New Crisis, The: Integrating Gotham City

Generations of youth grew up devouring Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman comic books. But until recent years, comic enthusiasts would have been hard-pressed to find a non-white superhero whose many adventures and caped crusades could occupy an entire Saturday afternoon. Racially diverse superheroes simply didn't exist.

Alex Simmons, an African American comic series writer, intends to change that. He has created a new character, Orpheus, the first African American superhero to work alongside Batman. Orpheus will debut in August in a five-part Batman comic book miniseries entitled "Batman: Orpheus Rising."

"In this series, a plot is unleashed on Gotham City involving different ethnic groups as well as the police," says Simmons, who lives in Bronx, NX "The mob activity is heightened and it brings the city to a boil and somebody really wants this to happen." Simmons is keeping that somebody a secret, along with the other details of the story.

"Orpheus is not just a face of color, he's an interesting guy and an inspirational character," says Michael Wright, a DC Comics associate editor. "His background propels him to want to do something positive. I believe people will be interested in his adventures." Orpheus joins one other minority superhero in the Batman series, Batgirl, who is part Asian.

These are heady times for Simmons, 48, who read comics everyday while growing up in the '60s. "It was the equivalent of a newspaper to me. I read the comic books because I enjoyed reading adventure - it allowed me to go places I didn't know existed."

Simmons has been spinning adventures since he was very young, engaging his neighbors in countless yarns and writing short stories since elementary school in New York City. "Anybody I could shackle to a chair, I made them listen to me," he says.

DC Comics approached Simmons last April, asking him to write the new twist to the Batman lore. The comic book company offered him the opportunity to pen the Orpheus sequence because its editors were intrigued by his long-running, self-pubfished Blackjack graphic novel and adventure series.

Simmons created the adventures of Blackjack comic series in 1984. In the 1930s tales, Blackjack is a handsome soldier of fortune in his late twenties who goes by the name Arron Day. A world traveler following in the footsteps of his father, Blackjack is forced to battle past hurts and the racial intolerance of the times. He's trained in various fighting styles and defeats many of his opponents both physically and intellectually.

Simmons' Blackjack graphic novel Blood & Honor is set in Tokyo, Japan, in 1935. The 96-page thriller draws on real historical events and enhances them with plenty of adventure. Blackjack has universal appeal. Simmons says he's a man of action and culture. The bigotry of that era is sidelined by his presence.

"He goes wherever the assignments take him, from New York to Japan, from Cuba to Cairo," explains Simmons, who says he also has written children's books, theatre productions and radio plays. "I didn't want a character that was in an urban environment or on the plantation. We have a wide diaspora of talent and history, and I try to relay that in my writings."

The history of Black superheroes in comic books is sparse. Not surprisingly, the few characters that did emerge through the years paralleled the social and political climates of the times. Marvel comics first African American superhero, Whitewash, a character drawn in full blackface, appeared in the 1940s. Two decades passed before Marvel introduced Black Panther, a martial arts-skilled physicist from Northern Africa who joins Captain America and the Avengers fighting crime in the United States. He first appeared in 1966, but 11 years passed before Black Panther got his own book.

The Blaxploitation era of the 1970s ushered in DC Comics' Black Lightning and Marvel's Luke Cage. In 1992, African American-owned Milestone Media began publishing Brotherman comics, featuring an African American title character.

Today, mainstream companies are capitalizing on the popularity of diverse characters and a number of Black superheroes have become widely successful. Storm, from the X-Men series, is a Black female who controls the weather. Image Comics' Spawn, a former CIA agent who was betrayed and killed by his own men, ends up in Hell and must make a deal with the devil in hope of returning to Earth to be reunited with his wife.

And now Opheus will soon join Batman in Gotham City.

"My goal has always been to bring information and knowledge to as many people as possible," Simmons says. "Today [in early April], when I handed in the last book in this Batman series, I felt really proud because I'd created someone with dimension. It felt like I'd made one huge, long, but rewarding journey."

Visit The Museum of Black Superheroes at www.blacksuperbero.com, for more information on the history of and current news about Black comic book characters.

Betsy Peoples is a Washington D.C. -based freelance writer