You're listening to Comedy Central, good whisky. Welcome to see pe Time, the only show that's fuller culture. Today, we'll be discussing black superheroes, iconic characters like Falcon, war Machine, Cyborg, and the dude at Churches Chicken who puts onion rings in your bag of fries. That brother uses his powers for good. Black superheroes are not new. In fact, they've been squeezing into spandex for decades. They didn't as far back as nineteen thirty six, when cartoonist j Jackson created
Speed Jackson and the Chicago Defended newspaper. Speed Jackson was a former track star at Howard University who was an excellent fistfighter, which may not sound powerful compared to today's superhero with their laser eyes and sticky spider hands, but
you have to think about it. Like sports, today's best athletes are the pinnacle of human physicality, while the best athletes from the nineteen thirties were just the ones with the least polio times change, Jackson used his abilities to fight against fascists during the war and right the wrongs of a racist society, which is tough because superpowers don't help when you're fighting systemic racism. It doesn't matter if you have the strength of ten men if none of
those men can get a mortgage. In ninety seven, black superheroes made the leap from comic script to comic book with lion Man, a cat themed superhero who protected the world's largest uranium deposit in Africa's Gold coast. Although a cat may not have been the best animal to defend the valuable resource. Sure cats are fast and agile, but you're getting there doing one of those twenty two hours
that they're asleep, and that uranium is yours. Lion Man was created by Oran Evans, who intended his comic to counter the racial distortion seen in other comics, although if he was trying to avoid racial stereotypes, I think it's fair to say the results were mixed. Look at lion Man right there, shirtless with the loincloth and an arrow through his butt, and somehow that is still the least
problematic character on the cover. Despite how it looks today, line Man was still groundbreaking as an all black, ridden and illustrated comic, even if now the cover looks like Tucker Carson tried to draw Africa in the nineteen seventies, there was an explosion of black superheroes, characters like Black Lightning, Black Vulcan, and Black Goliath. Basically, if you were trying to create an African American hero in the seventies, you put the word black in front of whatever was lying
around you in the apartment. This week, Black Shender Liird battles it out against his arch nemesis, Black Candy Rapper. But the most popular of these superheroes was the newest member of the X Men, Storm, an African priestess who could control the weather to keep the rain from messing up her hat. Storm was a landmark character for both black and female representation in comics, and on top of that, she's definitely the best X Man. You know him, right,
Who's better than Storm? Row? What's her power? If I hold my boyfriend's hand too long, he'll die. Wolverine is indeed strong, except for when he has to go through t s. A professor X can read minds, but that means he also sees all the kinkis sex stuff. His enemies are thinking. Good luck defeating mcneto when you know how much he loves feet. But the nineteen nineties black
superheroes were making it to the big screen. Robert Townsend directed The Media Man, a film about a mild menute teacher who was hit by a radioactive media and got superpowers. And I'm gonna say it's bold to name yourself after the worst thing that's ever happened to you. My superhero name would be Sheila left him Man with the power to eat one whole can of tuna over the sink. You were right, Sheila, I can't do better. Marvel bet
on Black with the Blade franchise. Wesley Snipes starred as a vampire hunter to great box office success, and Blade was a powerful Mama Gemma. He managed to be that cool while wearing the same sunglasses as Guy Fieri. That's also why there's no vampires in flavor toown. Blade became a household name and the first major theatrical success for Marvel, setting off a wave of Marvel films to come in
the next two decades. Because Wesley Snipes proved that no one's powerful enough to defeat novel heroes except for the I R s. Please don't punch me, Westley snaps big fan now Black superheroes everywhere, even taking over the mantle of formerly white heroes. We have an African American Green Lantern, iron Man, Captain America and Spider Man. No black Bruce Wayne though that requires too much generational wealth. Well that's it for CP time. Remember before the what's that? It's
the CP signal. Someone needs a folksy man to come and tell him about black history. I'm on my way Florida to the see people, Bill. I need some gas money for the C people, Bill, Let's take letter I can't afford. What's the Daily Show? Weeknight Central on Comedy Central in stream fool episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast