The calendar on the wall says today marks the official beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which seems like as good a time as any to review the presence of Hispanic characters in comics. Though the Wikipedia page on Hispanic superheroes lists a whole lot of characters, the vast majority of them are either from small-press companies or are not currently appearing in any books. I’m not going to even try to address all of them, just because there are a ton of these characters who I know absolutely zip about, but let’s take a look at a few of the more prominent Hispanics in comics. (NOTE: No, this isn’t every Hispanic character ever — I tried to stick to characters who were currently being published.)

Bane – His real name is unknown, but his origin says he was born in and grew up in a brutal prison in a fictional Latin American country. He’s generally been portrayed as a supervillain — most prominently as the guy who broke Batman’s back — but he has occasionally operated as a superhero.

Bane is one of the characters in DC’s new “Secret Six” series.

Blue Beetle – Probably the most high-profile Hispanic character in comics right now — which is a bit depressing, because the “Blue Beetle” comic book has struggled with low sales numbers and always seems to be on the brink of cancellation. Jaime Reyes is an El Paso high school student who finds a discarded blue scarab which ends up fusing itself to his spine, allowing him to turn into an armored superhero with a vast array of weaponry. Most of his supporting cast is also Hispanic.

Jaime currently appears in “Blue Beetle” and “Teen Titans,” with some appearances in “Tiny Titans.”

The Darkness – Jackie Estacado is of mixed Spanish and Italian ancestry. He’s a Mafia assassin who winds up possessing a power called the Darkness which allows him to create almost anything, though his abilities only function in darkness. Technically, his powers are actually aligned with elemental evil forces, but he seems to end up working on the side of the good guys as often as not.

The Darkness appears in — duh! — “The Darkness” and the new “Broken Trinity” miniseries from Top Cow Productions.

Darwin – Armando Muñoz is a mutant in the Marvel Universe. He has mixed Spanish and African ancestry. His mutant power is “reactive evolution” — in other words, his body adapts to almost any situation or environment to allow him to evolve new powers. Turn out the lights, and he’ll be able to see in the dark. Dunk him underwater, and he’ll grow gills. Stick him in a burning building, and he’ll evolve fire-proof skin. Put him in a fistfight against the Hulk… and he’ll evolve the ability to teleport to a safe distance away.

Darwin is a regular character in the current incarnation of “X-Factor.”

El Diablo – Originally a Wild West hero, later an unpowered crimefighter in the ’80s, the current version is a criminal named Chato Santana who operates as a bit of a Robin Hood kind of guy. He’s a drug dealer, but he uses his money to benefit the less fortunate. That’s about all I know about the guy right now — his series is brand new, and I haven’t picked it up yet.

El Diablo appears in DC’s current miniseries called “El Diablo.”

Gangbuster – Jose Delgado got his start as part of Superman’s supporting cast, where he operated as an unpowered vigilante who targeted street gangs. Since then, he’s become a cyborg and has kinda-sorta retired. However, he’s been brought back around as one of the main characters in DC’s current weekly series “Trinity.”

Gangbuster currently appears in “Trinity.” Wait, I said that already, didn’t I?

Green Lantern – Specifically, Kyle Rayner. He discovered towards the end of his solo comic that his father was from Mexico. A graphic artist and cartoonist, he was given the last Green Lantern ring in the universe after Hal Jordan destroyed the Green Lantern Corps. After operating on his own for many years, he used a temporary boost in his powers to re-create the Guardians of the Galaxy, the planet Oa, and the Central Power Battery. I think he’s always been my favorite GL.

Kyle appears regularly in “Green Lantern Corps” and makes guest appearances in “Green Lantern” and other DC comics.

Hawkgirl – Both Hawkman and Hawkgirl reincarnate every time they die, but the current version of Hawkgirl, Kendra Saunders, is of mixed Hispanic descent. This is almost never referred to by anyone. Until recently, I thought she was 100% Caucasian. Though she wears a set of artificial wings, her power of flight is actually because of a belt she wears which is made of a substance called “Nth Metal.”

Hawkgirl appears in the “Justice League of America” comic.

Love and Rockets – Well, it’s not really one specific character, but this long-running independent series, created by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, features a large number of Hispanic characters, including Maggie, Penny Century, Luba, Ray, Speedy, Vivian, Izzy, and the population of the village of Palomar, as well as numerous other characters. The ongoing stories in this series are a combination of realism, punk rock fantasy, and magical realism, like in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels.

There is a current series of “Love and Rockets” on the shelves, but there are also extensive reprints and anthologies of the older series that you can buy.

The Question – Renee Montoya is a former Gotham City police detective who quit the force after she was outed as a lesbian. Knowing he was dying, the original Question, Vic Sage, took her under his wing and trained her to replace him. Operating as a vigilante, she wears a special mask that makes her appear faceless.

You can read Renee’s full origin as the Question in the “52” miniseries from a couple years ago, and she has appeared several times in the “Final Crisis” series and as a guest in other DC comics.

Rictor – Julio Esteban Richter is a former mutant able to generate seismic energy and shockwaves from his fingertips. After being depowered, along with most of Earth’s mutants, he has joined the “X-Factor Investigations” private detective agency.

