by Samantha Blackmon ()
The beginning of the twenty-first century has seen race and race relations in the United States of America return to days of Freedom Riders, Jim Crow laws, and (figurative if not literal) cross burnings in the night. In 2016 we saw a response to these things come out of the pop culture genre. While one of these responses is specifically a game, Mafia III, the other comes to us from the Marvel comic universe via Luke Cage. I argue that while the super-/anti-heroes depicted in these narratives (Lincoln Clay and Luke Cage respectively) may not be the heroes that we are accustomed to seeing in video games or comics (they are Black, brash, and fighting for a community of people of color), they are the heroes that we need at this moment. Clay and Cage offer consumers of the media the opportunity to view Blackness critically through the lens of their bodies, their connections to the community, their families, and the women around them. Used as a foil for the men in these narratives, the women come to the fore and are seen in relief.
