Why Black Superheroes Have Identity Crises
June 29, 2004 -- Most superheroes worry about protecting their secret identity, but black superheroes often have to grapple with an identity crisis.
When twin brothers Mike and Mark Davis created the new comic book Blokhedz and its central character, Blak, they wanted to present a hero and story with supernatural elements that was still representative of their own experiences growing up.
An aspiring rap artist, teenage Blak has an otherworldly ability to control people with his rhymes. He must deal with the everyday struggles of ghetto life and his older brother's slaying while coming to terms with his powers.
Street Legends Ink, the Los Angeles-based company that publishes Blokhedz, is run by the Davis brothers, along with the father-son team of Michael and Brandon Schultz and collaborator Nicole Duncan-Smith.
The book has been gathering a following, mostly through word of mouth. The creative team said they met recently with one of the "big three" comic book companies (Marvel, D.C. and Image Comics) to pursue opportunities to widen the book's distribution and publication, but they declined to name which one.
The Blokhedz team said their book impressed one company but the executives wanted changes.
"They said they loved the gritty, urban feel of the book but they wanted us to remove the supernatural element, the mythology," Schulz said. "We said, 'No way.' … We're not really interested in producing a comic book version of [the 1991 film] Boyz 'N the Hood."
Black Exterior, White Interior
In some ways, the Blokhedz team's experience reflects the dilemma black superheroes and their creators have long faced — maintaining a character's unique voice, or perhaps ethnic identity, while getting industry insiders and even readers to recognize him as a superhero, period.
Image Comics' Spawn, one of the most successful titles in the industry since the 1990s, focuses on the struggles of a slain black special forces agent who comes back from the dead after striking a deal with the devil.
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