The Legacy of Afro-Latinx & Latinx Superheroes

In the world of comics, there are status quos to fulfill. A set of expectations meant to honor the Golden and Silver Age of the 1940s-80s where heroes inspire patriotism and traditionalism through original storytelling unparalleled with any medium at the time. Characters like Captain America acted as a projection of aspiration as he rallied in American values and cultivated compelling imagery of the United States reigning victorious over the Nazi’s during WWII. Or characters like Spider-Man who represented the “every-man” in becoming the first teenage superhero to instill the ideology that “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Regardless of what side of the spectrum comic book characters symbolized, many publications fostered narratives that seemed attainable, no matter how super, and strongly aligned with the ideology of ability through overcoming.

However, it’s worth questioning how the status quo fits into the modern age of comics considering that the quota was, and still is, constructed on whiteness and privilege. It’s a quota that may benefit the predominantly white landscape of superheroes in both DC and Marvel, but when it comes to Black and Latinx characters—their stories are limited as they’re continuously measured against a world built to exclude their narratives unless they become a legacy hero.

A “legacy hero” are stories where a new character is handed the mantle of another well-known hero, often with a household name and set of abilities that the new character is meant to re-establish. Black and Latinx characters usually adopt these mantles as they’re usually seen as diverse and progressive in a way that the OG isn’t, and it is with their intersectionality that they attempt to fill the void of their often white predecessor. Both the likes of DC and Marvel have employed legacy heroes to attract new readerships who may see themselves represented in a light never seen in mainstream continuities. Having new blood reprise the roles of iconic Golden and Silver Age heroes ushers in new stories to be told under these established legacies, but it’s also received some pushback from readers who question the authenticity of these representations.

Because despite many Black and Brown characters forging their own paths, they are still expected to fulfill or supersede the mantle to meet a predominantly white quota and white brand.

The discourse surrounding legacy heroes isn’t new as it’s easy to spot when a character's narrative isn’t their own because it forgoes their identity. Frederick Luis Aldama mentions this phenomenon in Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics stating,

“Good writing along with dynamic visuals can convey Latino superheroes who build their intelligence and strength through experience and work, and not as genetically preordained beings. In this way, the willful geometrizing of the story and storyfying of the geometry can and do work together to make compelling Latinx superheroes.”

What may be progressive in one context can still be a “one step forward, three steps back” when the narrative isn’t constructed for them specifically, but rather forced upon them. Legacy heroes and accurate representation are mutually exclusive from another when their diversity becomes more like a selling point and not something to cement their foothold in popular culture. That doesn’t detract from the value legacy heroes hold but it does pull into question—is this the only narrative we rely on?

Because when done irresponsibly, Black, Latinx, and Afro-Latinx legacy heroes are limited to only fulfilling the mantle and negotiating how their presence is valid within someone else’s costume. It’s pertinent to navigate around the limitations legacy heroes prompt with purposeful writing and storytelling that centralizes the authentic representation of Latinx characters, not the homogenized imitation of white predecessors.

The Historical Representations of Black and Latinx Heroes

In its formative development between 1938-1956, the icons within the Golden Age of comics were solely white—beginning with Superman, Batman, then Captain America. We wouldn’t get a Black superhero until ten years after the era with the creation of Marvel’s Black Panther in 1966.

Black and Brown characters before Black Panther were subsequently emblematic sites of villainy or comedic relief, punctuated by racist stereotypes and xenophobic fears of immigration. In analyzing all 78 issues of Captain America during the Golden Age from 1940-1954, historians only found two Black characters: a butler named Mose and a hero called Whitewash who was jealous of Captain America’s success.

