Dwayne McDuffie and Milestone's Legacy

 

    Comic books have historically been and remain to be one of our finest mediums for interpreting our cultural conceptions of the world around us. Specifically, in this essay, I will be focusing on what the use of images in comic books can tell us about the perception of masculinity and blackness, as well as the area where these two concepts coincide, and most importantly a creator whose work is notable in its portrayal of this area. Firstly, blackness in comic books has a long and problematic history. Notably characters like “Black Lightning” and “Black Panther” are characters that by name are marked purely for their race. Another group, the Legion of Super-Heroes presented itself as a “symbol of multicultural cooperation and diversity” though for “nearly twenty years... of all the races represented in the comic, only one group existed in real life: the white characters” (Singer, 110). These two examples go to show that the, often white, creators of black superheroes have a tendency to tokenize, stereotype, and depict problematic portrayals of the black image. When it comes to masculinity, comic books have often promoted an unattainable hypermasculine ideal, for example, characters like Superman and Thor are absurdly muscular godlike beings that act as a sort of male power fantasy. But this hypermasculine ideal is generally not complete without its feminized alter ego, i.e. Clark Kent or Peter Parker: clumsy nerds low on the social ladder designed to “facilitate reader identification” (Brown, 31). Already, the portrayal of these two identities is complicated but the space between them carries an additional set of baggage that is necessary to unpack if we are to fully understand the work of comic creator Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie, the co-founder of Milestone Comics, a minority-owned and operated comic book company, worked on series such as Static Shock and Icon that comment on, question, and have informed our conceptions of black masculinity. Dwayne McDuffie’s questioning of popular notions of black masculinity and commentary on the fluidity of the black identity and image in the comic form has left an important mark on a medium whose emphasis on images reveals our problematic relationship with these very ideas.  

The history of the black image in comics is an extension of that of the black image in cartoons. Cartoons have long been used to disseminate racial stereotypes and minstrel imagery, for example, many popular cartoons today such as Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, and Goofy the Dog have origins steeped in caricature and racist minstrelsy. The superhero comic can be seen through an adjacent lens in that it has historically been a white-male power fantasy. Superman is a prime example of this fantasy, which I will return to later when discussing portrayals of masculinity in comics. Black scholars and critics have long been critical of the portrayal of the black image in comic books, pointing towards the ways in which “whites are always (portrayed) handsome and heroic whereas non-whites are inferior and subhuman” (Singer, 108). The black superhero was basically nonexistent until the late 60s when characters like Black Panther and the Falcon were introduced to the world. These superheroes, though pivotal in comic book history, contained problematic elements in their portrayals. For one, the “original black superhero,” Black Panther, hailed from an entirely fictional African country rather than representing African Americans or any real African nationality. Further, the first series that he starred in was titled “Jungle Action.” Further problematic portrayals of blackness ensued in the comic industry, though in the early 90s the comic hero Deathlok, with Dwayne McDuffie at the helm, put many of these portrayals into question. McDuffie’s Deathlok series revolves around “Michael Collins, an African American scientist working for Cybertek Systems, Inc., ‘the applied cybernetics division of Roxxon Oil” (Rivera, 105). When he tries to expose a powerful military weapon the division is working on, the white man at the head of the division, Harlan Ryker, arranges him shot and his “brain transported to a separate cyborg ‘outfit’” (105, Rivera). According to Rivera, much of McDuffie’s Deathlok deals directly with W.E.B. DuBois’ idea of double consciousness. “Trapped inside a cyborg body not entirely his own, Collins's posthuman technobody also recalls Fanon's equally split and alienated colonized Antillean, who is compelled ‘to wear the livery that the white man has sewed for him’ (34)” (116, Rivera). Collins is trapped in a cyborg body that is literally crafted by a white man, forced to see through the eye “sewed for him” by Ryker. Towards the end of McDuffie’s run with Deathlok, Collins confronts Ryker and thanks him for showing him that his free will was an illusion and according to Rivera “enabl(ing) him to see the dual nature of African American identity through new eyes... always having to negotiate two perspectives at once... living within and outside the cultural mainstream” (121, Rivera). McDuffie’s work converses with the historic black image in comics by metaphorically drawing attention to the ways in which the black image and self have been co-crafted by white oppressors. Though Deathlok’s body may have been originally crafted by Ryker, his image and self are still in perpetual conversation. McDuffie’s work compellingly comments on the racist history of the black image in comics, noting the command that white authors have had over the public perception of blackness, while simultaneously recognizing the opportunity that the resulting double consciousness has given McDuffie and Deathlok to see the world through a clear lens. 

