Diversity in superhero comics is a good thing.  In a genre embarrassingly dominated by lantern-jawed white men and scantily clad babes, it's refreshing when writers and artists acknowledge that heroes can come from any race, gender, or nation.  However, this doesn't necessarily reflect a change in the people who write the comics, and often their efforts to create the characters made it appear that they had never actually spoken to any non-white person in their lives.  And so we wound up with ...

6 Vibe, the Hispanic Superhero

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

When it came time for DC Comics to bring the world a young Hispanic superhero, it came up with Vibe.  He started life in 1984 as Paco Ramone, a Detroit street kid with the power to generate vibrations from his hands, which is a skill that would actually be fairly useful in everyday life (think about it), but probably isn't as useful in fighting crime as, say, invincibility or flight.  But of course the real reason he joined the Justice League was to heroically play victim to every Latin stereotype the 1980s had to offer:



Actual dialogue: "Wha'chu think?" " Fresh, huh?" " VIBE." " That's chill." 

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Each panel is like a clinic in oneupsmanship put on by a group of white guys who have never met a Hispanic person and are basing all of their character knowledge on break-dancing videos and the movie Scarface. 



Mostly the former. 

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Despite Vibe's superhuman ability to create force vibrations, the attribute that gets the most attention is his power to wear Bret "The Hitman" Hart sunglasses with sleeveless T-shirts.