Where is Black Love and Romance in comics

So our friends over at we got this covered published this article on the top 8 romances in comic book movies and I had to pause not to throw up for a minute. 
http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/8-best-couples-superhero-movies/
Granted, these are "love" stories from the movies and some ripped straight from the pages of the comics that inspired them, but it made me pause because the list was whiter than Maine in December.  All 8 couples from the movies were all white and not even a hint of love for people of color.

But this made me think even deeper and in the modern comic book universe in movies and on television, there is no real love interest for Black characters WITH another Black character. Storm and T'Challla had a storybook romance and wedding over 10 years ago now, but beyond that, finding a Black power couple in the world of comics and comic book movies is hard as fuck to find.  Lets break this shit down for you!

X Movies
Now we really only have Storm to go on here, right?  That's a problem in and of itself, but Storm has been in 5 X-Men movies( 4 for Halle Berry and 1 for Alexandra Shipp) and Storm cannot find any love? They teased a romance with Nightcrawler in X2( but he ain't Black) and she found swirl love with Wolverine in a cut scene from Days of Future Past but beyond that- nothing. Yet we are burdened with the Cyclops- Jean Grey- Wolverine love triangle, along with Iceman-Rogue- and Kitty Pryde throughout these movies. In comics, Storm has been unlucky in love, too.  Forge loved her, but took her powers and the marriage with T'Challa didn't exactly pan out but X movies have yet to focus on or create a credible Black, male character in comics beyond Bishop and Bishop appeared for all of 13 seconds in Days of Future Past.  And never, ever bring up to me Darwin from First Class. EVER!

DC Movies and Television
Modern DC movies have only 1 Black "hero" to appear in them and that is Deadshot, played by Will Smith.  In Suicide Squad, you see him with his daughter, who appears to be African-American, but we don't see head or tail of the mom.  Amanda Waller also makes an appearance but there is no apparent man in her life and technically she is not a superhero.

DC gets alot of props for its diversity on its television shows, but Black on Black romance and love is lacking.  There is plenty of swirling going around but love between Black characters is about  non existent.
Flash has Barry swirling with Iris and even the little tease Iris had with Tone Bell this year- you knew that shit was not gonna happen since they been teasing Barry and Iris season episode 1.

On Supergirl, James Olson was swirling with both and with Supergirl( Kara) and Lucy Lane.  Even John Diggle on Arrow is swirling with Sarah.

Marvel Movies and Television
If we examine the heroes in Marvel movies, we see four Black heroes in Nick Fury,  War Machine, Falcon, and most recently Black Panther. Fury is married to his job, I guess.  War Machine has no romantic interest and neither does Falcon.  Black Panther, as introduced in Civil War, was focused very much on his mission and seemed to not have anytime for romance.  Yet, we get a full on love story with Captain America and Agent Carter AND Peggy Carter over the course of these movies.  We get to see Tony Stark and Pepper Potts love story play out.  Hawkeye has a secret family tucked away with a wife and kids.  Thor has Jane Foster and Lady Sif he wanted.  Hell even Black Widow and the Hulk have a romance in Age of Ultron.  But the Black folks? Nah, Falcon and War Machine are too busy following orders from their white besties and getting paralyzed to have a romantic relationships. Hell, they can't even get their swirl on!

And on Netflix, between Jessica Jones and Daredevil, The Night Nurse, played by Rosario Dawson, is sort of swirling with Daredevil, and Luke Cage is swirling with Jessica Jones.  It seems in the upcoming  Luke Cage series, Luke may possibly get with Misty Knight, but they have rarely been a thing in the comics.  She has mostly swirled with Iron Fist.



So why is Black love and romance so taboo in comic related properties? Even currently, before he was killed, War Machine was with Carol Danvers( Swirl) Luke Cage is with Jessica Jones( swirl), Black Panther is married to being the King of Wakanda, and Storm is single as single can be up in that X-Mansion.  The only real Black romantic couple are Sam Wilson and Misty Knight and for how long will this last as most people ship for Iron Fist and Misty Knight.

This all comes down to lack of love interest/ options in both comics and movies for Black characters and the inability for white writers to see and write Black characters in love.  The fact that there are so few Black characters is only part of the problem.  The lack of representation in the writing room, leads white writers of books/movies/shows to put characters in relationships they feel comfortable with and wont offend their majority white audiences. Their inability to know/see/write Black characters in love and relationships leads to massive swirling on screen and in comics.  And there is nothing wrong with the swirl. My wife is Puerto Rican and my kids look more like Miles Morales than T'Challa, but the void of Black characters in romantic relationships is troubling at best and disturbing at worst.

