The
Marvel comic book character known as
Misty Knight was created in the mid 70's. You could think of her as Pam Grier, with a bionic right arm. She was originally a cop but lost her arm due to a bomb explosion. It was replaced by a cybernetic version from Stark Enterprises. No longer being able to be an officer of the law she often assisted Power Man (
Luke Cage) and
Iron Fist in their Heroes for Hire business. She fits right in with the Blaxploitation era complete with afro and attitude. Her abilities include markswoman, martial arts, detective skills, and the strength and power of her bionic arm. She became romantically involved with Iron Fist and has been, pretty much off and on, since the creation of her character. She has been a mercenary, private investigator, and bondswoman, and of course businesswoman, with her company Nightwing Restorations co-owned with her long time business partner and friend, Samurai,
Colleen Wing.
Most, Black Superheroines, especially those from the 60's or 70's era sport the Afro, Afro puffs, or Braids.
Misty Knight is no exception. She is every bit the stereotypical blacksploitation era kick-ass Black woman. It's easy to imagine that everything she's ever done in comic book could be played in live action by a young Pam Greer. She never made it to her own comic book but she has starred in plenty. She's more than once lead an all woman team as well as other teams consisting of heroes with and without powers. Some of those teams have had their own comic. There is even an
action figure of her out there somewhere. Her character has changed very little over the decades. She's still around, still relevant, and still showing up powerfully in the Marvel Universe. And why not? She's smart, foxy, a good leader, ready for action, and has a mean right hook. Her story has all the elements of a good movie or at least a TV show.
Growing up on comics and TV, most of all the Black Superheroes had the word "Black" in their name. There was Black Panther, Black Lightning, Black Vulcan, Black Goliath, and the original Black Power Ranger to name a few. They made sure you knew who the Black ones were. Then there were these other Superheroes that everybody knew were black but that fact wasn't played up so much, maybe because they weren't exactly human. Remember Panthro from the Thundercats? Yet another Black Panther. He was the technical one. His weapons were the Nunchucks and he never seemed to get angry, preferring to kick your butt politely. No one seemed to be in a hurry to upset him though.
My personal favorite is Hong Kong Phooey. He was voiced by the irreplaceble Scatman Crothers all those years ago and Hong Kong Phooey hasn't spoken another animated word since which is a damn shame. The character wasn't too bright but he always won in the end and the people worshiped him. Even getting run over by him was an honor.
Scatman also did the voice of one of the original Transforming Autobots, Jazz. He was among the first to die in the original Transformers animated movie. The character has since been redone over and over again but has always portrayed to be the essence of style and cool. Can you think of any others?
