The Beatles were one of it not the most influential and popular rock bands of all time. The Fab Four have often had various other individuals referred to as the “Fifth Beatle,” but Vivel J. Tiwary and Andrew C. Robinson’s hardcover biography, The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story from Dark Horse Comics, suggests the real Fifth Beatle was the band’s manager, Brian Epstein.
Review and maybe some SPOILERS after the cut.
Diversity in long-standing superhero comics is hard work. Most of the classic superheroes were white men because they were largely created by white men. There were a handful of white women in the mix, but minority representation among superheroes has often been rough if not outright painful in the way some creators set about creating a hero of color.
Sometimes the answer is to create a new version of the hero in question, a legacy character, that can be of another race and hope it goes over well. That can lead to successful characters, like Green Lantern John Stewart, or less successful ones, like the Marvel hero Battlestar, a black man set as a partner to U.S.Agent, himself a onetime Captain America. Battlestar initially went by the codename “Bucky” until someone realized that was actually a rather racist name and changed it to Battlestar.
But then there’s the curious case of Isaiah Bradley.
Continue reading Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #44: Isaiah Bradley
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