No, Lots of Comics Weren’t Racist 

When I saw the justice league fighting lex luthor or the avengers fighting Hydra or AIM I never once thought "This saving the world doesn't look very...inclusive". If it's a good story, it's a good story. The race of the writers is irrelevant.

I miss Static Shock. Remember when they tackled Racism way better than current comics in the Static Shock Cartoon? Richie's dad was a huge racist and seeing him walk and talk with Virgil's dad was great. He didn't completely change, but they came to an understanding.

Comics have literally been one of the most progressive mediums for years, and now we're just going to pretend all of that never happened? Give me a break

I am a 51 year old black man who has read comics all my life. I growed up reading Christopher priest run on conan. At the time I didn't know the race of the writer, I only knew that I liked it. Black panther had always been one of favorite characters and captain America was not the same without falcon (i had both mego dolls). And ironfist wasn't the same without Luke cage. I grew up on spawn, blade, Goliath Gabriel Jones, storm , cyborg and stalker and roadblock from gi Joe. Not to mention a great run with Rhodey taking over the iron man suit while Tony stark battled alchol. But according to this article all that time I was reading a racist medium which was infesting their poison on the youth of America. Come to think of it I do recall a being in a store where a young white boy was frantically trying to find a bishop xmen action figures. It being systemically racist country I am sure he was wearing a pair of Jordan's at the time. Thank goodness for the new batch of woke writers and artists who are saving us from those regressive days and characters that everyone , black or white liked.

My favorite comic book characters were wolverine, omega red, Sabretooth, batman, and superman, and didn't give a damn about their race as a black kid growing up in the ghetto.

Comic weren't really racist , in fact they were extremely progressive and risked cancelation due to the writers wanting to teach tolerance and virtues, hell ive seen more racist heroes come out from today's comics

I remember growing up with Blade, Spawn, etc. I still can't believe the cajones of these people claiming that black led comic book movies don't sell.

In other words. these brave comic creators know nothing about Milestone Comics.

I guess the legacy of Dwayne McDuffie and the work of Milestone/Dakota-verse is just an unheard myth to those outlets

The thing you said about 60s characters being somewhat stereotypical... I actually see a TON of characters written as nothing but hokey stereotypes right now as we speak, moreso than any time in comic book history.

One of my favorite comics artists, Denys Cowan, is black, which I didn't even know until I went to a con and had him and Dennis O'Neil sign my copy of The Question #1 - A series for which Cowan received 2 Eisner nominations in 1988 and 1989.

“Don’t let the voice fool you. I’m old. I was there.” I feel you man, thanks for the smile, I’m still wearing it.

The first good Marvel movie had a black protagonist, and nobody cared.

Oh my god I can’t take this anymore, there’s a point where you go far beyond speaking facts, and you JUST SOME GUY have reached it. Absolute GOAT

I am white and i loved vergal when i was a kid. Now he would kill me because i am white!😱 Its really sad he was so relatable to youth to day in a way peter parker can't. Bring back my static!

I just want to say, I really appreciate JSG’s absolute dedication in reading women’s voices in that spot on “Karen-esque” tone.

It's like that time I google first black super hero film and Black Panther came up. They want to erase history and act like they pioneered the change, when it already happened. Blade, Steel, Meteor Man, Spawn already existed. But because it doesn't fit the narrative, they get ignored.

You know it's bad when, on cue, JSG and I literally cracked up laughing at the same time 😭😂 but forreal it's an odd thing. I'm all for creating more black/african characters, I think we need more of that but that should be a small PART of who they are (as in, yes the character is black or of African descent but just one factor about them). I myself tend to write black main characters, but their blackness literally doesn't ever come up in the comics. Plus I tend to create my own worlds where something like hatred over skin tone don't exist because it's fuckin stupid 🤦🏿‍♂️I want to write my shit for everybody, not solely my community. This seems to be a difficult concept for them

I can tell you right now that myself, and all of my white friends, loved watching Static Shock as kids.

