Need Help Finding Characters to Discuss in Thesis

[reni344]

Hello,

Everyone my sister is a grad student who is doing a thesis on Character Representations within Comics and Comic book related media. However, she needs some help selecting characters to discuss in her thesis she has some ideas but I thought I would post here to see if there are some interesting choices that we missed. We are looking for the following types of characters to discuss in her thesis

African American Women

Native American Men and Women

Asian Men and Women

Latin American Men and Women

The longer the character has been around, the better she is covering history from the 40s to the present. Listing other media the character is in would also be a great help.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The earliest African-American character I can think of would be the horribly racist "Steamboat"

https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-467/

The earliest female African-American character I can think of is Mari McCabe AKA Vixen, who was introduced in the late 1970s.



As for Asian characters, there's two characters created in 1939--he Crimson Avenger's sidekick Wing from, and "Chop-Chop" from Blackhawks, whose development from disgusting racial stereotype to legit great character by the late 1980s would likely be very helpful to your sister.





You'll also see a similar evolution with Green Lantern's best friend/sidekick Tom Kalmaku, introduced in 1959. He was originally nick-named "Pieface" because he was Inuit and there was a popular ice cream desert at the time called "Eskimo Pie". Even though Tom was always a capable character, the use of the "Pieface" nickname shows the changing social awareness of the times. It was phased out in the 1970s, but continued to be referenced as something Green Lantern was sometimes ashamed of using in the '80s, to a ironic sign of affection in the '90s to an outright racial slur retroactively assigned to a completely different character by 2008.


In regards to Native-American characters, Super-Chief was introduced in 1959 and has seen various incarnations since then as both hero and villain.

As far as I know, Latino characters were pretty rare until the 1970s. I can't think of anyone prior to that. The most prominent would be Vibe, aka Cisco Ramon, and Rene Montaya, who started as a supporting character on the 1990s Batman cartoon before becoming The Question in 2007.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

This will give you a sense of where Vibe started off in the 1980s...

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Do you need DC only? Or Marvel too? If the latter, you should also make another thread in the Marvel forum. For DC only, though:

African American Women: Vixen, Bumblebee, Amanda Waller, Anissa and Jennifer Pierce (Black Lightning's daughters), Raquel Ervin aka Rocket (Icon's sidekick), Jet, Beth Chapel Dr. Midnight

Native American Characters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...an_superheroes

Asian Characters: well, obviously Dr. Light (Hoshi) would probably be the standout among the classic DC pantheon. There's also Grace Choi, the New Super-Man, Rose Wilson, etc.

Latino characters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...no_superheroes

[LordMikel]

Bane
Renee Montoya
Fire

and not DC, at least not right now, but Zorro.

[Assam]

OP, iirc, you're already aware of disabled Asian woman Cassandra Cain and are a fan, but in case you're not aware, as this may be a useful fact, she holds the distinction of having the most solo comics of any woman of color between both DC and Marvel.

[Restingvoice]

Well, if you're looking for development of racism and representation from the 40s to now, there's this guy

Detective_Comics_1.jpg

He was created as a villain in DC's very first issue, then never used him again for an obvious reason, but recently he reappeared in the New Super-Man of China, this time portrayed as an old villain that uses racial stereotype to fuel American hatred against China.

I will need help from New Super-Man fans on the issue number, by the way.

[Lightning Rider]

Have a look at this:

[Lightning Rider]

Yolanda Montez deserves a shout here

[j9ac9k]

Black Condor is interesting because he started out in the golden age as a white guy who gained the ability to fly when raised by condors after losing his parents in Mongolia. Since then there have been two other men, both Native American who went by the name.

[PyroTwilight]

Personally I think there's a whole dissertation out there on Male Asian characters. Mostly because of the glaring lack of major ones until rather recently.

Wing- Crimson Avenger's partner/sidekick was one of the earliest positively portrayed Asian heroes but was still drawn much like the caricatures that existed in comics during WW II like the Chin Lung others have mentioned already. It's almost surreal because of it. The caricatureness of it clearly being lost on the creators of the time.

Striker Z from the short lived Power Company book was another good step in the right direction but was despite the book running 18 issues one of the least focused on in the book.

Ryan Choi the Atom was probably DC's most positively regarded Male Asian superhero possibly even now.

And quite some time later we land on Kenan Kong aka the New Super-Man who's also really well rounded/written.

[Aahz]

Wing- Crimson Avenger's partner/sidekick was one of the earliest positively portrayed Asian heroes but was still drawn much like the caricatures that existed in comics during WW II like the Chin Lung others have mentioned already. It's almost surreal because of it. The caricatureness of it clearly being lost on the creators of the time.

