The 100: Brother Voodoo

Brother Voodoo debuted in 1973 and emerged at a time when Marvel Comic was expanding the line with black and women characters. While the pressure of the Civil Rights Era politics played a part, it is also true that the explosion of urban based genre entertainment that leverage inner city audiences also played an important part. Any narrative about the birth of characters like Brother Voodoo reflects editorial activism. The official narrative about the character audience credits a number of people including Stan Lee, Len Wein, John Romita Sr. and Gene Colan. Regardless of the originator of the idea, the inspiration was clearly drawing on the popularity of horror films. Blade, another now inconic black character debuted in Tomb of Dracula and the success of Hammer Horror Films in the decade gave Marvel a clear benchmark to image characters. Brother Voodoo built on an established fascination about Voodoo or more precise Vodun, a West African religious tradition that made it way to the Caribbean and North America via slavery. As is always the case in popular culture depiction, the elements of the story build on the popular mythologies. This is something I need to carefully dissect as I think about the 100 Greatest Black Comic Book characters.