Frankly, I'd love to read stories based in Africa or with African roots, but a good story is usually enjoyed by people of all backgrounds. Of course, it's fine to have a target audience but you should always welcome fans that don't fit outside that demographic. Hell, when I told her at a convention that I haven't read one of her works but I'm a big fan of sci-fi, Nnedi Okorafor said to me that she loves it when fans of sci-fi read her work for the first time. And let's not forget one of my favorite novels, Things Fall Apart. It was about colonization in the last third but it was a good story too.

I love watching all of your videos, but have always had a hard time reading comics in general (something I'm slowly trying to change). I did, however LOVE the comic shows, and hearing you talking about the changes to Static make me want to cry. It was and is one of my absolute favorite shows.

I bought 'Black Sands'; when 3-5 panels in I hear ancient Egyptian children saying, "Hey, guys!", I put it on the shelf. I've got comics in my collection older than the LA Times journalist; Dwayne McDuffie was at Michigan when I was, but I never knew him; not all Black folks know everybody everywhere, I suppose. I swear them fracking up Static will have me trolling every person responsible.

Huh, I guess the second gen X-men being made up of the most diverse roster seen up to that point in 1975 must have been my imagination.

The American comic book industry needs to get its spine back

I loved the Static Shock cartoon. I always thought Static was super cool. Liked how sunspots interfered with his powers and he could surf on electric currents.

I'm as white as a guy with Scotch-Irish blood, two of my favorite heroes growing up were Jon Stewart and Static. I liked Jon because he was a tough hero with enough honor and know-how to not go crazy when hit with a false accusation of genocide. He was a kid from the ghetto that became a high-ranking marine and one of the toughest and most honorable human to take up Green Lantern. And Static Shock? Dude was just cool; kind of my reason why I like Lightning users so much. He saw his mother be a hero, gain powers by accident, and wanted to be a hero like her. I loved him for his creativity with his powers, how he talked down a possible school shooter, saved his friends and his family, and even tried being a Bang Baby (still a dumb name) that people could put your faith in. As I grew up, I began liking Steel when he appeared in the Superman cartoon, because he used his brawn and brain to build a suit to be a hero like the man who saved his life, Superman. Then Spyke and Storm in X-Men Evolution, Black Panther in Armored Adventures and Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Blade, and War Machine (I was and am a Weapons Tech nut, so seeing Iron Man with a chaingun, missile launcher and heavier armor was like Candy to me.) It's not that I liked them because they were Black. I liked them because they were cool.

I dont even read comic books nor could i tell who is who in terms of superheros but i really enjoy what you put out. Its direct and to the point while having a lovely garnish of humor. And the parallels between the comics industry and other areas of popular (and not popular) media and how they are crumbling are interestingly identical and you do a very good job of spotlighting these overarching issues that effect all of these areas.

THIS IS PERFECTION. I grew up reading Captain America and the Falcon omnibus. I grew up believing a black hero was equal in every way to my favorite hero. Then they say I must hate that a black man became cap. Nooooo Falcon has always been someone I idolized like Cap.

The cartoon Static Shock was great, by the way. I didn't watch because the character checked boxes, but because it was a good character that happened to have a "certain skin color". Poor Martin Luther King Jr.

The Thing is one of my top 3 all-time favorites. As a kid I hunted down all the back issues of his early 80's solo series by John Byrne and Ron Wilson. One issue featured a breaking the 4th wall back up story with the creative team. Turns out artist Ron Wilson is black. Such a racist industry back in '83.

Thanks, JSG. Someday rational voices will prevail, and we can get on with the business of living again. Thanks for the laughs on this one too. I needed it today.

Regarding the thing about the 2 friends guys/grills Fuj - oshi/Fud - anshi/Yuri-f4n-b0ys logic in a nutshell... (I apologize for all the alphanumeric typos, YT is not very kind with my comments lately xD)

I like how they changed vergils story so that we can just forget black on black violence 🙄

OMG ! DUDE ! You need to be on main stream Television to reach the widest possible audience. You are absolutely fucking Brilliant!

