Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at how Marvel's 70th Anniversary comics deal with race.Whatever else you might have thought about him Michael Jackson was one of us. If the story on the MTV Splash Page site last week is to be believed not only did he really once try to buy Marvel Comics but would also take his kids when he went to Golden Apple, his comic shop in Los Angeles. But I've got to confess, I wasn't exactly devastated upon learning he'd died; having a working central nervous system I loved the Jackson 5 growing up but couldn't connect with hour after hour of television coverage.
But the death of the man they're calling the Jackie Robinson of MTV is a good opportunity to write about race. In my lifetime I've seen race relations in this country improve radically, each generation becoming less race conscious than the one before. Of course one result of this is our hypersensitivity to racially charged images, hence the current dustup over Skids and Mudflap, the supposedly racist robots from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (I have no opinion on the subject seeing as how the reviews have beaten all desire to see the movie out of me). So maybe I'm just being overly sensitive but I've had some problems with Marvel's 70th Anniversary Specials, specifically on how they deal with race.
Avengers/Invaders #10
A time traveling Luke Cage meets Gabe Jones, the anachronistic black member of Sgt. Fury's Howling Commandoes and asks him "How is it for a brother to work along with these guys?" (when a more appropriate one would be "What's a black guy doing serving in a white unit before the US Armed Forces were integrated in 1948?"). Gabe doesn't understand why Luke asks, seeing as how he's treated like he's just one of the guys.
I know the anachronistic black guy is a war comic staple (Sgt. Rock's Easy Company had Jackie Johnson), a well intentioned trope established in the 60's which allowed writers to do stories about race from a contemporary perspective without acknowledging the elephant in the room--what the black guys was doing there in the first place.
I'm not suggesting it be retired for reasons of 'realism' but if this polite fiction is going to continue it should at least be seen in the context of the actual racial attitudes of the times (i.e. at the very least a black guy in a white WWII unit would come up in conversation). Me, I'd settle for a semi-sensible explanation of his presence; the simplest (and most believable) one would be to have Gabe just say "the Army screwed up my paperwork."
Human Torch 70th Anniversary Special
In a story set in 1939 Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, is hailed a hero after fighting a monster but is called one after going outside without wearing his human shell. After saving an airship he once again a hero then goes out with Elanor, a black woman he saved from the monster. I understand Jim probably wasn't programmed with the era's racist attitudes but I really don't think the writer comprehends just what the couple will face the first time they go out in public.
But the one that had the hardest job, rehabilitating Whitewash Jones, the most grotesque racial caricature in Timely Comics history this side of The Whizzer's sidekick Slow-Motion Jones (no relation), got it mostly right. Roger Stern turns Whitewash into Washington Carver Jones, a.k.a. "Wash" (for Wash Tubbs?) and for all Comic Book Guys who are like me "Tubby Tinkle" has happily become Hank Tinkelbaum. 'Happily' because while there have been innumerable fat kids in countless comic book kid gangs take it from me, none of them suffered the indignities that poor Tubby Tinkle had to.
The story establishes that the Young Allies comics were fictional and goes out of the way (understandably) to avoid showing any images of Whitewash (though one pops up in the header of a reprinted Young Allies text story). Wash seems to take Whitewash with good humor but the subtext suggests he's had too many real battles for racial equality to worry about cosmetic ones.
It's a solid comic and along with the strong lead feature there's some entertaining reprints (hey, a Terry Vance, Schoolboy Sleuth* story!) and a wonderful homage to Golden Age covers. They were always full of weird little details and if you look carefully you'll notice that the buzz saw the boys are tied to has been helpfully marked "Rommel's Asparagus Maker."
I enjoy reading the original Young Allies comics although they do contain some incredibly offensive imagery; I knew there had been a Golden Age Black Talon but had no idea the villain got his name by receiving a hand transplant from a African 'savage.' I suppose what I'm trying to say is while we have to keep things like these in context we can never excuse them; we have a responsibility to remember because the future is built on an understanding of the past and acknowledgement of our wrongs.
I hope the Platinum Studios' comic Cowboys & Aliens does get turned into a movie if only because it could rehabilitate the Western for kids by creating a fictional past where cowboys and indians could become friends while teaming up to fight aliens. An entire generation could play at being cowboys without fear of being accused of impersonating purveyors of genocidal terror. It's a wonderfully appealing fantasy, being able to rewrite an unpleasant past into something more palatable.
But I just don't see where that sort of intellectual dishonesty does anyone any good.
* Here's the pitch for my Terry Vance proposal. Terry Vance Meets the Marvel Zombies. Terry borrows the magical Clock of Ages from Tommy Tyme (another minor Timely character) and he and his monkey Dr. Watson are hurled into the age of Marvel Zombies where they are promptly eaten.
It's not so much a miniseries as a one-pager. That is the kind of material you're looking for, right?
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.