Will Shetterly's Blog, page 53

More Asian and Native American public domain heroes: the Green Turtle, Fu Chang, Dr. Fung, Mantoka—plus villains!

The Green Turtle and Burma Boy Green Turtle: "A true mystery man, the Green Turtle aided the Chinese in guerrilla warfare against Japanese invaders. He wore a green cloak with an enormous turtle-shell design and had a sidekick, Burma Boy, a young beggar he'd rescued from execution by the Japanese army." Fu Chang Fu Chang: "Fu Chang was a Chinese American living in the Chinatown

Butterfly is the first black female superhero—but don't ignore Torchy Brown, Mummy Begum, Merciless, or Bubbles the Dew Dilly

The Golden Age of comics had a few superheroes of color, but none that I've found are black and female. The first female black superhero appears in Hell-Rider Magazine in 1971: Outfitted with a jetpack for flying and a costume laden with incredibly bright strobe lights to blind her enemies, Marian Michaels is a Las Vegas cabaret singer by night and the crime-fighting Butterfly by even later

Voodah: the first black jungle hero and another candidate for first black superhero

Voodah... ...was a jungle character featured in Crown Comics. In his first adventure, he saves his tribe, N’risi, and his girl, Jano, from an escaped prisoner named Blake and his albino monkey, Deem. If you think a jungle hero is a superhero, Voodah wins the title of first black superhero. He appeared a year before Lion-Man. You can read his first story here. The art is by the great

Cities should shovel sidewalks—some do

You might think drivers and pedestrians have equal rights to free travel, but in Minneapolis, the city shovels streets and leaves sidewalks to property-owners. The result is that sidewalks are often challenging for the able-bodied and impassible for people with wheelchairs or strollers. If the city took on the job, that would change—and the cost to taxpayers would be barely noticeable. As noted

A question identitarians don't ask: Why are poor white people poor?

Identitarians say poor women are poor because of sexism and poor people of color are poor because of racism, but they don't talk about why poor white people are poor.  Yet the number of white Americans who fail to benefit economically from white privilege is huge. In 2012, Robert Ross wrote in Poverty More than a Matter of Black and White: Collapsing poor and black as if all poor were black and

Class Trumps Race: Seven Examples (was When poor black and white people are treated the same— On the race reductionism of intersectionality)

I have just been accused of "science denialism" by someone who was denying statistical evidence, so I am not in a good mood. But I do not blame the guy for wearing the blinders he's been given. I wore similar ones for decades. Here are a few facts that you will not hear from people who prioritize race: 1. In the US, the racial statistics of poverty and police killings are identical because

On servants, sidekicks, and partners, or why I don't put Lothar, Kato, and Tonto among the first superheroes of color

Superheroes have three kinds of companions, and the difference matters, especially when the hero is white and male and the companion is not. The first is the servant, like Lothar and Kato when they first appeared. Servants may be very capable, but they rarely act on their own. They do what they're told. The relationship between a hero and his (or, rarely, her) servant may be friendly, but there

Forgotten Native American superheroes: the Bird Man and Buckskin

Golden Age comics tended to romanticize American Indians, which is why there were at least two Native superheroes in the 1940s. I'm sorry to say I understand why both were forgotten. The Bird Man should've been great. Bird Man @ PDSH describes him: The Bird Man, winged hunter of the plains and descendant of an ancient Native American god, was gifted with the ability to fly and the keenness

Forgotten Asian superheroes: Alani the South Sea Girl and Mei-Ling the Girl Commando

Technically, Alani the South Sea Girl and Mei-Ling the Girl Commando are both pulp heroes or action heroes rather than superheroes, but in the colloquial sense, they count: they wore distinctive clothing and fought for justice. If Tarzan and Blackhawk are superheroes, Alani and Mei-Ling are too. If you think I'm cheating by including a jungle hero and a paramilitary hero in this series, that's

The first black superhero: Lion-Man or the Black Phantom?

I side with the people who say Lion-Man, who appeared in 1947 in All-Negro Comics, is the first black superhero, but I see the problems with that claim. He didn't wear a mask and he didn't have superpowers. Still, he meets two of my requirements: he goes into action using a fantastical name instead of his legal one, and he was published in color. Lion-Man at Public Domain Super Heroes