I can
only guess, but perhaps a black comics fan might feel about DC’s attempts to
treat black issues, in his most charitable moments, kind of the way a teenager
thinks of his parents’ attempts to be hip:
Lame, but we can only assume their intentions were good.
Amazing
Heroes #159 (February, 1989) featured a guest editorial, “Growing Up
Black Reading Comics,” by writer and artist Keith Brown. In his reminiscences he talks about buying
issues featuring the Black Panther, later called the Panther, after the radical
civil-rights group added unwelcome connotations to the original name.
And
then came Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. To Brown, Cage seemed not very heroic (since
when do heroes get paid to do the right thing?) — plus, he had the same
origin as every other black character Brown remembers: He was a street punk from the Hood.
Brown’s
favorite black character seemed to be the X-Men’s Storm. A big part of this is that she is an
interesting character, “with dignity and intelligence, femininity and
strength.” In other words, her race is
not made a big deal of either way — it is simply a facet of her total being.
(And
I have no idea if this is true of Storm today.)
Green Arrow #76, April, 1970
In
1992, DC reprinted a series of “Silver Age Classics.” One of them, the April 1970 issue of Green
Lantern (co-starring Green Arrow), contained the tale “No Evil Shall
Escape My Sight,” written by Denny O’Neil, with art by Neal Adams. In it, Green Lantern Hal Jordan is prodded by
his JLA partner Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) to bring his quest for justice out
of space and down to Earth. A famous
sequence features a black man asking Jordan, “I been readin’ about you ... how
you work for the BLUE SKINS ... and how on a planet someplace you helped out
the ORANGE SKINS ... And you done considerable for the PURPLE SKINS! Only there’s skins you never bothered with —
! ... The BLACK SKINS! I want to know ... How come?”
This
confrontation takes place on the roof of a rundown tenement-type of
building. The superheroes had become
involved when GL (Green Lantern) stopped a bunch of neighborhood residents from beating up on a rich fat white
guy. After being prodded by the more
with-it Green Arrow to investigate, GL finds out the fat white guy is a
slumlord looking to sell the rat-infested, falling-apart building out from
under its tenants to build a parking lot or something. Together, GA & GL get the goods on the
guy, and the mostly black residents get to keep their homes, which are better
than being turned out onto the street (though maybe not by much!).
To
investigate the dirty tycoon Slade, GL had neglected an assignment in outer
space given him by the Guardians, the galactic wise men, the “blue skins”
mentioned above. When they call him onto
the carpet, his friend GA takes the stage and accuses them of lofty-minded
complacency. “How dare you presume to
meddle in the affairs of humanity,” he demands, “when human beings are no more
that statistics to you and your crew! … Come off your perch! Touch … taste … laugh and cry! Learn where we’re at … and why!”
So,
our story ends with a member of the Guardians, disguised as an Earthman,
hitting the road in a beat-up pick-up truck with Hal Jordan (GA) and Ollie
Queen (GA). Just as Dennis Hopper and
Peter Fonda went in search of the real America in Easy Rider,
Ollie tells his two compadres, “There’s a fine country out there someplace!
Let’s go find it!”
Of
course, I tend to agree with the great philosopher Dorothy Gale, who said that
if you can’t find your heart’s desire in your own backyard, then you never
really lost it anyway. Were GL, GA, and
the Guardian looking for America, or running from themselves?
Superman’s Girl Friend
Lois Lane
#106, November, 1970
“I Am
Curious (Black)!” was written by Bob Kanigher and penciled by Werner Roth. It’s a strange mix of the embarrassing and
the genuinely thought-provoking. (Please
note that all comments about the characters and their behavior are made by me
and not the storytellers.)
Vapid,
flighty Lois Lane gets it into her
empty, trendy head “to get the inside story of Metropolis’ Little Africa!” In other words, she’s like the travelogue
movie producers who shot newsreels of those weird people from that Other Part
of the World. It’s only interesting to
learn about Little Africa, because it’s so different from her own (obviously
much better) way of life. Of course,
this is only my opinion, mind.
Anyway,
when she gets to Little Africa (could you figure out this is the “black part of
town”?), no one will talk to her. After
a page or two of this, she figures out that it’s because she is white. Even a blind lady on a park bench gets up and
leaves — “When she heard me speak — she knew I was white!” Lois muses.
Sounds
like prejudice runs both ways so far, eh, kiddies? Next, she runs upon a street corner, where a
nice-looking young fellow is haranguing a crowd. He points at Lois and shouts, “She’s young
and sweet and pretty! But never forget …
she’s whitey! She’ll let
us shine her shoes and sweep her floors! and baby-sit for her kids! But she doesn’t want to let our kids into
her lily-white schools!”
Soon
Lois asks for Superman’s help to get the real skinny (hardy-har-har) on Little
Africa. Using a Kryptonian machine
called the Plastimold, it performs a makeover, turning Lois black for 24 hours.
Then
Lois finds out her favorite taxi driver won’t pick her up, presumably because
of her new look, and she learns about the rats and the leaky roofs of Little
Africa. Dave Stevens, the same guy who
called her the enemy because she was Whitey, now comes on to her. Then he’s shot when he tries to stop some
(white) thugs from pushing drugs to some (black) kids. At the hospital, Lois is the only available
blood donor, and Stevens pulls through thanks to a transfusion from her to him.
After
the 24-hour transformation has ended, Lois visits Stevens in the hospital,
where he learns that she was the one who provided his transfusion. Then the guy who called her his enemy smiles,
and they hold hands. Fade out.
Another
interesting section of the story is where Lois confronts Superman with the
question, would he still love her if she were black. He responds with a logical observation, and …
well, see for yourself.
Sure,
in ways this might be a cop-out -- she changes back at a convenient time -- but
it’s no more a cop-out than any other story of the Silver Age -- you couldn’t
make permanent changes to the set-up. I
mean they couldn’t marry.
(See you next Monday with the rest of this ripped-from-the-comic-books- article.)
