I’ve always loved comics and superheroes. But I’ve also struggled to find a version of myself in that world. My brother was obsessed with Superman, and because I wanted to be just like my brother, I too loved Superman, with some reservations. Was I supposed to align myself with Lois Lane—someone who couldn’t even tell that Clark Kent was Superman because of his glasses?
In the early ’90s, Saturday morning cartoons introduced me to a new world of possibility. I loved X-Men, the animated series. It resonated with me for so many reasons. Here were these characters, completely flawed, discovering how they fit into the world with genetic mutations that gave them super powers.
The sense of wanting to be “normal,” but also having these incredible gifts became a metaphor for my own immigrant experience growing up in a very white and wealthy community. I wanted to be like everyone else, but I also just wanted to be me.
One thing remains true no matter how much time has passed: X-Men was created for anyone who ever felt like an outsider. The second I saw Storm, this powerful, beautiful superwoman, perfectly voiced by Alison Sealy Smith, I was enamored. Most importantly, she wasn’t white, but Black. She hailed from Wakanda, was the love interest of King T’Challa (a.k.a. the Black Panther) and became the first superhero I saw who looked even a little bit like me. After seeing very little BIPOC representation in live-action films, let alone animated entertainment, I finally had a character I could pretend to be.
Nearly 30 years later, the landscape of comic books and especially who can be a superhero has evolved. I’m still very much into comics. I frequent my local comic store (shout-out to Flying Colors in Concord), but now I take my eight-year-old niece with me. And she has a plethora of female-lead superhero comics to choose from, the most meaningful of which premiered the same year she was born—2014.