“There were literally no non-white heroic figures during this period”, Whitewash, while fulfilling the role of comic relief through racist caricature, is also the first African American hero in superhero comics.”—Richard C. Hall, comicstorian

Because the mainstream publications of comics, DC and Marvel, were strict to uphold white hegemony and supremacy that appealed to mainly Baby Boomers, other independent comics and entertainment arose. Latinadad media, for example, was saturated with the “everyman hero” beginning with Don Diego De La Vega—known as, “Zorro.” Zorro debuted in 1919 and would be serialized into his own solo series after “The Curse of the Capistrano '' novel written by a white, American writer, Johnston McCulley. The influences of Zorro are conflicting because while the hero on television was based on the United States’ colonization of Mexico, it took a lot of white-washing to get to that point. Zorro, was based on the legend of Joaquin Murrieta, a notorious outlaw born in Sonara, Mexico fighting against Californian Rangers on land that had once belonged to Mexico now belonged to the United States during the Gold Rush era. Murrieta’s tale showcased the racialized violence and settler colonialism inflicted by Anglo Americans in California who put a price on his head and when caught, was decapitated and paraded around the state as trophy symbolizing the sought after dream of Manifest Destiny.

Murrieta’s heroism and legacy would be shorthanded for white audiences to feel comfortable and familiar with not a Brown, Mexican vigilante fighting for justice but a white, Spanish aristocrat fighting against Mexican bandits to preserve Old Spanish California. Moving Zorro to a different time period would communicate that Latinx heroes and characters needed to be in close proximity with whiteness to be considered successful. By changing the time period and whitewashing his character, there would only be room for Latinx bodies to exist if they supplemented the white, Anglo-American ideals. For Zorro, this would produce the “Latin Lover” trope that would open doors for white actors like Jacob Krantz, stage name Ricardo Cortez, to play up this trope in every role. In Stephen Joseph Carl Andes’ Zorro's Shadow: How a Mexican Legend Became America's First Superhero, this Latin Lover mystique Zorro established would create a particular racialized look of “dark eyes and dark complexion.’

Even though Zorro’s whitewashing problematicized the epistemology of Latinx bodies, the series did open doors for more Latinx heroes to come on-screen. In the similar vein that white heroes during the Golden age represented ultra-patriotism, Latinx heroes also embodied the racialized and nationalistic experiences from panel to scree. This was the case with El Santo, also known as Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, who was the most famous and influential Mexican luchadore, actor, and folk hero. On June 28, 1942, luchadore and soon notorious actor/entertainer El Santo became a pinnacle Mexican folk hero both in the ring and in cinema–starring in over 52 films.

The plots cultivated for El Santo transformed the landscape for Latinx heroes. One, because he was known for not taking off his mask ever adding to the heroic persona, and two, because his stories suspended realism while also displaying Mexican-pride. His stories were abound with taking down corrupt businessmen taking money from other luchadores to, confusingly, fighting Frankenstein. These variations in plot and storytelling reflected that of the Golden Age Era in comics happening in the United States, but with more agency and less racialized stereotypes.

Although, what ushers in the emergence of Latinx heroes in mainstream US comics wouldn’t have happened without the creation of Black Panther.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Black Panther would be the catalyst for many Black and Brown superheroes to rise in their respective mainstream publications. However, his creation wouldn’t be without controversy because a little less than three month’s after his debut—the Black Panther Party was founded in October 1966. In an interview with The Ringer, writer Roy Thomas revealed that Marvel’s attempt to change Black Panther’s name to “Black Leopard” was partly due to fears of inadvertently associating with the political organization. These fears spoke to the comic industry’s natural lean towards neutrality, an ideology that would limit the potential narratives of Black and Brown characters. According to Jeffrey A. Brown in Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans, a large part of the reason why Black superheroes were limited to racial caricatures was “rooted in racist fears of black men as already hypermasculine—as too physical, violent, and threatening.”

While Black Panther did open doors for more Black and Brown characters to shine in their own light, much of it had to do with recognizing that their stories were now profitable especially with the shift in politics, mainly due to the impact of the Civil Rights Movement. With this newfound monetary opportunity, Black Panther became the archetype for all Black and Brown heroes, inlcuding the creation of the first Latinx superhero— “White Tiger.”

White Tiger, a clear moniker of Black Panther, was created in 1988 debuting nearly 10 years after Black Panther. Although White Tiger has a completely different origin story, Marvel clearly saw the success Black Panther brought and decided to capitalize further off of it. This push-and-pull between Black and Latinx superheroes in comics would echo an intersection present in the cultural sphere via appropriation. In Jillian Hernandez’s Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment, aesthetics and cultural innovations associated with Blackness are often co-opted in Latinx communities due to shared experiences of being racialized for their cultural “excess” which gets further problematicized when assessing the anti-Blackness and colorism in Latinx communities.

