Black Superheroes: Bishop

Can you guess which decade Bishop was created in?

Name: Lucas Bishop

 First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #282 (1991)

History: About 80 years in the future anti-mutant hysteria has advanced to the point that mutants are captured and forced to live in concentration camps. As a child Lucas Bishop grew in such a camp, being looked after by his adoptive grandmother as well a mysterious figure named LeBeau, also known as “the Witness” due to the fact he was the last person to see the legendary X-Men alive. Once mutants were emancipated Bishop eventually joined the Xavier's Security Enforcers, or the XSE, a sort of mutant police force. On a mission to apprehend the time traveling mutant criminal Trevor Fitzroy Bishop winds up stuck in present time alongside the legendary X-Men. Professor X offers him a place on the team and Lucas readily accepts. However Bishop recognize one of the team, newcomer Gambit, as a younger version of the Witness leading him to believe that the Cajun mutant survives the eventual death of the X-Men by being the traitor that destroys the team.

Years later it turned out that Professor X was the traitor. Because of course it would be.

Beta Says: When I was a kid during the 1990s I was a really into Bishop. In retrospect I think the sole reason I was such a fan was because he was, aside from Storm, the only black member of the X-Men. Looking back there aren’t a lot of X-Men that I thought looked like me when I was a kid so I was likely drawn to this big, heavily muscled, gun toting dude despite he not really having any of the traits I usually went for in characters back then. Regardless Bishop is a character that Marvel, at least at some point, seemed pretty invested in the guy. He’s had a few ongoing titles and miniseries, none of which paid off. There’s probably several reasons comic fans as a whole never really bought the whole “Bishop is Awesome” train that Marvel was selling, but I’d argue it’s just as well because the guy is pretty goddamn dull. Then Marvel turned him into a super villain. Because…reasons.

Also, can we acknowledge Bishop probably sported a Jheri curl for the first few years of his existence?

I think  we just found the reason for Bishop's dark future

More on the time traveling, gun wielding, baby killing Bishop after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Night Thrasher

Because "Black Thrasher" sounded too 1970s-ish

Name: Dwayne Michael Taylor

First Appearance: Thor #411 (1989)

History: Son of wealthy philanthropist and former soldier Daryl Taylor, Dwayne saw his parents gunned down at an early age (although he strangely does not recall all of the details). The event traumatized the boy and he swore that he would wage a war on all criminals. Supported by his legal guardian Andrew Cord and housekeeper Tai Dwayne trains for years in the art of fighting, mastering several forms of martial arts and hardening himself as a weapon becoming one the toughest hand-to-hand combatants in the world. Deciding he needed an even bigger advantage over the criminal underground he uses his keen intellect to design and build an advanced body armor with an assortment of gadgets. Along with his trademark twin Battle Staffs and…um…his high tech skateboard Dwayne becomes the pragmatic hero known as Night Thrasher. Not content with doing it on his own however Night Thrasher forms a team of young heroes, modeled after the Fantastic Four, to help him in his vendetta against evil and the press soon dub them The New Warriors. Dwayne now divides his time between super heroics and managing the Wayne Taylor Foundation.

Beta Says: As you can probably guess from the year of his first appearance Night Thrasher is an early product of the Dark Age of Comics. That would likely be obvious just by looking at him; on paper he’s a very unsubtle Batman rip-off that uses a goddamn skateboard as a weapon. The only way he could be a bigger embodiment of the 1990s would be if his name was Nyght Thrazer or Blood Thrasher or something like that. Credit where credit is due; I often complain about some of these black heroes being very stereotypical. You know, “from the ghetto”, “criminal past”, etc. But Night Thrasher is actually a rich boy which is a completely different circumstance than the majority of black heroes before him. Of course he has a serious anger problem which has some unfortunate implications but, you know, baby steps.

More on Night Thrasher after the jump.

Nerd Rage #14: The Dark Age of Comics

"I'M NOT GAY!!!"