Importantly Deathlok also draws attention to black masculinity, specifically in Deathlok’s relationship to the Terminator. The Terminator, like Superman, represents a white male power fantasy, whose “technological adornments serve to heighten, not diminish, their bodies' status as fortresses" (108, Rivera). With the Terminator, as with Superman, the body is the ultimate form of masculinity, specifically one adorned with muscles and emotional repression or rigidity. This ideal is rooted in fascism and white supremacy, promoting imagery that portrays whiteness as strong and hard, while the Other is portrayed as weak and flaccid. The portrayal of black masculinity in comics and cartoons is often a contradictory one. Historically, black masculinity has been both oppressed and subjugated while also feared. “Ironically, much of the tension regarding the hypermasculine stereotype of black men is a logical cultural development for a group systematically denied full access to the socially constructed ideals of masculinity” (28, Brown). While white oppressors have attempted to emasculate black men, a paradoxical image has formed of the black man as an all-brawn and no-brain brute. This stereotype can be seen in superheroes such as Luke Cage at his inception, whose image was unnaturally muscular and physically fought his way through the issues in the comic series. Dwayne McDuffie’s company Milestone made active efforts to combat this image with their superheroes. Milestone has emphasized "that they wanted their comic books to reflect people from a variety of cultural backgrounds,” although their work with black superheroes and portrayals of black masculinity is most worthy of note in this paper (28, Brown). One of Milestone’s most popular characters Static is a prime example of Milestone’s push against black hypermasculine stereotypes. Static is a teenage brainiac, who uses primarily uses his genius rather than his strength to defeat his enemies. As one comic book fan put it, they appreciate Static because he represents “the belief that the underdog can win by not succumbing to the I’m-bigger-and-stronger-than-anything-in-the-universe-so-I’ll-just-smash-your-head-in mentality that we see in some comic books.’...Underneath the costume and the witty Static is still the same geeky kid struggling to defeat the bullies and keep his world in order” (39, Brown). Not only does this contradict popular notions of black masculinity, but it is also a slap in the face for superhero masculine logic. Static is the same with or without the mask on, he does not become a hypermasculine power fantasy when he dons the costume. Rather, both in and out of it he is a “geeky kid” using his wit to fight the forces in his life that threaten him and those that he cares about.  

Dwayne McDuffie’s legacy is a monumental one in the comic book world. He found himself positioned in a unique spot to combat decades of prejudice in comics through his independent company Milestone. And he did so with nuance and wit. Black masculinity and images in comic books will forever need to be examined, critiqued, and written about. Watching superhero movies such as Aquaman and Black Adam today, one can see that not much has changed in our standards of the hypermasculine physique. Black masculinity still has a long way to go in the movies as black superheroes are still seldom seen. Characters like Black Panther and Shuri, both redefined the genre but the hole left by Chadwick Boseman has certainly been felt. One may only hope, when looking forward in the growing world of superhero storytelling we may also look behind us at the works of legends such as Dwayne McDuffie to find inspiration for the kinds of stories and characters the world needs today.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited 

• Rivera, Lysa. “Appropriate(d) Cyborgs: Diasporic Identities in Dwayne McDuffie’s Deathlok Comic Book Series.” MELUS, vol. 32, no. 3, 2007, pp. 103–27, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30029793. 

• Yang, Gene Luen. "The Color of Comic Books." American Book Review, vol. 35 no. 6, 2014, p. 12. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/abr.2014.0134. 

• Brown, Jeffrey. “Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero.” African American Review, vol. 33, no. 1, 1999, pp. 25-42, https://doi.org/10.2307 /2901299   

• Brown, Jeffrey. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi 

• Singer, Marc. “Black Skins’ and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race.” African American Review, vol. 36, no. 1, 2002, pp. 107-19, https://doi- org.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/10.2307/2903369