Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog. I must say I am proud of myself to be still writing and submitting blogs to the internet on this site. I did not expect to continue doing blogs like this because of how much writing input and research that has to be put into it. I usually don't like writing essays or reports due to my interest in the subject matter. To me, my vocabulary is my weakness. According to some of my teachers, my grammar plays a key role in keeping my blogs reports here from being the best.
As I was saying, I don't like writing essays. Though, I have grew an interest for doing these blogs because of the different revenue it goes towards. Doing blogs gives me a chance to create and express myself threw my social media. It helps illustrate our views by the resources of features on the internet to show your examples.
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| Black Panther |
And now, the subject in hand. This week, I like to address or acknowledge and educate on a topic that's interesting to me. We do not see that often till now. It is becoming more known and recognized. The theme of the "Black Superhero". From comics to film, to the web, we see it threw all the media. It is about time and we are in need of a true if not more "Black Superhero".
It all started from the comic strip. Before there were heroes, they were just side characters or characters that were filler to extend the story of familiar comic characters. Mainly plot devices like being a bystander just to be kill or being a criminal to motivate the main hero for their capture. When "The
Black Panther first came out from the
Marvel Comics universe, most black people were rejoice. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee, he first appeared in a
Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966). He is the first black superhero
in mainstream American comics, debuting several years before such early Black Superheroes as Marvel's the
Falcon and
Luke Cage. The Black Panther's name actually predates the 1966 founding of the Black Panther Party. Some people believe it was the other way around, thinking Marvel came up with the name based on the democratic-like party. They were other black superheros, but they did not have that universal appeal, and I mean among black people. Black Heroes such as Jim Corrigan was an African-American police officer and an ally of Jimmy Olsen and Black Lightning. Nu'Bia was a Wonder Woman ally. Cal Durham
was Aquaman's ally,
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| Black Manta |
who was turned into Waterbreather by Black Manta.
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| Blade |
Thanks to "Black Panther", there are now more known Black superheroes like "
Blade" (
Eric Brooks), a superheroic vigilante vampire hunter in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer Marv Wolfman, his first appearance was in the horror comic The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973) as a supporting character.
He is portrayed by actor "Wesley Snipes" in the film series.
Bishop (
Lucas Bishop), a time traveler appearing in Marvel Comics, in particular the X-Men comics. Created by Jim Lee
, the character first appeared in
Uncanny X-Men #282. Speaking of "X-Men",
Storm is the reigning queen of Wakanda , a title held by marriage to King T'Challa, better known as the Black Panther himself. Storm is one of the most frequently used X-Men, having appeared in most of the comic books, all of the animated television series, nearly all of the video games, and the
live-action X-Men film series. Storm is portrayed by
Hally Berry in the first three films. And last, but not least,
Spawn. Created by writer/artist
Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in
Spawn #1 (May 1992).
Empire magazine's list Spawn one of The 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters and recently 36th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes. Spawn was made into a 1997 film
, also an
HBO animated series from 1997, and a series of action figures.
We have seen black Americans play super-heroic figures before on the screen. But how long did it took us to get there to be recognized and to be acknowledge on the same level as Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man? Pretty much to the end of the 19th century. The films they have portraying Black Superheroes so far don't even compared to these classics. During the 90's is where we had the opportunity to showcase our talents in this film genre.
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| Meteor Man |
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| BlankMan |
In 1993, It took filmmaker
Robert Townsend to make and release "
The Meteor Man". The first so-called black superhero film which really was a spoof take on the genre. Then the following year, we have "
Blankman" is a 1994 superhero spoof film starring
Damon Wayans and
David Alan Grier. These films were silly and disappointing spoof imitations of a superhero film. They did not make much money, but cost relatively cheap to make, around several million dollars. Somehow, it was enough for hollywood to take notice. Never mind that horrible super redundant film "Steel".
