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.