Affirmative Action Comics Quiz

By Michael Condon

1. And you think you've got problems. Which superbeing is comatose when he powers down?

A. Captain Marvel Junior.
B. Black Crow.
C. Firestorm.
D. Black Racer.

2. The American Indians who lived on Starhaven in the pre-zero hour 30th century shared what special feature?

A. They all had wings.
B. They all had a super tracking ability.
C. They all could increase their size.
D. They all could increase the masses of objects through drawing upon stellar matter.

3. The creator of Wonder Woman had a significant non-comics related achievement that he translated into the Wonder Woman mythos. What was it?

A. A twelve-volume encyclopedia of mythology, hence all the references to Greek Mythology.
B. The bulletproof vest, hence the bulletproof bracelets.
C. A means of camouflaging allied planes during World War II, hence the invisible plane.
D. The lie detector, hence the lasso of truth.

4. Which polio sufferer proved he was combat ready for World War II by breaking into the Pentagon, and invading the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

A. Jackie Johnson.
B. Gravedigger.
C. Bronze Tiger.
D. Steve Rodgers.

5. How did Victor Stone get so badly injured as to need to become a cyborg?

A. In his final outing as the Teen Titan Guardian, he was severely beaten and left for dead by the street gang Hell's Honkies.
B. In his final outing as the Teen Titan Hornblower, he was severely injured when his Horn of Wonder shattered in a battle with Sonar.
C. A being from another dimension tried to eat him.
D. A container of molecular acid that he was carrying while working as a S.T.A.R. labs technician broke while he was carrying it.

6. Why was the new Batgirl mute in her first appearances?

A. Her vocal chords were slit by an enemy of her father's in a hostage situation gone wrong.
B. She was traumatized by discovering that her beloved father was a world class assassin.
C. Her martial arts training was so intense that the portion of her brain devoted to speech was filled with martial arts knowledge.
D. Her martial arts discipline includes a vow of silence.

7. So if Dr. Midnight, Golden Age version, is blind, how come he got to run around and sock fifth columnists in the jaw?

8. What is the post Crisis Black Manta's motivation for becoming a villain?

A. He wants to start a homeland under the sea for people of African descent.
B. He was forced into slavery on a boat as a boy. He saw the young Arthur swim by, but the future king of the sea didn't save him.
C. He and Aquaman share the same father. Aquaman wound up being the king of the sea, he wound up growing up in poverty.
D. Aquaman ruined his dolphin unsafe fishing business.

9. Why was Tyroc suspicious of the Legion of Superheroes' racial makeup?

A. His home island of Marzal was settled by the survivors of a wrecked slave ship and since the island is usually not located in Earth 1's dimension, the Marzallians did not learn about the social progress made on earth over the centuries.
B. He didn't have a problem with the skin color of the Legionairres, but their body temperature. He came from a planet where those people with a body temperature of 98.6 degrees dominated those who naturally had a slightly different temperature irrespective of their skin color. All Marzallians had developed the ability to detect body temperature.
C. Tharok's clone, the Dark Man, convinced Tyroc that the Legion was made up of dangerous racists.
D. He thought that it was ridiculous that given the racial diversity of the meta-human population of the United Planets, that the only humans on the team were Caucasian. By the way, two of the meta-humans he mentioned in his introductory issue were prototypes for Kid Quantum and Blast Off.

10 Which two characters were Olympic athletes?

A. Amazing Man (1936) and Black Lightning (originally the 1976 Olympics, now sometime before he started teaching and his superhero career).
B. Wonder Woman, Hippolyta not Diana, (several Olympics in ancient Greece) and Mr. Terrific II (sometime before he started his super hero career).
C. John Stewart (After he became an alternate Green Lantern but before the events of Mosaic.) and Catwoman (Sometime during her criminal career. She was undercover as a gymnast in the Markovian Olympics in an attempt to steal the crown jewels).
D. Mal Duncan (after he retired from crime fighting) and Liberty Belle (1948).

Answers.

1. D. Black Racer. The Black Crow is a Native American Marvel character who first gained his powers while comatose, and who is paralyzed from the waist down when not in his super identity.

2. A. While Dawnstar had a super-tracking ability, she was the only member of her community of winged Native Americans who had it. Apache Chief, a member of TV's Superfriends, had the ability to increase his size, while Star Boy, not Star Havenites had the ability to increase the masses of objects.

3. D.

4. B. The problem wasn't that he suffered from polio but that he was an African American and during World War II African American were kept out of combat positions and instead worked in support positions such as grave digging. Jackie Johnson was an African American member of Sgt. Rock's Easy Company. Steve Rodgers is Marvel's Captain America's real name.

5. C. Mal Duncan was an African American member of the original Teen Titans. His identities included the Guardian, he had the same costume as the Metropolis hero of the same name, and Hornblower. He was terrorized by the gang Hell's Honkies as a child. The Legion villain Tharok had an accident with a container of molecular acid.

6. C. I don't really follow the Bat titles, but I think she's gotten more talkative since No Man's Land. Jericho was the one who had his throat slit in a hostage situation gone wrong.

7. A. The Marvel hero Daredevil has a radar sense. Verigo's, Mr. E. is blind but can see evil.

8. B. A is the motivation for the pre-Crisis Black Manta. Ocean Master is Aquaman's Inuit half brother.

9. A. The Dark Man brainwashed the members of the Legion of Assassins, including a later repentant Blok, into holding the Legion responsible for the destruction of their home planet.

10 . A.