All-Negro Comics and the Birth of Lion Man, the First African American Superhero

ABSTRACT:In 1947, Orrin C. Evans published the first and only issue of All-Negro Comics, a comic book created exclusively by black writers and artists and featuring black characters throughout. This essay contextualizes the book within the history of African American comics characters and details the ways in which its key character, Lion Man, is a pioneering black superhero—appearing decades prior to Marvel's Black Panther and The Falcon. In examining how All-Negro Comics offered readers a unique chance to see black identity represented in authentic ways, this essay exposes the ways in which the comics industry was home to systemic forms of discrimination that put a quick end to Evans' efforts at making comics.