This is blog entry #250 for Beta is Dead. Now I honestly don’t think that 250 is a milestone to throw a party over but I still decided to do something a little more personal and a little bigger than my usual entries. Over the years I’ve take a lot of pit shots at what is known as The Dark Age of Comic Books, or to more specific the 90s. This is also referred to as The Iron Age of Comic Books by people who remember this period a little more fondly than I do. Anyway I’ve decided that, if I’m going to crack the jokes, I should explain why I have a problem with this particular era of comics.

For more info on the other Ages of Comics click here.

We should probably start by talking about the era itself. The range of this period is heavily contested however most would agree it began in 1986. This as the year that two masterpieces came out: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Both were dark, gritty deconstruction of the classic (i.e. “campy”, “corny”) idea of what it is to be a superhero. They were also both really good, especially Watchmen which is a contender for the greatest superhero story ever told. This was also the year that DC Comic’s mega crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, another beloved classic, was released. The series rebooted the entire DC Universe, cut all ties to the Silver Age and Golden Age and, while not starting from scratch, was supposed to be a more modern interpretation of their world. This was really what this era was shooting for in the following years: a fond farewell to the days where comics were for kids and embrace a more mature, more complex and above all edgier style.

Yeah, that sounds good on paper.

The end of this era is probably the most debated of any other era in comic books. For one many, many people firmly believe that the Dark Age never ended and we’re still there today. However others believe that it ended between 1995 and 1996 as those years saw the debut of Astro City, which was a reconstruction of the good aspects of superhero comics from the Silver Age, and Kingdom Come, which was itself a deconstruction of the Dark Age and the antiheroes that populated it. 1996 was also the year of the Comic Book Crash, which we’ll talk about today. Still others point at 2000, the debut of Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Comics’ “Ultimate” line. Either way the idea is that by the late 90s the industry had gotten tired of the antiheroes and the dark and grittiness of the times and were moving back towards a more lighthearted vision of what it means to be a superhero. So now that we know the "when" we should look at the “why”.

Guns, tits, and pouches after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Spawn

Behold! The Amazing Spider-Man Spawn!

Name: Albert “Al” Simmons

First Appearance: Spawn #1 (1992)

History: Al Simmons had a life once. He was a top notch CIA assassin, working for a top secret division. After a while however Simmons began questioning his boss Jason Wynn after series of increasingly morally depraved assignments. Unable (Or unwilling) to indulge his underlying Wynn ordered Simmons’ death, which was carried out by his own partner Bruce Stinson (AKA Chapel). But death wasn’t the end for Al; due to his many evil deeds as an assassin his soul went to hell. There he meets the demon Malebolgia who offers him a sinister deal: become a Hellspawn and in exchange he’ll be allowed to return to Earth to see his wife one last time. Simmons agrees and is subsequently sent back. However upon his resurrection he is amnesic, his body is burned and disfigured, and worse of all its five years later and his wife has already moved on…marrying his best friend! However Spawn, as he is now known, possesses the Hellspawn powers. Emotionally devastated he becomes a violent antihero and soon becomes a crucial part of a conflict between Hell and Heaven

Beta Says: I am not what you’d call a Spawn fan. I’m more of a superhero comic enthusiasts and the darker route of this comic never really got my attention. In fact he’s probably the poster child for the violent 90s hero archetype I dislike (Though at least he makes sense for his world, unlike a certain claw wielding fellow). Plus the book gets pretty goddamn hard to follow after a while. But the title was one of the highest selling books of the day, reaching rare heights of popularity and ultimately putting Image comics on the map and making its creator Todd McFarlane one of the richest men in the industry. It also led to an critically acclaimed HBO cartoon (One of the few adult cartoons that wasn’t a comedy or porn) and a less than critically acclaimed live-action film, not to mention numerous video game appearances. With the high sales and the exposure Spawn reached a level of mainstream exposure that almost no other African American hero, especially a solo hero, could lay claim to. Though his notoriety has gone down in the last ten years or so (For the most part) he may be in fact be the most successful black character in American superhero comics.

More on Spawn after the jump.