BOOM! Studios brings you a black male meta-human who had a rough life at the war and the town with oppression in Dark Blood the graphic novel. 
Well, there is another comic that almost relates to an African American DC Superhero, Static Shock. However, this story takes place during and after World War II which is the day of the variance, when his mysterious powers awakened. It’s to cliché, to begin with, so I’ll treat this like any other DC Comic that I read in the past. This comic is written by Latoya Morgan and illustrated by Walt Barna and Moises Hidalgo. Latoya is an American writer and producer for TV Media such as some tv shows and she currently signed an overall deal with Warner Bros Television Group in 2020. She also has some other groups to support other writers who are seeking work, and debuted this graphic novel and released it in Fall 2021.
The front cover shows distinctive concept art of the main character with his eyes glowing around himself, the artist added the western Europe countries such as Germany, Italy, and so on while the lightning is spreading around the background. However what the artist illustrated can mean that this main character can be so menacing that he’s out there to kill someone, or so I thought because all of this is turning upside down for him.
The story starts when the main character Avery Aldridge is being followed by some stranger who happens to be a general from an army that the main character had served. But then the reunion went something wrong because he’s about to kill him over some racism or something, I mean this is the year 1955 on this comic just before African Americans are poised to make far-reaching demands to end racism, and this is before how Black Lives Matter truly matter to end racism and violence in 2020. Anyway, when that guy is about to shoot Avery, he snapped and used his strange powers to intimidate him. It’s more like telekinesis which he can levitate objects and stops a flying bullet. He got scared, ran off for help and he ran over a car which is some prick blaming Avery for killing him. Then the next few pages of this comic show a flashback of him fighting a war, but things got worse for him because he’s been treated as an enemy, but for what reason? I can’t say that this comic is dumb, but there is a lot of oppression coming from this comic that has some hate with the African Americans, but for Avery himself, it’s just another story to tell because of this variance that he went through over some war scars, especially the veins that is showing on Avery’s back.
During the daily routine, everyone around town treated Avery like shit, and this kind of abuse is just too much for him, right until a doctor treated his wound where he got slashed in the wrist by some kids when he was about to close the restaurant. The doctor examines his back and the scars on his back are bothering him a lot. But then the doctor gives him some vaccination with some strange miracle serum that can cure the nerve system, which is too random to think some strange medication would work on him. Not much later, Avery is being chased by the sheriff and his goons because he killed someone claiming that the driver ran over that stranger. So the police are going after him after he developed some powers just to threaten the doctor who gave the vaccine and the one who produced that kind of serum. It’s strange but this is becoming as serious as I thought it would be because Avery became a metahuman, like Static. After that he and his brother went away far away from town, however, Avery found himself in a church where he found him defending the priest and the other people inside the bus from oppression. And then he found himself in the church and that’s where he started to repent himself and become a better man.
The comic is very dynamic to know that a black man other than Virgil Hawkins became a metahuman. There are some ways where there are people who need protection. I wouldn’t think that this story goes with that much suffering with a single African American person at this time. I never liked discrimination between a person’s skin color and sex, which makes it very uncomfortable for people, but I don’t like people from the beginning. The art, I can’t tell how much have I witnessed, but what I’ve seen so far in the following scenes of the comic almost references that time when the white cop chokes a black man’s neck against his knee to death 2 years ago. But instead of that, the sheriff and his men are trying to kill a black man who just ran away from trouble, but then after that, some cop claimed that the main character died and informed his family about his demise. In the action scenes where the main character reflects the bullets, saving some people from danger. What didn’t disappoint me is where he fought the sheriff and the others outside of the laboratory. I can’t think of any other comic that faces discrimination, but it’s worth reading if you’re into some metahuman who faces so much oppression.
Newsdesk