In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.
Today, based on a suggestion from longtime reader Rob H., we look at the first Black Superman.
As you may or may not have heard, there are rumors that an upcoming Superman film by Ta-Nehisi Coates and JJ Abrams will feature a Black Superman. A couple of years ago, Michael B. Jordan noted that he was interested in playing Superman in a film and the Superman that he specifically was interested in was Calvin Ellis, the Superman of Earth-23.
Ellis made his first appearance in Final Crisis #7 (by Grant Morrison, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy and Tom Nguyen) as one of the Supermen collected to help the main Superman in his final battle against the villainous Monitor, Mandrakk. Morrison later featured Ellis in their Action Comics run, in a classic issue drawn by the brilliant Gene Ha...
Calvin Ellis played a major role in Multiversity, as well, and is set to get his own ongoing series soon.
A few years after Morrison introduced Ellis, Tom Taylor, Nicola Scott and Robson Rocha introduced Val-Zod, the successor of Superman in the Earth-2 universe after New 52...
Val-Zod often gets confused for Calvin Ellis when people are looking for images of Ellis for articles.
Okay, so those are the two most prominent Black Supermen at DC right now in the comics, but as Rob asked, who was the FIRST Black Superman?
The answer miiiiight be Animal Man #23 (by Grant Morrison, Chaz Truog and Doug Hazlewood). A lot of their work in Final Crisis was based on their earlier iconic work on Animal Man, specifically the classic take they had on Post-Crisis where Psycho-Pirate is the only person who remembers the various characters who were eliminated from continuity by the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. In Animal Man #23, Psycho-Pirate communicates with these characters, but in the process, Morrison also throws in other characters from the Multiverse who WEREN'T previously established, including a group of characters from a world that is presumably based on a sort of hippie deal, so one of the characters was Sunshine Superman...
He has the S on his chest and he's called Superman, but I dunno, I think Sunshine Superman counts as a different thing. If you want to count him, though, go ahead. I think that he is different enough, but I will allow it!
If you think Sunshine Superman does NOT count, let's move on to the definite answer, the Superman of Earth-D!
Earth-D appeared in an awesome one-shot by Marv Wolfman, Paul Ryan and Bob McLeod called Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1998. Legends of the DC Universe was an anthology series launched by Mike Carlin at the end of 1997 that took the same approach of Legends of the Dark Knight to the broader DC Universe (that is, stories set in different periods of DC continuity). I assume that this project, which came out exactly a year after the series launched, was considered too significant to just lump it in with the general series so it got its own oversized one-shot.
The story was either set during Crisis on Infinite Earths #4 or right between #4 and #5. It shows one of the worlds that was at risk of being destroyed by the villainous Anti-Monitor and anti-matter wave. Earth-D was very much like the "main" DC Earth, but with a twist that the heroes were a lot more multi-cultural than the normal DC Universe. Green Arrow was Native American, Flash was Asian, Wonder Woman and Atom both had dark skin tones and, of course, Superman and Supergirl were both Black.
Barry Allen was called into service from his retirement with Iris Allen in the future when he learned about the threat caused by Anti-Monitor and he traveled to the present to warn the other heroes and insead showed up on Earth-D where Barry met Tanaka Rei, the Flash of Earth-D, who had grown up reading comic books about Barry just like how Barry had grown up reading comic books about Jay Garrick. Barry is introduced to the heroes of the Justice Alliance of America, including the Black Superman (whose name is Kal-El, just like the main Superman)...
Later, Pariah and Lady Quark show up on the world to also warn about the impending destruction of the world and soon, the rest of the Justice League from Earth-One show up to help and Superman and Supergirl get to meet their Earth-D counterparts (who are married in this reality. It's somewhat vague on whether they are cousins. I thiiiiink they are not). Another fun interaction is when the Robin of Earth-D can't believe that his Earth-One equivalent, Dick Grayson, has given up on being Robin!
Soon, the Shadow Demons arrive on the planet to start wiping people out and Hawkman became the first Earth-D superhero to ever fall in battle. For a world that had not yet experienced death, they rallied well (a Brazillian jet pilot, Jose Hernandez, was selected as the new Green Lantern of Earth-D and he joined the others on his first day in action). However, things took another bad turn when the Earth-D Superman also fell in battle while trying to save others. The new Green Lantern and the Earth-D Robin also fell in batle.
Tanaka Rei and the other heroes helped to get a million people evacuated from the planet, but while the other heroes left to go continue he fight against the Anti-Monitor, the surviving members of the Justice Alliance remained and went down with their world, as it were. I believe Convergence brought Earth-D back years later!
Thanks for the suggestion, Rob!
If anyone else has a suggestion for/question about a notable comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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