10 Comic Book Moments That Were Profoundly Insulting
4. All The Times Superheroes Turned Black Or Applied Blackface
Comics: Punisher #59, Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #106, and The Incredible Hulk #435
What Happened: After succumbing to some serious and brutal damage, Frank Castle has to undergo some plastic surgery to hide his identity. While fixing up his face, the surgeon somehow turns him into a black man, making the movie Soul Man a reality within the Marvel Universe. It isn't long before he's harassed by cops, and sees just how bad he has it as an African American.
The Hulk lands a job playing professional baseball, but he's the Hulk, so his girlfriend suggests he mask his identity by altering his color. The Hulk then proceeds to apply blackface to his entire body, and rebrands himself as "Bob Danner."
To report on the lives of African Americans in Metropolis, Lois transforms into a black woman with the help of Superman. The story was an attempt to tackle race issues in America, but all it really amounted to was another Soul Man blackface situation.
Why Was It Insulting: Comics grew from a time where racism and Jim Crow laws were commonplace. As a result, most comic book characters from the 1930s to the '60s were white. Applying blackface, or altering the race of a white person to make them black is appallingly racist, and horribly insulting to pretty much everyone.
These stories may have had good intentions, but they weren't well-received when they were published, and they most certainly haven't aged well.