“I find that the styles of working-class Black and Latina women and girls generate cultural and material capital when appropriated in art and media, while drawing mockery and censure in everyday contexts. Aesthetics of excess are targeted for regulation when embodied by women and girls of color because they signify forms of class, gender, sexual, and racial difference that agitate normative discourses of respectability and social mobility,” Hernandez says.

White Tiger does flourish into its own, especially with co-creator George Perez sharing similar lived experiences with the character being Puerto Rican and his time attending a PWI. With the emergence of White Tiger, it does prompt the creation of more Latinx heroes. Primarily debuting as legacy heroes.

The Discourse with Legacy Heroes

Legacy heroes complicate the discourse around what well-rounded representation looks like. Reviving a character under a long-established line of another’s cape or cowl can be refreshing seeing new blood and new stories but narratively, legacy heroes can fall short. Since 2011, the modern era of comics has employed an influx of legacy heroes in place of heroes who are much more looked upon as the elders of the Marvel and DC Universes. Legacy heroes acted as a way to rebirth their legacies once more except through the lens of inclusion and diversity. Thus, ushering new generations of heroes who would be stark contrasts of their white predecessors by social status, race, ethnicity, and other deteriminants that would be considered a deviancy by Golden Age standards.

As stated, the Golden Age wasn’t by any means progressive. Built upon patriotism and nationalism, the Golden Age completely embodied the white hegemonic politics of its time. Now jump to almost a century later, the comic book industry looks drastically different and that’s because of the impact of legacy heroes. The intent of a legacy hero is to evoke a new meaning that the OG couldn’t foster in their run, and because they’re often created after the character is long gone or retired—the world they’ve left feels less whole without them. Whether it’s Spider-Man representing the importance of responsibility, Superman embodying a symbol of hope, or Batman ruling fairness and justice, it’s up to the newcomer to continue those legacies in their own right.

Plus, hearing their catchphrases (“I am Iron Man,” “I am Batman,” “I am Wonder Woman,”) can feel uniquely gratifying for fans who adore those characters.

The concept of legacy heroes lives in a binary of praise and contention because both are true. There is a lack of Black and Brown superheroes who aren’t reimagined in any role outside of white male heroism, yet sometimes the legacy hero may supercede their predecessor’s story and become the dominant standard for that hero (Blue Beetle, Ms. Marvel). Referencing Brown again but in another work, Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts, he notes the issue many take with legacy heroes is that their perceived “otherness” narratively and visually can overshadow their characters and create stories that either reinstate stereotypes or be clocked as inauthentic because there are no writers or creative leads that can accurately portray Black and Brown characters through lived experiences.

“Introducing characters that reflect that wider demographic in terms of gender and ethnicity (as well as sexuality, religion, and nationality) is evidence not just of socially progressive stories or shrewd marketing strategies but of free market–driven cultural change,” Jeffrey A. Brown

While it’s all-inspiring to have legacy heroes dominating these strictly white stories, it still doesn’t absolve Black and Latinx superheroes from harmful narratives. Typically if you scroll through the comment section of some comic blogs claiming that passing the diversity of legacy heroes feel “forced” or do it for the sake of “political correctness,” it reveals the inherent racism, colorism, sexism, and the like present in the comic nerd community. Big publications like Marvel have also emboldened this problematic myth, especially when David Gabriel, the vice president of Marvel sales, said tbat decline in comic sales is rooted in fans not wanting more diversity or female characters taking on the mantles of white male heroes.

What this boils down to is a longheld racist sentiment that Black and Brown bodies are inherently deviant and perceived as a tresspasser in predominantly white spaces. When Riri Williams took on the role of Ironheart in 2017, writer Eve Ewing faced so much backlash from racist fans blaming her “tarnishing” the legacy of Iron Man, who by this point had been long retired from the robotic suit. The fact that Ewing was only one of five Black women to write for Marvel in its nearly 80-year history echoes the still white-dominated writer's rooms and editor positions that constantly rule narratives that often don’t belong to them.

