Three questions I had after reading Icon: A Hero's Welcome

1.) What's up with Icon's mask? It is a little mask; there are a few panels where they show him either taking it off or putting it back on, and it's a tiny, rather stylized domino mask that covers both of his eyes and stretches across the bridge of his nose. But when he puts it on, the middle of it completely disappears, and it simply looks like he's wearing eye make up, or little mask-patches over each eye. Is his mask made of some sort of alien material that makes the middle of it disappear? Does he knit his brows so intensely that part of his forehead completely covers the middle of the mask? Or does pencil artist M.D. Bright just never draw it as some part of the intentional, stylized exaggeration he brings to the work (like how Icon has a cape big enough to smother Spawn and Kelley Jones' Batman)?


2.) Is Reginald Hudlin's introduction as embarrassingly terrible as I think it is, or am I being too harsh in my assessment? If you haven't read the new-ish Icon trade (and I think you should all read it, if only to encourage DC to put out more trades of it for me to buy), here's a sample:

Some of you might sneer at attaching such importance to creating comic books (it shows a certain success for Milestone that you are reading this introduction, anyways), but for people who have suffered with "a dream deferred" for too long, having our collective fantasies delineated and distributed across the country is empowerment indeed.

But none of that would matter if the books were wack.

Fortunately, ICON is dope.

Ugh.

Also:

The whole thing is so exciting, I even considered quitting my day job to join Milestone. But then, I thought, how will I make the movie version if I quit directing?

3.) Here's a hard one: Is Icon black? When we first meet the being who will become Augustus Freeman/Icon, he's a blue-skinned alien. When he lands on Earth in the second half of the 19th century, he is transformed into a little black human baby.

He later explains that the lifepod worked to alter his DNA to "match that of a sentient native."

So, is Icon really black, or is he just a blue-skinned alien disguised as a black man? The fact that his disguise is based on altered DNA would seem to indicate that he is, for all intents and purposes, actually a genetic match to the woman who found him—and African-American slave in the American south of the 1860s—yet he seems to be functionally immortal (he's over 120 when we first meet him), and has all sorts of superheroes, so he's clearly not an exact DNA match of a human being.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Superman's not technically human at all, yet he's usually considered to be white based on the color of his skin, rather than his genetic make-up. Likewise, Icon's black based on the color of his skin...he identifies himself, and can be identified as, African-American, even if he didn't actually come from Africa, nor did his ancestors (Actually, I guess that makes both Superman and Icon Outer Space-Americans, huh?).

I was only curious about this at all due to the relative dearth of good black superhero comic book characters throughout the history of the medium. Icon's a great character—and Icon is a pretty great comic book—but I was wondering if he can technically be considered black or not, based on his origins, if he is indeed an answer to the question, "Where are all the great black superhero characters?"

I suppose if we consider alien Superman, Atlantean Aquaman and magical clay golem Wonder Woman white folks, than Icon is a black man. Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

Who is the new Black Panther? And who cares who she is?

If you read any Marvel comics in the singles format, you've probably seen ads like this:


There's at least one other one as well, asking, "Is Echo The New Black Panther?" and featuring the head of the minor Daredevil character who was in a few issues of New Avengers cut and pasted on top of the female BP figure there.

See, when Black Panther gets relaunched next month—during Black History month, naturally—he will be a she. At least for a while. There's nothing really all that unusual, or even noteworthy, about a superhero being temporarily replaced by another secret identity.

In fact, it happens to just about every hero at one point or another. In some cases, like Batman or Captain America, it seems to happen on some sort of cycle. Heck, this isn't even the first time someone other than T'Challa took up the Black Panther mantle.

What I find interesting about this particular ad campaign, however, is just how random it is.

"Is Echo the new Black Panther?"

Who? Oh, the woman who wore a padded man-suit to be Ronin for a while. No, of course not. Why would she be.

"Is Sue Storm the new Black Panther?"

Sue? No, of course not. Why would she be? She's not even in Marvel continuity until Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch finish their Fantastic Four run, is she?

"Is Monica Rambeau the new Black Panther?"

No. Jesus; are you pulling these names out of a hat?

It's probably unfair of me to say that no one cares simply because I don't care, but I honestly haven't heard anyone outside of these ads discussing who the new lady Black Panther could possibly be. Perhaps I just don't know anyone who reads Black Panther anymore, or read any bloggers who are excited about the next volume of the title, or don't hang around the right message boards anymore (although I do spend significant amounts of each day at Newsarama).

I haven't read Black Panther in a while, although I thought writer Reginald Hudlin turned out some really great scripts during the time I was reading it—the first story arc with John Romita Jr. art, the surprisingly readable "House of M" tie-in, the whole "Black Avengers" arc—but lost interest somewhere around the FF tie-ins, thanks to a combination of ever changing artists and the casual approach to continuity (i.e. the refusal to acknowledge its existence).

But as far back as then—last summer, according to the Grand Comic Book Database—Hudlin was writing scenes in which T'Challa's little sister was questioning her big brother's leadership ability, and her friends were urging her to usurp his throne/position. So every time I see one of these ads, after my first confusion as to why they exist at all or why they're choosing the names and heads they're choosing, I think of T'Challa's sister.

I suppose Marvel could throw a real curve ball and have it be B.P.'s wife Storm, but it strikes me as a really odd and ineffective campaign to drum up interest for a title and a storyline where that no one's much interested.

But of course I don't actually know anything about marketing. For all I know, each of these ads will end up being a different variant cover for Black Panther #1 and it will sell 115,000 units in the direct market.