Rictor appears in Marvel Comics’ “X-Factor.”

Zorro – The granddaddy of all Hispanic superheroes. Heck, he was one of the major inspirations for Batman, which definitely makes him one of the most influential characters in adventure fiction. He was created in 1919 by Johnson McCulley for a pulp magazine. While masquerading as an ineffective fop, Don Diego de la Vega donned cape, mask, hat, and sword to battle corrupt officials in Spanish colonial California.

Though he’s most associated with movies, TV, and prose fiction, there have been several incarnations of “Zorro” comics, including a recent series from Dynamite Entertainment.

So there’s what we got. It doesn’t look like that bad a list of characters — but I am consistently surprised that there aren’t more Hispanic characters in comics, especially with a rapidly-increasing population of Hispanic-American citizens. Is it just a matter of the comic book industry being dominated by Caucasians, both as creators and as readers? That is probably a big part of the problem, but the smart companies should start realizing that a more diverse selection of characters would be more appealing to a more diverse readership.

I’ve always thought reading comics about the Guild of Perpetually White Superheroes was dull as cheap vanilla ice cream — and having more minority characters in comics makes the stories more appealing, as well as making a fictional comic-book universe more realistic and interesting…

 

I read this comic for the first time not that long ago. It was originally published by SteelDragon Comics, and later by Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint, and it was created by Will Shetterly and Vince Stone. The series ran from the mid-80s to the early-90s. I’d read something about it elsewhere, in which someone assumed, not having read the comic, that it was a pro-Confederacy, pro-racism, pro-Treason-in-Defense-of-Slavery hack job.

It’s not a comic for kids. There’s sex, violence, and a number of very bad and very hurtful words. But I think I can report that it isn’t racist.

Background: The story is set in an alternate history where the South successfully won independence from the North in the Civil War. From there, the rest of North America balkanized into a number of different countries, including the Republic of Texas, Deseret, the Great Spirit Alliance, the People’s Republic of California, and the Louisiana Free State. And in the Confederate States of America, the prime motivator of the Civil War quickly becomes a moot point, as the slaves are freed all over the South. It doesn’t make the CSA a haven of racial harmony, though, as non-whites are second-class citizens. A lot of the bad guys use racist slurs — even some of the heroes use racist slurs.

Which brings us to our main characters — four actors, two white and two black, who are given a super-soldier serum so they can function as a combination of superheroes and propaganda figures for the government. The two white actors become Captain Confederacy and Miss Dixie, defenders of the South, while the two black actors become their opponents, designed to demonize black activists who wanted equal rights. But one of the actors decides to defect to the North, and the government, fearful that their fake superheroes are going to be exposed, brings the hammer down, forcing the actors to decide whether they want to keep pretending to be heroes or go out and become heroes for real…

Shetterly and Stone are reprinting the full comic series in blog form — frankly, their current format is a bit difficult to navigate from within their site, so here are links to the individual chapters.

• Pages 1-20
• Pages 21-40
• Pages 41-60
• Pages 61-80
• Pages 81-100
• Pages 101-120
• Pages 121-140
• Pages 141-157

Again, this is a comic for adults. If you can’t handle sex, violence, extremely bad language, or critiques of racial politics, DO NOT click on those links.

The comic uses a great deal of racist language. But I’ve never believed that racist language alone causes a work of fiction to be racist itself. As a writer, if you’re putting together a story about a deeply racist society, like the CSA in “Captain Confederacy,” if you leave that kind of language out, you make everything look sugar-coated and fake. And this comic, though it has characters who use racist language, comes across as an actively anti-racist book. The villains are people who are working to keep an entire class of people subjugated. The heroes are people who are working to change society for the better. They’re not trying to overthrow the Confederacy, but they are trying to turn it into a vastly less oppressive nation.

As for the story itself, I think of it more as alternate-history science fiction. Altered Civil War settings are one of the more popular styles of alternate-history sci-fi. But you can’t have a story like this without addressing racial issues — sure, they’re somewhat fictionalized, but you can’t live anywhere in the South — heck, anywhere in America — for long before you realize that, no matter how improved we are from decades or centuries past, we ain’t got anywhere near a truly free and racially-equal society. We still got people who think it’s okay to drop the N-word in casual conversation. We still got politicians who’ll kiss up to racist groups for the sake of politics. We still got hardcore racists all over the ‘Net. We still got schoolkids who think nooses are a joke.

There ain’t a comic book in the world that can change that (though comic creators have been trying since Lee and Kirby’s “X-Men #1” in 1963), but it doesn’t hurt at all for comics to try to change what they can.

Oh, the crazy things that go through my mind late at night when my brain is jacked up on Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper and Marshmallow Peeps…

You may have heard that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are going to continue their color-coded series at Marvel, following up “Spider-Man: Blue,” “Daredevil: Yellow,” and “Hulk: Gray” with the new “Captain America: White.”

 

Now, I’m sure it’ll be a really nice series, lots of great stuff about Cap during WWII, lots of beautiful art… but frankly, I just can’t seem to stop myself from re-naming it, every time I see the title, to “Captain America: Honkey.”