I truly believe Hollywood fears Black people in love and in unity more than they fear Black rage and anger.  This lack of Black love on screen and the decolorization of Black women in particular is troubling and disheartening.  I pray that Black Panther has a Black love interest in his movie and she is not the one light skinned sista in Wakanda.  And for damn sure T'Challa best not be swirlin' or we gonna burn these theaters down!

The Producer

Comics Plessy V Ferguson

Can separate be Equal?

Not to go all Supreme Court rulings on this blog, but the landmark case of Plessy V Ferguson set up a rule of law that stated that it was okay to discriminate as long as the facilities were equal.  Now we all know that is impossible to pull off and one group is always going to get the short end of the stick.

But can comic book characters be separate and equal?

Diversity, most importantly the lack of diversity, has always been an issue in the field of entertainment.  TV shows and movies tend to continually cater to Whites and often times Black or other characters of color are pushed to the side kick role or that of the sassy Black friend, the super intelligent Asian, or the token gay/lesbian character on the show.  Its a racial trope trotted out for the past 40 plus years and its as tired as the think pieces written about it.

But if you dig into comics- especial here recently, there is a new phenomenon of traditionally white characters, who are now Black, or a person of color , or female and it got me to thinking' "Are these characters the equal to their white counter-parts or are they just place holders until the White character comes back to take their place?

This is not a totally new phenomenon.  Jon Stewart and James Rhodes have played Green Lantern and Iron Man respectively, even tho Rhodey was given The War Machine armor which essentially made him the Black Iron Man.  Stewart, who has been appointed as the guardian of sector 2814, but often times is looked at as the Black Green Lantern because there are no other Black Green Lanterns.

More recently, Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, has been serving as Captain America.  He is essentially still Falcon, but his stars and stripes costume and use of a shield has given him the title of Captain America.  But does anyone really view Falcon AS Captain America or is he Black Captain America?  Plus, with the reintroduction of Steve Rogers back into the Marvel Universe( current Hydra story not withstanding), does anyone think that Falcon will continue to be Captain America?

Even the Hulk is now the Totally Awesome Hulk, played by an Asian Character Amadeus Cho. And even tho he is still green, he is still looked at as the Asian Hulk and the clock is ticking as to when Bruce Banner will once again become the Hulk.

And as much as I love the character, Miles Morales AKA the Sensational Spider-Man is in the same boat.  If Marvel was committed to having Miles BE THE Spider-Man, then Peter Parker needs to go away.  Whether you kill him or depower him, he cannot be around.  This idea that Miles is the domestic Spider Man and Peter Parker is the International Spider-Man takes away from Miles and makes him the Black/Latino Spider-Man and that is unfortunate.

Hell even the current Ultimates book has been referred to as the Black Avengers because of course, the Avengers are still around. And Marvel doubled down by making A-Force( the female Avengers team).

Look some representation ( typically) is better than no representation and there needs to be a space for these characters.  My issue is why doesn't Marvel and DC support and help created new characters of color and push those characters to make them the equal to their white counterparts?  The comic universe is large enough to support and love these characters IF they are marketed and given stories that develop the character over time.

I am a fan of all the characters I talked about here.  I am also a huge fan of Kamala Khan as Captain Marvel, and America Chavez, as well. But the playing field is not even.  If the company is not going to allow the person of color to assume the role full time- not for a couple of years, then they are just place holders to tell a story.  To me, that's sad.  Many of these white characters have had these roles for 50 plus years.  Any and every possible story has been told with them. If you are not going to create new characters, then  why not let a new character hold the spot for the next 50 years? Explore their history and background.  Allow them to grow and develop without the white character looking over their shoulder ready to pounce and take back their spot as the "Real _____"   I love these characters, but they are most definitely separate but not equal and that is a huge disappointment for me.

The Producer

Stop trying to make Superman more human

When I was a kid and my dad would show me those serials Superman shows from the 50's on his old school film projector, I was always fascinated by the power of Superman.  You know, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive.... I always loved it when the bad guy would empty all the bullets out of his gun at and then throw the actual gun at Superman as if that was gonna hurt him.

Later, when the Superman movies came out in the 70's and 80's( we are only going to acknowledge the first 2), it was awesome to see his full powers on display with flight, x-ray vision, freeze breath, etc. And as much as I hate it, he even turned back time to save Lois at the end of Superman 1.

