Diana
Diana The Acrobat appeared in the carton version of the board game Dungeons & Dragons. She's 14 years old, is outspoken and confident, and has a magical javelin that she uses to pole vault her way out of sticky situations. Her father was an astronomer and her brother a trained pilot.
Kendra
Kendra Young was a Jamaican Slayer on Buffy. She has excellent strength, speed, reflexes and endurance, has the ability to heal quickly, and can also see the future in her dreams, and sense approaching vampires.Numbuh 5
Numbuh 5, aka Abagail Lincoln, appears on the cartoon Codename: Kids Next Door and is voiced by Cree Summer (does she do the voice of ALL young, black, female cartoon characters???? lol). She's French and Black, speaks in 3rd person, is second in command in the Kids Next Door, has a weakness for candy, sweets, and ice cream, and has an evil older sister - whose name happens to be Cree.The Yellow Ranger
Who DIDN'T love the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers???? It was definitely one of my favorite shows growing up, along with Wishbone (the dog that reenacted classic literature) and the X-Men Cartoon. Naturally, the Yellow and Pink Rangers were my favorite. The Yellow Ranger's real name was Aisha Campbell. She turned into the Sabertooth Tiger-bot when they morphed and when they became the Ninja Rangers, she was a Bear. Gotta love the Yellow Ranger!Valerie Brown
From the pictures above, you can tell that Valerie Brown probably wasn't exactly a SUPERHERO.... but she was a pretty awesome cartoon and comic strip character from Josie and the Pussycats. She performed backup in the band, played many instruments, and wrote most of the songs. She was also the one to get the girls out of most of their jams as she was a genius (a la Velma from Scooby Doo). Rosario Dawson played Valerie in the Josie and the Pussycats live action movie in 2001.Uhura
I have never ever EVER seen an episode of Star Trek, but I still love Uhura. The original Uhura was played by Nichelle Nichols and in the upcoming Star Trek Movie, a younger Uhura will be played by Zoe Saldana. The audience got to see Uhura go from a Luitenant all the way to a captain through the course of the show. Nichols wanted to leave after her first season, but was persuaded by Martin Luther King Jr himself to stay on. Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to fly in space, sited Uhura as an influence on her choice of profession.Deborah Teigel
Deborah Teigel appears in DC Comic's HITMAN. She was originally a straight-laced Gotham City cop, but falls in love with an amoral vigilante which causes her to reevaluate her positions. She basically acts for a foil for his character throughout the series, provides some good old fashioned relationship drama, and is the standard 'ride-or-die chick' (as was so well put on TORCHBEARERS, where I snagged this info lol).Fox
Fox appears in Mark Millar's Wanted - yes, the same Wanted as the movie starring Angelina Jolie as Fox (no Halle Berry????), Morgan Freeman, and James McAvoy. She is a cold-blooded, power-hungry, sex-crazed killing machine.... she's in the Fraternity. The comic contains very mature themes and I'm sure Fox's character is the source of most of them. Got to have a scapegoat, right??? lol All foolishness aside, her character is HOT!
As a matter of fact, the screenwriters of the WANTED movie described Fox as the "hottest black woman on the planet" - congrats.... ANGELINA JOLIE????? I won't even go there, because everybody knows what's wrong with this picture.