Steel is a 1997 American crapper hero film based on the DC Comics black superman character John Henry Irons, who first appeared in 1993 during the Reign of the Supermen storyline in the
Superman comic book titles. The film stars
Shaquille can't act O' Neal as Steel and Judd Nelson as some bad guy. Let us pretend this film never exists... Ahhh... Wikipedia... Darn you!!
Anyway, the first true black superhero film was "
Spawn". In the movie 1997 film Spawn, actor
Michael Jai White, in his first major film role, stars as Al Simmons, a government agent who, after he's incinerated by his corrupt boss Jason Wynn (
Martin Sheen), makes a pact with the Devil who renames him Spawn. The next year,
Blade is released. Blade is the 1998 vampire film starring
Wesley Snipes and
Stephen Dorff, loosely based on the Marvel Comics character Blade that was mention earlier.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n18_v92/ai_19804288/ Michael Jai White is first Black comic superhero
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| Michael J. White aka Spawn |
Spawn was a decent film, but did not portray the comics well. In fact, there was little controversy on the characters in the movie. Fanboys, take note,
Melinda Clarke as the assassin
Jessica Priest is a white woman where in the comic, Priest is a
black man.
D. B. Sweeney as Wanda's husband
Terry Fitzgerald,
Al's (Spawn) best friend is a white man when in the comics, he is also a
black man. For sometime now, there have been character alterations from comic to film media. Most fan-boys like myself don't like this because their changing character ethnic portrayal to please the market, but not the main core target audience who are fans of the source material. Just see Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent in 1989's Batman from director Tim Burton.
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| Wesley Snipes Blade |
Blade was a better film. Blade was the first successful comic book based films to be released after the disastrous performance of
Steel. Its success convinced Marvel to develop the
X-Men film series as well as the
Spider-Man film series. Blade is responsible for other film studios to follow Marvel to create live action comic book films in general.
We now will see black superheroes get the attention they deserve and thanks to the film media, they will branch out into other media. On Television, there was "M.a.n.t.i.s".
M.A.N.T.I.S. is a TV series that aired for one year on the FOX TV between August 1994 and March 1995. The original two-hour TV Movie pilot was produced by Sam Raimi. It stars actor Carl Lumbly. The show is unique for it depicts an African-American superhero
. On the Web, there was "Undercover Brother" by John Ridley, who created the original internet animation characters. It spoofs the blaxploitation
films of the 1970s. The film
Undercover Brother is a 2002 American comedy starring
Eddie Griffin and directed by Malcolm D Lee.
This particular genre within a genre is becoming well know, not just in comics, but in all media. Today, look him up and check out
Michael J. White of Spawn fame and see him in the recently release "
Mortal Kombat Legacy" live-action web series. Watch the promo fan pilot "
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth" which started the series. Also check out the following portrayals of Superhero characters of African descent in comics, books, movies, & TV on
Blacksuperheroes.blogspot.com. There are more out there if everyone browse the sites to everywhere in the social media which is Media Arts.
http://n4g.com/news/742938/spawns-michael-jai-white-brings-jax-to-life-in-mortal-kombat-legacy-digital-series
http://blacksuperheroes.blogspot.com/
P.S. An example of a black character getting kill off in a comic book movie. Check Michael J. White's scene in "
The Dark Knight".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk7R_6xqkKw&feature=related
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Spielberg to me is the filmmaker that establish movie going for the general public and help the movie industry along with George Lucas to be profitable. He made blockbuster films like "E.T., "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and his first hit "Jaws". He stated in his book "The Complete Spielberg", "...There's no rules. I don't believe there's a law of cinema. Movies are dreams...". This shows as he was notorious in going against and challenging the MPAA to changing the ratings on his films. The first two Indiana Jones and Gremlins films were if not made and associated with Spielberg, it would probably will get an R rating. He pretty much led the MPAA to create the PG-13 rating. This has help most blockbusters to become moneymakers today. He even has participated in executive producing in films like "The Goonies" to "Transformers. Dark of the Moon" that is currently playing in theaters now.
