Brave black worlds: black superheroes as science fiction ciphers

Abstract

Without a doubt, superheroes have played a significant role in presenting idealised projections of ourselves as physically powerful, amazing and fantastic versions of ourselves. Superhero comics also invite readers to imagine a world where advanced science, UFOs, aliens, space exploration, time travel and high-tech gadgets are common occurrences. Accordingly, the genre draws significantly from the science fiction (SF) idiom, making what is drawn and written across a multitude of superhero comics extremely significant as an expression of SF and American culture. Often overlooked, however, in the intersection between superheroes and SF is the place black racial representation occupies in the genre. This article examines how black superheroes, ensconced in a SF motif, function not only as counter-hegemonic symbolic expressions of black racial pride and racial progress but possibly even as transformational Afrofuturistic metaphors for imagining race and black racial identity in new and provocative ways.