I loved icon and static shock. I just felt kind of weird that they kind of created a new separate world with these characters in it instead of introducing them into the main stream DC universe. If I remember correctly, they were doing a thing at the time. Were these aliens showed up and were injecting humans with some thing it was like a bite, but it gave a bunch of them super powers. So they were literally on a Glock of adding new characters, but all of the ethnically diverse ones are off in their own separate little world.

Creating art you are proud of: :( Using the comic book industry as a platform for your bad agenda: :)

That Vince McMahon clip caught me aff guard lol.

This is what drives me nuts as a historian, is we always filter everything from the past through our current perspective. If you’re going to judge a timeframe you have to look at what was acceptable during that time frame. And not pass judgement based on our own warped sensibilities.

Very good video. These "writers" also either forget or are ignorant of characters like Monica Rambeau being around since 1982. And that's a relatively recent example!

as a white person that grew up in a poor neighborhood in west Philly I related to shows like fresh prince and static shock not because they were BLACK but because they were PEOPLE who had similar experiences that I myself had/was going through. it's almost like there can be more to characters than the color of their skin. crazy, i know.

Give them a few years, then they'll claim Japan is culturally appropriating their art style.

That's what they did with Static? That actually hurts me, I feel that in my damn heart. Everyone in my neighborhood loved Static, regardless of your skin color, you read comics? You liked Static. Particularly when he got his own show on The WB. This is just... pitiful. Man I need a drink.

I love it when each generation comes into the world and starts pretending like what they're doing has never been done before

Coffee, driving in the morning, listening to the smooth sounds of JSG. The simple things

It's weird, 80% of my exposure to X-Men came from the cartoon and I still understand it better than that guy he quoted.

So Static is basically an evil psychopath now. Got it. As a wise man once said: "The moment you think you have the right to decide who lives and who dies, who's life has value and who's doesn't, you become evil."

I’m whiter than a communion wafer and I remember getting up on Saturday mornings to watch the Static cartoon. I didn’t give a damn about the races of the characters, the designs were cool and Static actually had a really interesting power set.

I didn't know they ruined Virgil with a reboot that completely changed his character. I'm white and Static was one of my favorite heroes. Honestly he was like the Spider-Man of DC in how he chose to be a good person because of his family relations and actively gave his villians a chance to change out of empathy.

"The bigger the company gets, the better the IP gets." I guess Rooster Teeth didn't get the message.

Blade the movie came out in the 90's and was immediately an instant classic, worldwide. I'm black African, and i feel like this current woke trend in America that is using race in everything, will backfire on black actors and creators because many people in the audience will start to automatically question if it's because of wokeism when they'll see black characters on the screen in the future.

The incorrect grammar in the title of that first article already has me on tilt...

I'm thinking of episodes of Fresh Prince where Will is expressing his enthusiasm for Spider-Man.

"The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." - LP Hartley.

"Ebony Flowers' "Hot Comb" explores black women's relationships with their hair. " -- That line floored me!

Growing up, race was frankly irrelevant. to anything really: pop culture, dating, politics, whatever. Only recently is it suddenly an issue. I'm in my 30s: I remember when things werent this fricken STUPID.

The Static Shock cartoon was my jam as a kid. I lost my shit when he showed up in the Justice League cartoon.

I sometimes miss the days when being into nerd culture would get you bullied.

“The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them.”

... don't let the voice fool you, I'm old, I was there - JSG 2021

They turned Virgil into a super powered school shooter like the Ignited villains they call heroes? Static Shock spent a good chunk of his time *stopping* other kids who got powers in the incident from using them to attack other people in the school.

I hate what they did with Static Shock. I didn't read the comics growing up because I can't find them where I live. So the only way I found out about him is through the animated series. I liked watching him not because of his race, he was a cool hero and his story arcs were interesting and fun. That's it.