The controversies surrounding Riri come from a place of a deeply seeded history of hatred and antagonization against Black women. In every capacity, Black women are often ridiculed in the common spaces of everyday life, yet celebrated when their identities, culture, or aesthetics are co-opted and appropriated for profit. So when (let’s call them what they are) white supremacist fans attack Riri’s character and dwindle their critcisms down her presence feeling “forced,” it’s coded, yet unfortunately a predictable response. Positive representations of Blackness in all media is overshadowed by the voyeuristic proclevity to depict Black pain.

And because Riri’s character contains stories that are fun, joyful, and provide poignant commentaries about the significance of non-violent approaches to conflict, it becomes a site of politicization that gets automatically interpreted as a threat. As Ewing puts it in a illuminating article in the New York Times, she states:

“In recent years, “representation matters” has become a refrain acknowledging how vital it is that children see possibilities for themselves in media,” she said. “But superheroes represent something beyond that. It’s not only that if little Black girls see Ironheart being brave, they will understand that they can do the same because they look like her. It’s that superheroes serve as a shared cultural mirror, paragons of what bravery even is.”

Similar to the ways academic discourse regard Black and Brown epistemologies to limiting narratives, the comic book industy even outside the likes of Marvel and DC neglect to account the intersectionalities of Black and Brown narratives and how their modes of storytelling demand more than what the traditional legacy hero formula suggests. Legacy narratives are riddled with a white hegemonic perspective that subsequently measures Black and Latinx characters alignment to whiteness. And it can be exhibited in subtle ways, beyond writing.

The visual experience comic offers is a significant part of the medium and often, what’s stamped in people’s mind when they think of a superhero. Costumes and masks aside though, the construction of Black and Afro-Latinx characters on an artistic level is also a marker of quality representation. Factors such as skin color, facial features, and hair type are all considerations that hold so much weight in creating a character that can be dominantly seen in a space without stigma.

But unless the illustrator regards the accuracy of the character’s race and ethnicity, many Black and Afro-Latinx characters are otherwise whitewashed.

This is unfortunately the case for Damian Wayne who’s biracial, (half-Brown, half-white) and is ethnically Arab and Chinese. As the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al-Ghul, Damian is often shown in the comics as reading more white despite his mother being Brown. And each time illustrators choose to represent the highly probable genetic phenotypes he holds, many rush to view his skin color as an insignificant detail to his character.

White-washing prompts acceptability among mainstream comic book fans in seeing Black and Latinx bodies proximous to whiteness. Because the superhero universe is so vastly white, any considerations and creative processes utilized for white heroes are hardly adjusted for any other character that don’t present Eurocentric features.

For this reason, white-washing became the standard for “toning down” a character. When Riri first debuted, her Afro caused an uproar of racist and colorist commentary viewing her hair as impractical and oversexualized for her age, 15. Comments like these reveal a historical sentiment that deems Black women and their natural hair as terrains for race-, sex-, and class-based discrimination, fueling historical acts like the Tignon Laws and racist policies present schools and work environments. Tracing back Hernandez’s application, Black and Afro-Latinx bodies are inherently mitigated by pelo bueno/malo (good hair/bad hair) ideologies that also, like white-washing, fixate on distancing themselves away from Blackness.

“Aesthetics of excess are the classed/racialized/gendered by-products of transcolonial conquest,” Hernandez said. “They carefully mythologized a split between the luminous attraction of white lady hood's receptive femininity and the glittering seduction of brown womanhood’s aggressive voluptuousness.”

The excess of Riri, especially in the white hegemonic space that is comics, is debuted as explicitly Black. And like Damian, would be watered down aesthetically and narratively to be palatable for white fans. This became especially true when Disney adapted Riri Williams in Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron and straightened her natural afro into loose waves and lightened her skintone to the point where fans confused her for Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel.

With all that’s said, legacy heroes do have potential. Manveuring our expectations for how we can maximize the benefits of legacy is both an educational effort and continuous commitment. Because a story that solely communicates a structure and language that actively excludes and polices a character’s being is not the story advocating for representation.