Yet after the last two movies failed, DC seemed to be over powerful Kal El.  It seemed to me they felt he was too powerful and people could not relate to him and when he does reappear on the small screen, the focus has shifted from Kal El to Clark in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Not that the show was terrible, but even tho we get Superman in the show, the focus was primarily on Clark( and Lois) and all the relationship and work foibles that occur between him being Superman.  DC doubles down on that a few years later when it debuts Smallville which totally focuses on Clark and Superman is an afterthought of the series which is alluded to more than seen.  Smallville focuses on his life as a teenager and all the teenage angst that is associated with being a teenager.  Now Smallville was a great show, I am not denying that, but it continued DC's focus on Clark over Kal El.

When we finally do get Superman back on the big screen with Superman Returns its an overly emotional Kal El whose powers are on full display, but he is burdened with all these real world problems- his girl got a baby and is engaged to some other dude and the parentage of said kid is in doubt.... They got Kal on some Maury Povich type shit!


Now even tho DC has been giving Superman a forum to shine as one of their biggest heroes, their handling of Superman recently borders on shameful.  Superman has generally always been a symbol of hope for the DC universe. He represents what we all can achieve and someone to believe in yet -DC has attempted to turn him into Batman with superpowers.  In Man of Steel,  they tinkered with his backstory, killed off Pa Kent, and had him kill off Zod... all of this was done to create this tortured, emotional version of Superman- who seems to have very little hope.  It's why he appears joyless in Batman V Superman  because he doesn't have anything to be happy about.  DC has created a cinema world where Superman is feared instead of loved by the populace.  Superman has become Charlie Brown in DCU with various people playing Lucy and pulling the ball away from him.  Its no wonder this Superman doesn't crack and go full Justice Lords and fulfill the destiny Luther predicted in JLU and begin his own brand of Justice in a world that already hates and fears him.

DC has become obsessed with attempting to give us more Clark than Superman.  Obsessed. Its why shows like Lois and Clark and Smallville get made, while Superman is regulated to cartoons.  They honestly feel people are more interested in Clark than Kal El and that's simply not true. Kids are not dressing up as Clark Kent at Halloween. The man inside the suit is not as interesting as the man wearing the suit.

This humanizing of Superman has its roots in those original Donner/Shuler Superman movies from the 70's and 80's.  The whole sub-plot of Superman 2 was Kal losing his powers so he could be with Lois. I think, since most people hold this movie as the best of all the Superman movies, they come back to this trope of what would happen if Clark was not or could not be Superman.  And honestly, I don't know or care.  The DCU needs Superman to be Superman- not some emotionally stunted person who cannot handle his true emotions- DC has Batman for that!

DC should be highlighting his powers and abilities, not downplaying them.  Kal El knows how powerful he is and keeps them in check himself, not because of some overly self important writer or director who feels Superman should be more like us.  Superman is NOT LIKE US! He is SUPERMAN! He is an alien, from another world/planet with SUPER human abilities.

I am not one of those, "Zack Snyder should drop out because..." people. He has his vision of Superman and we have seen it on full display for the past two movies.  That is fine, I guess.  But he and DC should not be surprised by all the negative clap back they are receiving from fans and from creators who are not enamored with this version of Kal El.  What I would like to see,  after his "death", Kal El comes back and is appreciated as the hero and savior he was sent to be on Earth. Sadly, I think we are going to get an angry, seeking revenge Kal El before we see his redemption. Maybe this is part of Snyder's long run plan for the character...Maybe. But until then, I am going to enjoy Superman in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited- those shows are the most accurate version of Superman anyway!

The Producer

Meet the Creators: Xmen 92

If you have been with @brothascomics for a while, you know we are huge fans of Xmen the animated series from the 90's.  Its one of our favorite shows and we live tweet it from time to time.
So when I was at the comic book store and saw Marvel was producing a book called Xmen 92 I was intrigued but I didn't pick it up! More than anything, I thought it would be hokey and I didn't want it to tread on my love of the animated series.

So when we got to South Carolina Comic Con and I saw the writers of the book were there, I stopped to talk to them and they were real funny dudes.  They are a writing team( Chris Sims and Chad Bowers) and they were so entertaining at their booth, I stopped by again to interview them and of course I bought the book.

The book is great! The artwork is outstanding and the dialogue is true to the characters in the comics, but also with a 90's nod to the tv show.  Now the book is not a rehash of the tv show.  Its more of the backdrop, along with Xmen comics from the 90's. The stories are all new and original!  Definitely check out the book if you get a chance.

As far as the writers go, their chemistry as a team is evident from the start.  Very funny and you can tell they are lifelong friends as well as writing partners.  Check out the interview below you can follow Chris on Twitter at his handle @theisb

The Producer