"There have been no black characters in comic books." Damn, well Blade, Static Shock, Black Panther, Meteor Man, Storm, Luke Cage, and all the other amazing iconic black superheroes never existed. Must've imagined them I guess.

Blade was actually the 1st blockbuster Marvel Superhero film. And it came out in the late 90's.

My black soul left my black body when I heard "Diary of a mad Black Werewolf"

She doesn't seem to mention Monica or Storm leading their own teams either. Big suprise.

I grew up with Static. Im pasty skinned, but wen i was a kid, all i wanted was to be like Static cuz i thought how cool he was

White guy here, Static Shock was my favorite cartoon growing up and I've wanted him to come back for a long time. This new version makes me so sad

Chad Boseman (rip) died on the birthday of Jack Kirby (resting in peace now that Marvel pays for & finally regard his legacy) I always found that kinda amazing

Race hustlers, professional victims two sides of the same coin first comment

Storm is one of the best charactors Marel has. She has been loved by everybody for years.

I grew up watching the Static Shock tv show, and I loved it. Static was cool and funny, and the show tackled some very heavy subjects; people who struggle with dyslexia, school shootings and how they can start, and yes, even racism. But seeing what DC comics is doing to the character now is just saddening....

When they say "...With a focus on Africa before slavery." Do they mean the East African slave trade or the Trans Atlantic slave trade? Before Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire? I mean of course they are well aware that Slavery was around in West and Central Africa LONG before any Europeans stepped foot in there..

man that sucks, Static is one of my favorites. I was hyped to see in Young Justice, hoped for a solid resurgence... and the wokemon trainers how to up and ruin him. a damn shame man, a damn shame.

"...with a focus on Africa before slavery." So, it is settled in the Jurassic period, then.

Two words: John Stewart; Green Lantern.

Very fitting that I’m more educated about social relevancy from JSG then bias social media garbage

When I was a small kid, I watched the Batman series and cartoons. I wanted to become him, not because Batman was white or rich. Just because he is the Batman. I am Asian, anyway. Whoever try to peddle that comic writers and characters are racists are not really fans. They are here just to sow chaos and see the world on fire. Despicable af.

What have they done to Static? Look how they've massacred my boy.

*“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but there will always be things to offend a wokian”*

Aparently everything was racist in the past and i never noticed. I am from South America and most people here were fan of Spiderman, Goku, Yusuke Urameshi, Power Rangers and Static Shock (here he was called Super Shock), most people here did not care where they came from. The only color we care about who would be the red ranger when we were playing (well, before Tommy show up and everybody wanted to be the green ranger).

Reinventing, making worse, it's such a fine line.

I'm salute you JSG for reading this. I know you had to read the article at least once or twice before recording the video, and frankly, that seems like a damn chore. Personally, I probably would have gotten a headache from my palms hitting my face and my head shaking so much. Kudos to you my good sir!

"Stop listening to race hustlers, they know not of what they speak." - Just Some Guy

To quote Bart Simpson: "Birds won't even use this in their NESTS!"

I admit most of my superhero experience comes from cartoons rather than comics, and I'm sure the nostalgia glasses are strong, but Static Shock was one of my favorite shows. Now they've turned one of my favorite characters into someone that would hate me, WTF?

I'm so disappointed with the new vergal, he was one of my most favorite heros growing up. I Read the older comics and watched the show, I'm irish/german so I'm as white as can be, doesn't mean I couldn't relate to him.