When Ewing created Riri, her first order of business was to reinvent the limiting grounds white writers had attempted to establish for Riri. She focused on the essence Riri could bring her own, with or without the suit which speaks to an essential discourse on how the epistemology of Black and Brown bodies in media can produce good representations when it’s prioritized.

In Cindy Cruz’s Toward an Epistemology of a Brown Body, she notes that the “storying the brown body becomes problematic when our training as writers, researchers, and cultural critics is complicit with the systems of power that threaten to invalidate certain kinds of knowledges.”

It’s this foundation in mind that we can start centralizing cultural mythologies that affirm Black and Latinx characters, not assimiliate them to their white predecessors or their stories.

Maximizing the Potential of Legacy Heroes

Given the right platform and narrative direction, legacy heroes can serve both as windows to limitless possibility and rallying points for us to reflect on the world around us. I think much of the contention lies in the latter, and perhaps where the most transformative change can begin at.

Legacy heroes often get treated as blank canvases for writers, editors, and illustrators alike to project an amalgamation of everything the original hero represented, narratively and visually. But that simply isn’t the case, nor should it be, because when we treat legacy heroes as just that—we’re robbed of multi-deminsional characterization.

Recognizing a character's intersectionality in relation to the hero, or heroes, before them can inform their story to greater lengths than what could’ve been if overlooked. In the case of America Chavez, Miss America, her Boricuan roots are consistently at the center of her journey as a hero, her philosophy, and the different barriers she has to overcome unlike her other heroic peers. In America Chavez: Made in the USA (2021), Chavez is faced with a moment of reckoning in realizing that taking on a patriotic mantle akin to Captin America would conflict with her racial and ethnic identity, especially accounting for the fact that the United States is built off of the systemic oppression of marginalized communities.

The issue's source of conflict provided a candid look into the way Latina bodies are sites of exploitation until it involves positions of power. Throughout the comic, Chavez grapples with her proximation to Captain America’s legacy beyond the powers and abilities and by doing so, she comes to terms with the fact that no matter how much she successfully exceeds the expectations set before her—she’ll be perpetually be viewed as lesser than Steve Rogers because of his social status and privilege. Her internal battles and anxieties sheds light on the mental impacts of being a hero through a realistic lens such as contending with imposter syndrome, PTSD, and survivor's guilt.

Part of the reason this issue is so special is because her identity isn’t there to define her, but to supplement her growth and journey as a hero. The legacy of Captain America is largely based on white hegemony and heteropatriarchal structures under the guise of patriotism, and even though there’s been attempts to upend it—Chavez, and Falcon prior to her, still sits in an intersection of spaces that weren’t built for her. This story reflects a reality for Black and Latina women that are excluded from positions of power in relationships, families, work, and the like without facing violence or backlash.

“Thus, the perceived trespass of women into masculinity is met with intense hostility as it signifies an appropriation of power.” Jillian Hernandez, Aesthetics of Excess.

Historically, representation is usually fraught with tunnel-vision. Through one lens, it’s progress to have a new story that makes fans feel seen by vicariously imagining themselves in positions of power being the hero, not the sidekick or villain. But through another, narratives can become conflated to singular formulae that neither upends Eurocentric traditions established by white characters, nor provide a new geometry of storytelling for characters who’s intersectionality can add a dimension overlooked before.

Chavez's story touches on the “Wound of Settlement,” an experience that writer, poet, and artist Alan Pelaez Lopez notes in “The X in Latinx is a Wound, Not a Trend” as one of four wounds in the Latinx epistemology. Echoing her experiences of growing up in the United States away from her home in Puerto Rico with no one else to rely or confide in but her fellow heroes who were often white.

Legacy heroes being the markers of a new generation of heroes should also warrant the emergence of new, original stories to unfold so they can also be the new faces of cultural icons inspiring bravery, courage, and hope. For that to happen, stories need to be written, edited, and illustrated by individuals who can bond over a character’s shared experiences and intersectional identities.

Sticking to one narrative is dangerous across all realms but when a hero's journey is about fulfilling the existential question: “Who am I?”—it should be answered solely and consistently by them.