Putting the Black Back in Black Vulcan

Hope you readers are ready for your Weekly Z-Lister because today's obscure superhero touches upon not only the history of comic books, but the history of the superhero genre. This week's Z-list superhero is Black Vulcan, second generation member of the Super-Friends!

(By the way, am I the only one who finds this guy's face hilarious?)

"But I thought these posts only looked at comic book characters, this guy is a cartoon", I'm sure you may be muttering to yourself. But fear not, loyal readers, while Black Vulcan isn't exactly from the comics, he does represent the early ideals of comics and has helped other heroes like him become more famous in their respective books. Now then, Black Vulcan was part of a group of racially diverse characters added to the Super-Friends cartoon back in 1977. Not only were these new members diverse enough to break the mostly male-white build up of the team, but were also original characters who had no previous comic book history. What makes Black Vulcan different though is that he was originally not supposed to be on the team. Originally, another character named Black Lightning (also created in 1977) was planned on being in the show. However, Black Lightning's comic creator Tony Isabella was having feuds with DC Comics. Because of these arguments, Hanna-Barbara created Black Vulcan as a replacement character. Like Black Lightning, Black Vulcan was an african-american superhero with power of electricity manipulation. He could shoot electrical bolts, create solid objects out of electricity, fly via energy propulsion and travel through time as a bolt of lightning. While his counterpart Black Lightning would go on to join Batman's Outsiders and The Justice League of America, Black Vulcan's appearances stopped around 1984. However, he and Black Lightning's legacies would live on in a Milestone Comics character named Static created by Dwayne McDuffie in 1993, Static being another african-american superhero who could control electricity.

As shown with last week's Z-Lister Thunderhawk, early comic media attempted to shove racial diversity within their material. After the show's cancellation the character would never appear in any main comic book medium again. Most likely because of the success of Black Lightning and Static, leaving the position for an african american superhero with flashy powers filled. What Black Vulcan does provide is an example of racial progression in comics. Back in 1977 there where only a few Black heroes within both DC and Marvel, now-a-days the handful amount is slowly spilling out of the palm of the comic world and we have early character drafts like Black Vulcan to thank for that. Thanks' Sparky!