The Problem with Crimson Avenger and Wing is, that they are basically rip offs of Green Hornet and Kato.

Btw. the Golden Age Vigilante had iirc also an Asian Side Kick.


Tsunami might also be an option for a female Asian Character.

[MoneySpider]

Hopefully I don't come across as "that guy", but Vixen is African, not African American. She was born in Africa.

[Güicho]

The longer the character has been around, the better she is covering history from the 40s to the present. Listing other media the character is in would also be a great help.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

Some history of Latino presence in the DCU


This is all probably mostly common knowledge for someone writing a thesis:
Still a few significant firsts, for Latinos and Latinas at DC

First Latino American character at DC was the Whip Don Fernando Suarez, in Flash Comics #1. (1940) Which DC incorrectly translated as El Castigo, which means the Punish(ment(er), they probably looked up "to whip"?
This character was only there to setup and pass the mantle to the actual character you would follow as the hero, an Anglo American character who would take up the name, and actually effect a fake(pretty offensive) Spanish accent.
Although it was later retconed that he was in fact Latino too.


DC also had a few versions of a character called El Diablo, a bit of a history here - http://community.comicbookresources....O-Appreciation




When Hanna-Barbera further developed Super Friends into 1980-82 season unlike DC at the time they wanted to better represent their audience, asked DC for a Latino (as well as Black, Native American and Asian) hero, DC had none*. As both the Whip and El Diablo hadn't been retconed as Latino yet.
So around 1980s Hanna-Barbera along with Black Vulcan, Apache Chief and Samurai, came up with their own: El Dorado - Somewhat Aztec visually themed hero/mystic , He could teleport, and cast illusions, and later fly.
These characters were a bit of a forced ham-fisted injection of ethnic stereotypes, and wore their ethnicity in their costumes, names, and accents, as it was unfortunately the most important thing about them.
And although they were prominently featured, and it was nice to see diversity characters stand shoulder to shoulder with the Justice League, they never had a history, development or any long term presence in the comics.
(*exception Black Vulcan who was a reworking of Black Lightning so DC didn't have to pay his creator(s) royalties)

The actual first significant Latino character at DC comics was Vibe, who joined the Justice League with a few other D list characters around 1984. This version of the Justice League was not well received, and Vibe was eventually killed at the end of the run.
He was for the most part a cliche of 80s hip-hop, boy band Menudo (don't know your age, but look up history of Ricky Martin) and latino gang member, also spoke with dialogue that was written out to sound like a caricature of Tony Montana Scar-Face, who was already a caricature of Latinos.
They would eventually reboot the character around 2012 for the New 52
And again re-imagine him for the Flash TV show, probably the most successful version. Although oddly that version has not crossed over into the comics.

1989 was a re-imagining of El Diablo (Rafael Sandoval) , was the first Latino with his own comic at DC.
Instead of the supernatural version, he was sort of a self-made vigilante of Dos Rios, Texas.
Series didn't last, it had little crossover with the rest of the DCU, and was probably to niche, and he never joined a popular team, so remained pretty obscure, and forgotten and never referenced by later creators. .

El Diablio was eventually re-imagined again, about 2011, with the return to the Supernatural version, as Chato Santana, an ex-criminal and gang member (yay again!) this time with a horrible Salvatrucha look, this version coincided and was used with the Suicide Squad movie, pretty much he was there to die, so the real heroes who still appear in the book, could live on.
No he is not on the suicide squad, and pretty much MIA.

Maybe the first significant Latina character at DC was Yolanda Montez Wildcat(not sure if you count Brazilian (Beatriz da Costa).
Wildcat first appearance in Infinity Inc. # 12 (March 1985) as taking up the Legacy of the original Wildcat.
Although she was first conceived, as similar character called "La Garro", which incorrectly used the masculine for Claw, she should have been La Garra.

Probably the first most significant and prominent Latina character at DC was Rene Montoya. She was created for Batman: The Animated Series. Although was introduced in comics first, 1992 Batman #475

Hope that's useful.
I'm sure others will fill out the more current history. Like the New Blue Beetle(Jaime Reyes) and new Green Lantern(Jessica Cruz)

-

Marvel's first Latino American hero was White Tiger Hector Ayala, he was spun out of the Sons of the Tiger in Marvels Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine, when they disbanded, he inherited the amulets.
The run was building up to the return of the original Sons, where he would now join them becoming four.
Unfortunately it ended before they got to that. He'd go on to make continued appearances in Spider-Man comic.

[Zudomon]

Blue Beetle's series from the mid 00's was a pretty good representation of a latino hero in El Paso, and there was even an issue that was mostly in Spanish!