Chris Ofili

In our last lecture we were introduced to Chris Ofili. the piece I would like to look at was titled Captain Shit, and the legend of the black stars.

Chris Ofili did this piece due to his interest in Marvel and D.C comics, and their lack of black characters and superheroes. This was his interpretation of the racist outlook and what a black superhero might look like through the eyes of comics.

Remembering this piece was done in 1994, while there is many more white superheroes than black, there was still many black heroes. For example; Black Panther, Power-man, Storm, Falcon, War machine, Cyborg, John Stewart (a Green Lantern,) Blade even Nick Fury was reinvented as a Samuel L Jackson lookalike in The Ultimates.

Since 1994, Blade was one of the first Marvel trilogies, Storm has appeared in the X-men trilogy, James Rhodes played a big part in the Iron Man franchise, Hancock (straight to film superhero) was released, Nick Fury was cast in nearly every Marvel Studios Production Falcon will appear in Captain America 2: the Winter Solider, and even white characters have been portrayed by black people, including the Kingpin, Daredevil, (2003), Heimdall,Thor, (2011,) Catwoman, (2004,) Electro, The Amazing Spiderman 2, (2014,) and The Human Torch has just been cast as Micheal B. Jordan in Fox's reboot of the Fantastic Four, set to release in 2015. There is also talks at Marvel for a Black Panther movie.

This I think proves that not only are black superheroes more popular than ever, but that any unfair racial percentages of black characters to white are none existant.

Unfortunately, actor Micheal Clarke Duncan passed away in September 2012 but I feel, even though he was white in the comics, he would have portrayed one of my favourite Marvel heroes Ben Grimm (The Thing) perfectly. He had the right build, the perfect voice, and was a brilliant actor. and even though he didn't have Ben's famous blue eyes, this would have been more than acceptable loss for such a perfect actor to play him. In my opinion he should have been cast in Tim Story's 2005 Fantastic Four.

But would there have been uproar if the only black member of the team was played the visually monstrous character? Or is it more racist to have not cast him even though his acting skills would be perfect for the role? I find this subject sometimes to far looked in to, and would have loved to see one of my favourite actors play one of my favourite superheroes, not because of race, but because of talent.

The Thing Image by 'The Chindian' - Thaddeus Maharaj.