Current Events > Marvel had Black Panther. DC had Black Bomber.

(+) Yeah! (+)

wonder why that never took off

But that's because, luckily, DC decided to offer The Black Bomber to comics writer Tony Isabella; they already had two completed scripts in hand, ready to begin production, and wanted Tony to take over with the third issue. He took one look at the stories DC was preparing to publish and, being sane, managed to talk them out of what would undoubtedly have been one of the biggest fiascoes in comics publishing history.

Here's Tony himself discussing this bizarre episode courtesy of official friend of the Vault Fred Hembeck and how it led to him instead creating the first black DC character to actually get his own title, Black Lightning:

"I will say that I created Black Lightning after convincing DC not to publish another "black" super-hero on which they had started work. The Black Bomber was a white bigot who, in times of stress, turned into a black super-hero. This was the result of chemical camouflage experiments he'd taken part in as a soldier in Vietnam. The object of these experiments was to allow our [white] troops to blend into the jungle.

In each of the two completed Black Bomber scripts, the white bigot risks his own life to save another person whom he can't see clearly (in one case, a baby in a stroller) and then reacts in racial slur disgust when he discovers that he risked his life to save a black person. He wasn't aware that he had two identities, but each identity had a girlfriend and the ladies were aware of the change. To add final insult, the Bomber's costume was little more than a glorified basketball uniform.

DC had wanted me to take over writing the book with the third issue. I convinced them to eat the two scripts and let me start over. To paraphrase my arguments...

"Do you REALLY want DC's first black super-hero to be a white bigot?"

Okay, he wasn't precisely their first black super-hero, but I made my point. The Black Bomber stories were deep-sixed and I went to work on my own creation."

The unbelievable concept behind The Black Bomber? In his civilian identity, he was a white racist bigot. However, he was also a Vietnam veteran, and during his time in the war he was exposed to an experimental Agent Orange-style gas designed to allow troops to blend in with natives. As a result, during times of stress, the vet would suddenly turn into a black superhero -- The Black Bomber! Even better, The Black Bomber's costume was a Harlem Globetrotter-esque basketball jersey. Essentially he was like Captain Marvel, only instead of Billy Batson saying "Shazam" to turn into the Big Cheese, it was Archie Bunker using the N-word to transform into Meadowlark Lemon. And to top it off, the white version had no memory of being black, while the Black Bomber didn't know he was a white guy either -- and both personalities had their own racially appropriate girlfriends!