his pet characters but literally kept all John's Post-Crisis baggage.

John Ostrander was writing compelling black characters in the 1980's. Paul Levitz wrote a competent Invisible Kid II during his Legion run (despite having a boring power-set).

Prior to Rebirth, Geoff went on social media claiming he purchased a slew of books featuring John Stewart as he would appear in the Darkseid War. The implication was that he would have some sort of relevant role in the story. In the end, Stewart appeared in a few panels with very little dialogue. It was the same John Stewart he always presented. I thought that was PFU.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

He's not really a "Starman" per say, he's an short-lived reboot of the Legion character Star boy. However, I do believe when they redid the character and made him white again that version took the name Starman after a bit.

Star-boy reminded me of the song by the Weekend.

that design is cool tho.

I want to celebrate Reggie (I love Reggie!
look at that face!) but considering how badly Johns squandered that character, I can't give Doomsday Clock or Johns any type of kudos until he comes back and does something of consequence. I will, however, add him to the list.

I like Reggie as well but i'm not sure he would contribute anything else in Doomsday clock. What would you have liked him to do?

[Vampire Savior]

Quite a few black comic book characters were written considerably better back in the 1980s, including John Stewart, Cyborg, James Rhodes, Bronze Tiger, Vixen, and probably some characters I'm forgetting.

I'm not entirely sure why people bother with DC's black characters. They're all very underdeveloped and often written quite lame, and are often lesser versions of white characters. This area isn't really a strong point for DC, and apparently, according to some, the poor state of the market doesn't allow for them to do any better. Personally speaking, if I'm looking particularly for a black character to get into, they're all quite beneath my standards these days. You can find much better elsewhere. Hell, turn on Nick JR., Dr. McStuffins and Nella the Princess Knight are way more developed (and better) than all of DC's black characters.

[skyvolt2000]

Johns has this peculiar ability to make black men very boring in a story.

What about Michael Holt? For a time Jakeem Thunder (when he was not cussing up a storm) in JSA.

[skyvolt2000]

The crazy part is that plenty black characters were written better during the time he grew up, particularly during the 1980's. John Stewart enjoyed great characterization Pre-Crisis. It was Post-Crisis that his life fell apart. It is very interesting that Geoff undid so much Post-Crisis history with his pet characters but literally kept all John's Post-Crisis baggage.

Every thing went down hill when Milestone showed up. Suddenly DC had a company that pretty much gave you all the black folks you wanted. So guess who didn't have to.

Steel & John Stewart had books when Milestone started. 1993-1997
Cyborg had a SHORT story in DC Showcase 93 before going through a pack of changes. Including sexual harassing Argent (TWICE) in Young Justice/Teen Titans crossover (Young Justice volume 3 trade).
Black Lightning's ill fated run took place in Milestone year 2.
Hotspot in Teen Titans came in year 3.
Xero came right after Milestone stopped doing books. Along with Orpheus in Bat family.
Vixen, Bumblebee & Mal were MIA for the most part.
Keith Roberts White was active in Superman books.
2000s came along.
Steel book was ending.
Mr Terrific & Jakeem in JSA with solo stories in JSA unlimited (the spinoff)
John SLOWLY getting used in Justice League
And that was it until Jason Rusch in 2006 with a solo. Michael Lane followed with Azrael in 2009.
Cyborg mini in 2009. Spectre run with the black guy.
Vixen, BL & Jason as Leaguers
Ill-fated Static in Teen Titans & Terror Titans
The messes known as New 52 & DC You & Rebirth gets us where we are now.

Solos-10 solos from 1992-2019. Only Jason & Cyborg headline a solo (duo) more than once during that time.
Minis-4

Marvel
1992-2019
Solos- 26 (this does not include BP WOW or Crew) (Luke, Miles, Falcon, Riri & Panther starred in more than one solo)
Minis -17
Rocket Racer had 4 back ups written by Tony Isabella that Marvel tossed in random Spider-Man books. They were INTERESTED in a RR solo.

[lemonpeace]

I see him walking my way....I'm crossing the street.

Haha understandable, he is a pretty dangerous man

The crazy part is that plenty black characters were written better during the time he grew up, particularly during the 1980's. John Stewart enjoyed great characterization Pre-Crisis. It was Post-Crisis that his life fell apart. It is very interesting that Geoff undid so much Post-Crisis history with his pet characters but literally kept all John's Post-Crisis baggage.

