Originally Posted by
Mike_Murdock
I recently visited Los Angles where I came across their Italian-American History museum. It's not great, but it's free. They had a little tribute to Italian-American comic book artists. The list was John Buscema, Frank Giacoia, Carmine Infantino, John Romita Sr., Dick Giordano, Joe Orlando, Bob Montana, and Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio. Montana is an Archie guy and I've never heard of the last guy, but the list is significantly a list of second-wave Marvel guys. One would have hoped there would have been more influence there.
Frank Castle is the one that immediately comes to mind as a clear choice, but he really is the only one that comes to mind. A lot of early Marvel tended to go for WASPy characters and, when it doubt, went with Irish. I wonder if that has to do with the background of people like Stan Lee, who just encountered the Irish more growing up. The one that stands out is Dino Manelli from the Howling Commandos. There was a clear deliberate effort to include as many ethnic groups as possible in that book and Manelli was a clear Frank Sinatra-inspired character who was one of the more fun ones (dashing Hollywood star who spoke English, Italian, and German, he was one of the more useful characters). But they also had Izzy Cohen as a prominent Jewish member and Gabe Jones as a prominent black member. Manelli was just one of the bunch. Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine from Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD would be probably the most prominent Italian character for decades, so I'll mention her as well.