WHITE LIBERALISM IN BLACK COMICS: METAPHORICAL MARGINALIZATION AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF AMERICA

Abstract

In the wake of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Marvel and DC Comics introduced black superheroes into their comic book series. While the comic book editors wanted to reach black audiences, they scrupulously avoided mentioning the Civil Rights Movement. To avoid the perceived controversy that accompanied movements for equal rights, they removed their new black characters from any connection to racial liberation movements. American literature has long constructed the black body as the opposite of white autonomy, authority, and power. Yet, the American superhero also embodies these same qualities. Rather than explore these contradictory identities in a black superhero, comic companies attempted to reconcile them. These reconciliation attempts reflected white fears about Black Power and led to the displacement of black superheroes from an American context through a complex construction of non-human characterizations. This study examines how white liberal comic book authors’ creation of black characters impacted racial hierarchy, exclusion, and vulnerability and how the inclusion of black identities in superhero comics reified the complex constructions of power and race in American culture. Textual and visual analysis of black comics from the 1960s and 1970s comprises a bulk of the research. Textual and visual analysis of the comics from the 60s and 70s shows not only how white authors imagined black identities following the Civil Rights Movement, but also how these writers thought white readers understood black identities. This methodology is bolstered by the inclusion of interviews with writers, artists, and editors, quantitative sales data, and fan feedback provided in each comics’ letters-to-the-editor column, which tell how the public reacted to these new heroes. Paradoxically, white writers’ displacement of black superheroes from a contemporary American context helped these comics to become popular in black communities. While the decision to remove African American superheroes from an American context was made to sanitize comics of potentially controversial political messages, the plot lines still involved the restructuring of identity for the black superhero—which mirrored the renegotiation of identity that was underway following the Civil Rights Movement.