Amina Franklin
Amina Franklin is definitely not a hero, but she is a doctor. She has no powers and doesn't fight evil - she's not even a villain. She is related to a villain though - Grotesk, her brother, who's an enemy of Batman. To make matters worse, she dates Bruce Wayne for a time... the thing is, she has NO IDEA of either of their secret identities. Makes for a pretty good storyline because no one knows how much she knows or doesn't know.Arisa Hines
Arisa Hines appears in Dark Horse's Perhapanauts. She leads a team of special government agents and is a powerful telepath/psychic.Becka Monroe
Monroe??? As in Ororo Monroe aka Storm???? YUP! Becka Monroe is Storm's daughter! One of the reasons I love comics is because they are always dreaming up alternate universes and realities. In one of these realities, the X-Men have aged in real time and are approaching 50 and most have children. Their children are also X-Men, for the most part, are a part of a team called 'NEXT'. I don't know what her power is...... I'll keep digging though.Lightning
I profiled a character named THUNDER aka Arissa Pierce in one of my earlier volumes of Black Female Superheroes, not realizing that in the DC COMICS Universe, she had a younger sister named Lightning aka Jennifer Pierce (fitting, no? Thunder and Lightning?) Their father is Black Lightning. She doesn't yet have the ability to control her powers and often shocks people and shorts out any electrical appliance she touches. She can also shoot lightning bolts out of her palms.Some of my FAVORITE Black Female Superheroes are coming up in Volume 7, so stay tuned. There are about 5 more volumes left and the list keeps growing! To date, I've found 107 Black Female Superheroes and counting!
11 comments:
I've got the WANTED tpb, and loved it. It's a darn shame that they couldn't have gotten both Halle Berry and Eminem to star in the movie, since that's who the characters were based on.
But you could kind of look @ it as payback for Halle playing CATWOMAN. ^_^
I wouldn't have a problem with Angelina in the role, since I love her, too, if they had @ least stayed true to the theme of the comic. I hated they way they watered down Wesley and the Fraternity, basically making them "good guys." I didn't like it @ all.
I certainly hope you won't forget about the many lovely black female characters of DC's Milestone comics line. Originally an independent company that was associated with DC for distribution and other things, it went away for a while... but just came back as part of the DCU proper. Some character to look at:
Rocket: unwed teen mother with an alien power belt (she and her best friend have both used it to become Rocket.)
Technique: She uses a suit of powered battle armor.
Flashback: able to fly and move through time. (inspired the character of Time-Zone on the Static Shock cartoon)
Masquerade: shape-changing woman who uses her powers to hide as a male version of herself.
Iota: able to shrink and grow things (I'm not entirely sure if she's black or not, she's been portrayed both ways, but in her most recent appearance she was black.)
Iron Butterfly: Palestinian with the power to control metal.
Plus: can control her sister, who's an energy being.
Starlight: electromagnetic capabilities.
For -really- obscure, there was a comic called U.N. Force, which had several black female heroines. One was from South Africa, and was named Indigo. Others included Oba, Lotus, and Procyon. If I find these issues, I'll try to deliver more information.
In the comic book Captain Confederacy, one of the titular characters was a black woman. (Go figure!)
I almost forgot:
There is another Black Mariah, who appears in Fallen Angel. Her skin burns to the touch.
And THAT leads me to Juanita "J.J." Sachs of the team "Sachs and Violens"... she's a model turned vigilante who also appears in Fallen Angel.
that list is AMAZING!!!! thank you soooooo much!
I've spent the last hour researching these characters and getting pics of them.
I can't find much on the U.N. Force characters, but I REALLY appreciate the info.
if you can find any links on them, send them my way.
thanks again!
Great post. I thought I knew them all but you continue to surprise me. Keep them coming. You should put the follow widget on this blog so people can follow you.
I came over from "When Fangirls Attack" and I have just read the entire list! I'm so thrilled to read about all these characters, as I work at a comic shop; I'm going to have to let my boss know about this list to reference when he goes to schools to discuss comics!
As a jazz snob, I love that there's a fictional character named Abigail Lincoln. :) -- cleome45
AMAZING post! We're in the same Marvel fan group, and I just saw your announcement. I'm glad you're continuing to expand this series. I saw some of the earlier black female superheroes and was amazed that you found so many.
I also like the way comic series always include alternate universes.
Dr. Jemison later herself briefly played an officer on Star Trek, becoming the first real astronaut to appear on the show.
Also, some other ones you may want to add are the female characters from The Adventures of Captain Save-A-Hood and Peter Proper. (I saw this series at Comic Con 2008.) Thanks for uploading these characters. I'm overwhelmed with how many black characters I never even knew about.
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