John Ostrander was writing compelling black characters in the 1980's. Paul Levitz wrote a competent Invisible Kid II during his Legion run (despite having a boring power-set).

Prior to Rebirth, Geoff went on social media claiming he purchased a slew of books featuring John Stewart as he would appear in the Darkseid War. The implication was that he would have some sort of relevant role in the story. In the end, Stewart appeared in a few panels with very little dialogue. It was the same John Stewart he always presented. I thought that was PFU.

It is weird because I believe I read someone on here say that Johns himself mentioned that growing up John Stewart was the more prominent Green Lantern when he was reading comics but he always related more to Hal Jordan. So it's not like there weren't any well established or well characterized (for their time) black characters for him to draw from, but I think he just always gravitated toward more Golden-Age/early Silver-Age "archetypal" heroes who tend to be white. Johns is a capable writer, I haven't read all of his work so maybe there are black heroes that he has done well (again, Reggie started off promising until he was revealed to just be Ozy's unwitting igor), but his best work comes from characters he feels he has a personal connection with and I just think maybe for Johns there aren't any black characters he has that with; which is a shame because he's a such a monumental creator.

Star-boy reminded me of the song by the Weekend.

that design is cool tho.



I like Reggie as well but i'm not sure he would contribute anything else in Doomsday clock. What would you have liked him to do?

I would like to believe Johns has something else for Reggie to contribute but I don't think he will either and (unfortunately like a surprising amount of characters of color at DC) will likely just be another case of wasted potential. Rorschach (Walter Korvacs) represented a particular ideology, he represented a twist right-wing idea of moral truth and absolution, and because of that he affected the story in significant ways. Reggie started out as an enigma, we see Rorschach and we expect a certain agency and we learn he's not the original so we wonder; how who is he? what does he represent? what will he do? how does he factor into all of this. So, as he went along we learn more about him and it feels like when the story gets going we will see what his journey was building toward but then it turns out everything we saw from him was just the machinations of Ozymandias and that erases any agency Reggie had; it diminishes what we expect of Rorschach. When that happens he just drops the mask and takes a nap for the rest of the series? there isn't a point, there isn't an ideology to unpack, and he didn't affect anything. Hell, even the package we thought he sent turned out to be from Lex Luthor, so what was the point of bring in Reggie as Rorschach? Is he supposed to be just a pale imitation or will he try to distinguish himself from the Walter iteration of Rorschach? Reggie is the only known survivor or the psychic-tachyon-alien creature who is relatively sane, active and operating, are there more side-effects to his mind from that? Rorschach broke his father, is he destined to be broken by "Rorschach" too? Why does Saturn Girl care so much about helping Reggie? What would it look like if Batman actually worked with Reggie to fix whats going on? How would he react to Superman? I would've liked to see him interacting with more of the heroes, unpack how the idealism of the DC universe clashes with the harsh reality of the Watchmen universe that the concept of Rorschach embodies, or maybe just simply have him team up with Batman to stop Ozymandias and Dr. Manhattan; actually affecting whats going on in Earth-0. I'm not saying they need to make him the star of the show or that we need Reggie to enter an anti-Dr. Manhattan avatar state and drop a tachyon spirit bomb on Manhattan, but anything would've been more interesting that "oh i lied to you so I could have a henchmen to help me carry out my scheme lol", ya know? The story ain't over, so maybe Johns has something else in store for Reggie by the finale so I'll hold off before fully succumbing to my disappointment but if that's all there was to Reggie I can't possibly give Johns any type of kudos for that character (even if I like him) and it knocks the story down a full point for me because he wasted our time, even dedicating a whole issue of an already excruciatingly slow-burning book to Reggie's origin, by having him be the driving vehicle of the first half of the story.

[Wakeneuron]

Every thing went down hill when Milestone showed up. Suddenly DC had a company that pretty much gave you all the black folks you wanted. So guess who didn't have to.

