The History of Black Female Superheroes Is More Complicated Than You Probably Think

By Regine L. Sawyer via http://time.com

For decades, the appearance of black female characters in comics has been treated by observers as an anomaly; a rare occurrence that would grace the pages on a whim, particularly in leading roles, which were seemingly far and few in between. But in actuality, they have played a pivotal part in the narrative since the early days of Jackie Ormes’ Torchy Brown in ‘Dixie to Harlem’ comic strip in the late 1930s. Ormes, who was the the first African-American woman cartoonist to create a syndicated newspaper comic strip in the segregated press, produced work for over two decades with an entirely black cast with female leads. Over 30 years later, Jim Lawrence would create and write Friday Foster, the first comic strip to feature a black female lead character in the mainstream press. In 1975 it became the first comic book adaptation to the silver screen featuring an African-American woman as the lead — and what is arguably the first black-woman-led comic book movie, starring Pam Grier.

he time gap between “Torchy” and “Friday,” however, is indicative of the rate at which other black female comic book characters have broken into the mainstream. The appearance of black female actors …

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