DC Gets Onboard

This chapter looks at the relatively late entry of DC Comics onto the Blaxploitation and Kung Fu bandwagons, just as the fads were ending. In fact, DC was well behind the curve on introducing Black superheroes, Asian superheroes, or characters of color in general. This was partially due to many of DC’s editors and creators being of an older generation that was more staid and conservative (and out of touch with younger readers), resulting in editorial reluctance to deal with issues of race. When they did, it tended to conform to the “liberal myth of brotherhood,” calling for respectability in minorities. DC’s martial arts characters were either white, minority sidekicks, or seemed to minimize their Asianness. If Asians were presented as stereotypes, Black people were mostly invisible—until the introduction of Black Lightning, a character who embodied Duboisian double-consciousness, with a respectable secret identity and a radical, streetwise hero identity.