On one hand, yes in the early 40's during WWII and some other occasions, there actually was some unapologetically racist imagery/propaganda pertaining primarily to Batman, Superman, and Captain America. On the other hand, comics are arguably one of the most liberal forms of entertainment media. X-Men are an obvious example with the mutants being a pseudo-allegory for civil rights with the X-Men and Brotherhood acting as the different sides of the civil rights spectrum as moderates and extremists respectively. Grant Morrison's incredible run on Animal Man had themes of veganism and animal rights before it was cool or mainstream. Many non-white characters like Cyborg, Bronze Tiger, Katana, Renee Montoya, Cassandra Cain, John Stewart, Black Adam, Ra's Al Ghul, etc. (Can you tell I'm a DC fanboy yet?) weren't solely defined on the basis of race but were developed into fan-favorites that had legitimate humanity and depth to them. Comics are, have been, and always will be a very progressive medium, but the state it's in now is ridiculous, where race is somehow the only defining factor of a character rather than who they are (with a few notable exceptions like the recently introduced Tim Fox and Yara Flor from Future State, who I actually really liked). Compare that to now with Ironheart, who's only somewhat redeeming factor is the fact she's a black woman and nothing else, cause Brian Michael Bendis is overrated as shit. Modern woke comics are just making new skin colors of already existing characters, defining and dehumanizing them solely on that basis. They are not adding anything of legitimate importance and have made it clear they don't care about people of color, they just care about the color. If that isn't racist, I dunno what is.

"Ta-Nehisi Goebbels", LMAO! I had to rewind to be sure I heard that right. Savage!

If they were, trust me you'll know. Most comic & manga aren't subtle(especially old comic has much more narration & internal monologue)

As YoungrRippa59 said, the reason the iconic characters are timeless isn't because they're white, because people threw better writers at them to be as creative as possible so they endured since they didn't feel like they had to put pet writers or stories around them to tell stories from a single experience. If people focus on writing the best stories they can, people will identify with characters regardless of their gender or ethnic background. Spiderman for example is relateable because he's an everyman, not because he's white. Quality art transcends any group of people. I've identified with an alien robot that transforms into a truck. I've seen the world through the eyes of a female bounty hunter to kills live sucking parasites and uses a alien space suit that morphs into a ball. As an eldest son, I identified with the plight of an african warrior king who had to pick up the pieces of his family after his father died. I'm none of those things, but I see myself with in the hero with a 1000 faces.

"Tales from Africa before slavery" so tales from Africa before humans existed? Or were the slave economies of places like Egypt, Nubia, Swahili Coast, Dahomey, and Kongo okay because the slaves weren't being sold to whitey? Also how dare this guy ruin the perfect quality record of "anime about black people" set by Afro Samurai and The Boondocks.

"Africa before slavery"? how many hundreds of thousands of years back do you need to go?

*sigh* its articles like these that makes me miss guys like Dwayne McDuffy who wrote great characters who just happened to be black, characters that appealed to everyone. And yeah, I loved Milestone but they got real racist really quick. Icon had potential and so did Blood Syndicate but they just devolved. Static was the only one that stuck to its guns. And thank you for bringing up the Morlocks!!! Geez!!

4:42 FINALLY!!!! A comic about a woman’s relationship with her hair!! What took the comic book industry so long to finally get to the riveting stories the audience has been craving?

Sad to see what’s happened to Static. I was as unlike him as possible but I still though of him as my favorite hero back in the 2000s.

So there's no representation in comics? Funny, I remember back in the 90's that Milestone comics was a thing. You know the creators of Static Shock.

Didn't Superman fight the kkk?

"Lots of comics were racist." Static Shock, Steel, John Stewart, Vixen, Cyborg, Falcon, Black Panther, Luke Cage, BLADE? Are they a joke to these people? Also at 4:24, I was trying so hard not to laugh. So God damn you, JSG. XD It bears repeating again: we, as black people, are our own worst enemies. And articles like this just proves my point even more.

When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby co-created Black Panther they created a character that would pass the test of time. Today's black creators are to hung up on race issues and less on the story and characters they create.

Every time I see these articles I think 'do they even know that Spawn is black?" Probably not because it wasn't integral to his character like so many of the other ones they bring up. He was a cultural Icon for a while back in the 90s, not a stereotype, fuckin' awesome. Every boy my age thought Spawn was great and wanted to be him when we were playing with action figures