Why does every Native American hero have to be, well, Native American-themed?
I guess what I'm getting at is why whenever someone wants to create a hero who is Native American, the hero will more than likely look like this
this
this
this
this
or this
? I have nothing against frills and feathers, but why can't a Native American be hit with weird radiation or develop the mutant gene and become Radion or The Masked Marvel?
this
this
this
this
or this
? I have nothing against frills and feathers, but why can't a Native American be hit with weird radiation or develop the mutant gene and become Radion or The Masked Marvel?Why can't a Native American be a culturally neutral superhero?
5 comments:
Oh, those pesky injuns!
THAT was the point I was trying to make about Marvel, Jon. All the black characters are 'black-themed' (Black Panther is an African King) or even worse, 'horrible-black-stereotype-themed' (Luke Cage is an ex-con).
The native american thing is even worse because it isn't just true in comics. It's difficult to find native american characters anywhere in any medium that don't adhere to some offensive and stereotypical mold. Why is it perfectly okay to have Super-Chief, whose power is to kick ass because of an ancient native american relic that causes his head to look like a damn buffalo? That would be like having an Asian character named Karate Kid whose only power was being really good at Asian martial arts... wait a sec...
Oh and to be clear, I wasn't saying DC doesn't play on black stereotypes in any of its characters (i.e. Black Manta is a militant angry black man, black lightning is, well, black lightning), but I was saying that there are at least instances where that's not the case (i.e. Mr. Terrific... he's just so damned Terrific). I feel like Marvel never goes that route...
-Mike
Synch from Generation X was a young black male who was (unexpectedly) well adjusted and just normal.
So of course he was blown up.
I get what you're saying. As soon as I read your post, I tried real hard to think of a character who wasn't inherently tied into his Blackness, and all I'm getting is Battlestar and Bishop, the only Black character to have almost every hairstyle EXCEPT braids.
I think it would be a real step forward if Marvel can come up with a ethnic character whose costumed identity wasn't automatically associated with his race.
that's why i liked wyatt wingfoot in FF. sure, he was down with the cultural heritage and all, and would wind up fighting giant living totem poles and shit like that, but ultimately he was just this guy, you know?
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