Black Pantheress?

Be on the lookout for the all-new, female, Black Panther. What happened to the other guy? I have no idea but this new version debuts in February and the story will be written by Reginald Hudlin who's done great work with the Black Panther in the past.  Is the world ready for a female Black Panther? Is this a gimmick? Want to know more? Take a gander at the interview. Maybe the original Black Panther wants to spend more time with his wife and let his sister take a spin in the tights. Time will tell and I'm looking forward to it. The Black Panther is the premier Black Superhero so expanding his portion of the Marvel Comics universe can only be a good thing.

Enter: Static

The picture says it all. Static makes his debut in the modern DC Comics Universe and he looks bad-ass! What's it all about? Check out the story here. He looks like a mixture of the old Milestone Comics version and the animated television Static Shock version. Either way, we'll see next month. I can't wait.

Bishop

Bishop (Lucas Bishop) is the first Black member of the X-Men after Storm which makes him the first Black male member of the X-Men. He joined the team after having traveled back more than 80 years from the then current X-Men's future. He had endured a great deal to become a hero, suffering mutant racism, and poverty. He was actually born in a mutant concentration camp and still wears the genetic brand of a big letter "M" covering half of his face. He proved to be a relatively popular X-Men character though he never achieved the status necessary to maintain his own comic book for more than a miniseries. He appeared in one of the X-Men animated series and even achieved the distinction of being the first Black comic book character on the cover of Wizard magazine.

Bishop's mutant power is the ability to absorb, store, and release many forms of energy. He has been known to use that energy to enhance his strength, endurance, and durability. He has a military background from his training in the future and is trained in multiple forms of combat both with and without weapons. His spotty knowledge of the future has also helped to him to save lives and conquer his opponents. He has always been rough around the edges but definitely a good soldier and field leader.

I'm was never a fan of his flowing, (not dread), locks and was happy to seem him finally sport a more clean look. While he could be seen as an angry Black man, his reasons for being angry seemed to be much more about him being a persecuted mutant than anything else. Bishop always had an agenda he didn't share with anyone else and through all his incarnations the fact that he was Black was always clear though he never really seemed to speak of it. Bishop is deep, conflicted, and complicated, which is a good thing and will likely serve him well as an ongoing character of Marvel Comics.

10 Black Superhero Movies

I'm not the only one with something to say about Black Superheroes. In fact I'm always interested when someone has something to say about the subject, especially when they've done a little research. On the subject of Black Superhero movies, Korey has compiled an interesting list. It's well thought out and funny so I thought I'd share it. Check out his vlog entry:

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The Real Static

There is probably no teenage Black superhero with more universal appeal than Static. He's got brains, versatile abilities, a big heart, and a major sense of duty. It's no wonder he was the only superhero from Milestone comics that made it to TV albeit in a different form. Unlike in the Static Shock animated TV series, the original Static had short hair, wore a Malcolm X hat as part of his uniform and it was his Mother he was left with; not his father. Static's abilities were electromagnetic in nature enabling him to mentally manipulate multiple forms of electricity and magnetism. He flew by levitating a manhole cover while standing on it.
While Static is an original character you could see traits in him that showed up in great heroes of the past. He had an intellect, wit, and sense of duty like Spider-Man. He was able to see the good in people and the overwhelmingly positive effect of his parents was not unlike that of Superman. Like Black Panther, he was a positive role model and exhibited much of the greatness that Black people can and do achieve in their real non-super lives. Look for him in the pages of DC Comics' Teen Titans as this character joins the mainstream comic universe and hopefully, once again, in his own comic.