Saturday, July 12, 2008

Is This A Joke?


Frozone? Pootie Tang? %#@ing Hong Kong Phooey?!

These are some of the names populating AOL's recent listing of the 25 Greatest Black Superheroes of All Time. The obvious choices are there (John Stewart/Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, Storm), but no way does the Brown Hornet from "Fat Albert" belong alongside John Henry Steel. This list is suckage.

I know there aren't many well-known black superheroes in mainstream comics, but there is a serious failure of imagination here. For starters, the writer might have checked out the fantastic Museum of Black Superheroes, the most comprehensive listing I've encountered. I mean, I'm not that interested in Vixen, but she's surely more worthy than a canine kung-fu expert voiced by Scatman Crothers. Yet, she's nowhere on the list. Neither is Steel 2.0, or War Machine, or ... you see where I'm going with this.

AOL, you disappoint me.

2 comments:

Christina said...

WOW. Well, that's appalling. Hong Kong Phooey was a dog, wasn't he?

I don't even know who to be madder at; AOL for being a bunch of dumbasses, or the comic book industry for having so relatively few black superheroes that we have to fill the void with Pootie Tang.

E. Peterman said...

Hong Kong Phooey was a dog who couldn't even solve crimes! The cat always figured things out, and bumbling HKP got the credit. Believe me, there is plenty of blame to go around for this list!