Steel & John Stewart had books when Milestone started. 1993-1997
Cyborg had a SHORT story in DC Showcase 93 before going through a pack of changes. Including sexual harassing Argent (TWICE) in Young Justice/Teen Titans crossover (Young Justice volume 3 trade).
Black Lightning's ill fated run took place in Milestone year 2.
Hotspot in Teen Titans came in year 3.
Xero came right after Milestone stopped doing books. Along with Orpheus in Bat family.
Vixen, Bumblebee & Mal were MIA for the most part.
Keith Roberts White was active in Superman books.
2000s came along.
Steel book was ending.
Mr Terrific & Jakeem in JSA with solo stories in JSA unlimited (the spinoff)
John SLOWLY getting used in Justice League
And that was it until Jason Rusch in 2006 with a solo. Michael Lane followed with Azrael in 2009.
Cyborg mini in 2009. Spectre run with the black guy.
Vixen, BL & Jason as Leaguers
Ill-fated Static in Teen Titans & Terror Titans
The messes known as New 52 & DC You & Rebirth gets us where we are now.

Solos-10 solos from 1992-2019. Only Jason & Cyborg headline a solo (duo) more than once during that time.
Minis-4

Marvel
1992-2019
Solos- 26 (this does not include BP WOW or Crew) (Luke, Miles, Falcon, Riri & Panther starred in more than one solo)
Minis -17
Rocket Racer had 4 back ups written by Tony Isabella that Marvel tossed in random Spider-Man books. They were INTERESTED in a RR solo.

I don't remember Cyborg sexually harassing Argent. What issue was that? Was it in Titans/Young Justice Graduation Day?

[Anthony Shaw]

What about Michael Holt? For a time Jakeem Thunder (when he was not cussing up a storm) in JSA.

Which makes his underwhelming usage of more well-known black characters.....side-eye inspiring.

IMO, Geoff was pretty good writing Black Panther & Falcon during his Avengers' run.

[lemonpeace]

Who are some writers who consistently write black characters well? They themselves don't have to be black.

[Anthony Shaw]

Every thing went down hill when Milestone showed up. Suddenly DC had a company that pretty much gave you all the black folks you wanted. So guess who didn't have to.

Steel & John Stewart had books when Milestone started. 1993-1997
Cyborg had a SHORT story in DC Showcase 93 before going through a pack of changes. Including sexual harassing Argent (TWICE) in Young Justice/Teen Titans crossover (Young Justice volume 3 trade).

I don't remember Cyborg sexually harassing Argent. What issue was that? Was it in Titans/Young Justice Graduation Day?

Does anyone have scans of Cyborg having a big breasteses moment?

[Anthony Shaw]

Who are some writers who consistently write black characters well? They themselves don't have to be black.

John Ostrander was great with black characters at DC & Marvel.

Luke Cage, written by Ostrander was way better than the Bendis version, imo.

[Anthony Shaw]

Haha understandable, he is a pretty dangerous man

You see folks all the time talking about how over the edge they are. But their eyes tell a very different story.

Reggie looks puny, but his dead eyes tells me stay away. It makes sense that Batman would ultimately take him straight to Arkham. But Geoff writes a pretty underwhelming Dark Knight.

It is weird because I believe I read someone on here say that Johns himself mentioned that growing up John Stewart was the more prominent Green Lantern when he was reading comics but he always related more to Hal Jordan. So it's not like there weren't any well established or well characterized (for their time) black characters for him to draw from, but I think he just always gravitated toward more Golden-Age/early Silver-Age "archetypal" heroes who tend to be white. Johns is a capable writer, I haven't read all of his work so maybe there are black heroes that he has done well (again, Reggie started off promising until he was revealed to just be Ozy's unwitting igor), but his best work comes from characters he feels he has a personal connection with and I just think maybe for Johns there aren't any black characters he has that with; which is a shame because he's a such a monumental creator.

Geoff perfectly, imo, captured Priest's Black Panther during his Avengers' run. Geoff clearly read BP comics written by Priest at that time. During the Priest BP run, T'Challa had a rivalry with Iron Man which Geoff brought over to Avengers. It boggles my mind that Geoff did not use the Steve Englehart version of John Stewart, or mimic the agency that DCUA John Stewart had.

Geoff has no excuses.

[HandofPrometheus]

John Ostrander was great with black characters at DC & Marvel.

Luke Cage, written by Ostrander was way better than the Bendis version, imo.

I will always praise Ostrander for giving me Vixen and Bronze Tiger. His Amanda Waller was also groundbreaking.

[Anthony Shaw]

I will always praise Ostrander for giving me Vixen and Bronze Tiger. His Amanda Waller was also groundbreaking.

He also wrote a few limited series starring Bishop back in the 1990's.