Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, good whisky. Welcome to see
Speaker 1: pe Time, the only show that's fuller culture. Today, we'll
Speaker 1: be discussing black superheroes, iconic characters like Falcon, war Machine, Cyborg,
Speaker 1: and the dude at Churches Chicken who puts onion rings
Speaker 1: in your bag of fries. That brother uses his powers
Speaker 1: for good. Black superheroes are not new. In fact, they've
Speaker 1: been squeezing into spandex for decades. They didn't as far
Speaker 1: back as nineteen thirty six, when cartoonist j Jackson created
Speaker 1: Speed Jackson and the Chicago Defended newspaper. Speed Jackson was
Speaker 1: a former track star at Howard University who was an
Speaker 1: excellent fistfighter, which may not sound powerful compared to today's
Speaker 1: superhero with their laser eyes and sticky spider hands, but
Speaker 1: you have to think about it. Like sports, today's best
Speaker 1: athletes are the pinnacle of human physicality, while the best
Speaker 1: athletes from the nineteen thirties were just the ones with
Speaker 1: the least polio times change, Jackson used his abilities to
Speaker 1: fight against fascists during the war and right the wrongs
Speaker 1: of a racist society, which is tough because superpowers don't
Speaker 1: help when you're fighting systemic racism. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you have the strength of ten men if none of
Speaker 1: those men can get a mortgage. In ninety seven, black
Speaker 1: superheroes made the leap from comic script to comic book
Speaker 1: with lion Man, a cat themed superhero who protected the
Speaker 1: world's largest uranium deposit in Africa's Gold coast. Although a
Speaker 1: cat may not have been the best animal to defend
Speaker 1: the valuable resource. Sure cats are fast and agile, but
Speaker 1: you're getting there doing one of those twenty two hours
Speaker 1: that they're asleep, and that uranium is yours. Lion Man
Speaker 1: was created by Oran Evans, who intended his comic to
Speaker 1: counter the racial distortion seen in other comics, although if
Speaker 1: he was trying to avoid racial stereotypes, I think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say the results were mixed. Look at lion
Speaker 1: Man right there, shirtless with the loincloth and an arrow
Speaker 1: through his butt, and somehow that is still the least
Speaker 1: problematic character on the cover. Despite how it looks today,
Speaker 1: line Man was still groundbreaking as an all black, ridden
Speaker 1: and illustrated comic, even if now the cover looks like
Speaker 1: Tucker Carson tried to draw Africa in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: there was an explosion of black superheroes, characters like Black Lightning,
Speaker 1: Black Vulcan, and Black Goliath. Basically, if you were trying
Speaker 1: to create an African American hero in the seventies, you
Speaker 1: put the word black in front of whatever was lying
Speaker 1: around you in the apartment. This week, Black Shender Liird
Speaker 1: battles it out against his arch nemesis, Black Candy Rapper.
Speaker 1: But the most popular of these superheroes was the newest
Speaker 1: member of the X Men, Storm, an African priestess who
Speaker 1: could control the weather to keep the rain from messing
Speaker 1: up her hat. Storm was a landmark character for both
Speaker 1: black and female representation in comics, and on top of that,
Speaker 1: she's definitely the best X Man. You know him, right,
Speaker 1: Who's better than Storm? Row? What's her power? If I
Speaker 1: hold my boyfriend's hand too long, he'll die. Wolverine is
Speaker 1: indeed strong, except for when he has to go through
Speaker 1: t s. A professor X can read minds, but that
Speaker 1: means he also sees all the kinkis sex stuff. His
Speaker 1: enemies are thinking. Good luck defeating mcneto when you know
Speaker 1: how much he loves feet. But the nineteen nineties black
Speaker 1: superheroes were making it to the big screen. Robert Townsend
Speaker 1: directed The Media Man, a film about a mild menute
Speaker 1: teacher who was hit by a radioactive media and got superpowers.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna say it's bold to name yourself after
Speaker 1: the worst thing that's ever happened to you. My superhero
Speaker 1: name would be Sheila left him Man with the power
Speaker 1: to eat one whole can of tuna over the sink.
Speaker 1: You were right, Sheila, I can't do better. Marvel bet
Speaker 1: on Black with the Blade franchise. Wesley Snipes starred as
Speaker 1: a vampire hunter to great box office success, and Blade
Speaker 1: was a powerful Mama Gemma. He managed to be that
Speaker 1: cool while wearing the same sunglasses as Guy Fieri. That's
Speaker 1: also why there's no vampires in flavor toown. Blade became
Speaker 1: a household name and the first major theatrical success for Marvel,
Speaker 1: setting off a wave of Marvel films to come in
Speaker 1: the next two decades. Because Wesley Snipes proved that no
Speaker 1: one's powerful enough to defeat novel heroes except for the
Speaker 1: I R s. Please don't punch me, Westley snaps big
Speaker 1: fan now Black superheroes everywhere, even taking over the mantle
Speaker 1: of formerly white heroes. We have an African American Green Lantern,
Speaker 1: iron Man, Captain America and Spider Man. No black Bruce
Speaker 1: Wayne though that requires too much generational wealth. Well that's
Speaker 1: it for CP time. Remember before the what's that? It's
Speaker 1: the CP signal. Someone needs a folksy man to come
Speaker 1: and tell him about black history. I'm on my way
Speaker 1: Florida to the see people, Bill. I need some gas
Speaker 1: money for the C people, Bill, Let's take letter I
Speaker 1: can't afford. What's the Daily Show? Weeknight Central on Comedy
Speaker 1: Central in stream fool episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This
Speaker 1: has been a Comedy Central podcast