Yes, I know. Still can’t help it.

And I keep imagining a plot for it, too. It’s basically Cap standing around, saying stuff like, “Wow, I love country music. Aren’t sweater vests great? Who wants some Wonder Bread? I just don’t get Dave Chappelle.” And the Falcon and Luke Cage and Storm and the Black Panther show up every few minutes to yell, “Shut up, honkey!”

Other crazy comics ideas that run through my head when hopped up on candy and diet soda: Spider-Man should have a pet bear. It should be named Spider-Bear. Next year’s big comics crossovers should involve superheroes just sitting around and hugging pretty ponies and kitties and puppies. And Congorilla should totally be in the JLA.

It’s probably a good thing that I don’t write comics, ain’t it?

Here’s something for you comic historians out there: Jackie Ormes, the first African-American woman cartoonist.

Nancy Goldstein’s Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist is a scholarly yet highly readable account of Ormes’ life and work. Born Zelda Mavin Jackson to a well-to-do family in Pittsburgh, Ormes, in Torchy Brown comics and the single-panel Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, created stylish black female characters who scrutinized Cold War policies, advocated for civil rights, and poked fun at human foibles. Her drawings found a grateful audience in black-owned newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Courier.Author and doll collector Goldstein discovered Ormes’ story while researching the Patty-Jo doll Ormes designed. It was the first high-quality dark-skinned doll for girls, meant to replace stereotyped mammy dolls. A treasure-trove for any reader interested in African American history or American popular culture, Jackie Ormes includes more than 125 of Ormes’ cartoons and color comics, reproduced for the first time since their debut. Many are annotated with explanations of current events.

In 1948, little Patty-Jo urged, “How’s about gettin’ our rich Uncle Sam to put good public schools all over?” Her high-heeled big sister holds a pamphlet for the newly begun Negro College Fund. Way ahead of its time for showing how pollution unequally affects minorities, in 1954, Torchy in Heartbeats depicts a handsome black doctor who saves a black community from environmental poisoning masterminded by a bigoted industrialist. Naturally, Torchy, a nurse, falls in love with the doctor.

The book captures the sophisticated whirl of Ormes’ social life, with photos of Ormes rubbing elbows with Eartha Kitt and Duke Ellington. Her life wasn’t without tragedy: her only child, a little girl, died at age three, and the FBI investigated her. Yet her talent, supportive husband, and convictions assured her successes.

Ormes never seems to get much publicity, partly because she didn’t draw superhero comics, partly because, let’s face it, she got a double dose of marginalization because of her gender and her skin color. That’s starting to change, thanks in part to Goldstein’s book and the Ormes Society website. And here are some other good resources about Ormes’ life and artwork.

I’m a sucker for a good comic-strip stunt, so I’m good and jazzed about this — a bunch of comics by African-American and Hispanic cartoonists, all with the identical script, to draw attention to minority issues in comics:

But for one day — this Sunday — 11 cartoonists of color will be drawing essentially the same comic strip, using irony to literally illustrate that point. In each strip, the artists will portray a white reader grousing about a minority-drawn strip, complaining that it’s a “Boondocks” rip-off and blaming it on “tokenism.” “It’s the one-minority rule,” says Lalo Alcaraz (“La Cucaracha”). “We’ve got one black guy and we’ve got one Latino. There’s not room for anything else.”

Plans for the protest began with Cory Thomas, a Howard University grad whose strip, “Watch Your Head,” deals with college life at a predominantly African American university. Thomas, Trinidad-born and D.C.-bred, says he was frustrated by the number of times his strip was turned down by newspapers that didn’t feel the need to sign him up, because, well, they already had a black comic strip. Most editors, he says, only allow for one or two minority strips, viewing them all as interchangeable. Never mind that his strip is a world away in sensibility from the scathing sociopolitical musings of Darrin Bell’s “Candorville” or the family-focused fun of Stephen Bentley’s “Herb and Jamaal.”

So Thomas drew a strip addressing that, and then enlisted the help of Bell. From there, they got others to agree to participate: Bentley, Jerry Craft (“Mama’s Boyz”), Charlos Gary (“Cafe con Leche” and “Working It Out”), Steve Watkins (“Housebroken”), Keith Knight (“The K Chronicles”), Bill Murray (“The Golden Years”), Charles Boyce (“Compu-toon”) and editorial cartoonist Tim Jackson. Alcaraz, who says he found out too late to meet his deadline, will be chiming in on Feb. 11.

I think it’s a fair question. Sure, there are economic factors to consider — most newspapers have been shrinking their comics pages (and the comic strips themselves!) for decades, and they only have a limited amount of space on their pages for what seems to be an ever-growing number of cartoonists with new strips to offer.

But on the other hand, there are a lot of comics pages that look a lot like the one we have here in Lubbock — just about the only non-white face you’ll ever see is Lt. Flap in “Beetle Bailey.” For a country as large and diverse as we got, surely there’s gotta be some room for other kinds of characters, right?

Besides, anything that gets Keith Knight a little more publicity is a good thing, ya know?