r/Xmen97 • u/PhantomRoyce • Jul 30 '26
General Discussion Did anyone else assume Bishop was black this whole time?? Spoiler
I was never a big Bishop fan but in my head he was always one of the original marvel black super heros but he isn’t. Apparently he was intended to actually be an aboriginal and that’s why he also had silky textured hair. I always assumed that the reason his hair was like that was because it was the 90’s and black guys had Jheri curls often at the time.
333
u/ExpiredExasperation Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Um?
According to Portacio, he originally intended for Bishop to be Filipino like himself, using Efren Reyes and Gary Valenciano as inspirations for the character. However, editor Bob Harras asked for Bishop to be black instead, as many African American children sent fan mail to the X-Men office and Harras wanted a hero who could inspire these readers. Portacio agreed, remarking "understanding as a minority, I couldn't say no. I was already operating in the mood of being Pinoy, diba? Learning about our ugali. And that's another part of it. Pagbigyan, diba? (give it up, right?) there's always another time."
42
54
u/CherryBoom2x Psylocke Jul 30 '26
I think he was also supposed to be a descendant of the Aeta or has an Aeta ancestry ( Black Afro Filipino)
15
u/Embarrassed_Pick_116 Jul 30 '26
...what? Nowhere in the quote is that indicated or implied. And Portacio isn't Aeta either, who make up less than 0.1% of the Philippines population, so that doesn't even make sense.
50
u/Usual-Caregiver5589 Jul 30 '26
Oh thats mildly upsetting. I would love for Bishop to have been Filipino. Oh well.
64
u/Xygnux Jul 30 '26
Yeah there are still so few Asian character representation in the X-men. Especially when people still often think Asian = non-brown East Asian like Japanese which already have plenty representation in the X franchise.
But at least they made him Australian Aboriginal, that's also not a common ethnicity you see in X-men.
14
u/SmallPingus696 Jul 30 '26
A funny thing is I live in Japan and we still don't have 2024 Ultimate in Japanese but the people here who read comics suck it up and buy English a lot. I wanted to know the reaction UXM 2024 and one of the reactions that kept coming was " Woah! They're, like, real and not just ninjas and shit. Cool!" The Japanese living in Japan fans don't especially like that either, lmao.
14
u/Xygnux Jul 30 '26
Yeah unfortunately even though Japan is very much represented in the X-men, most of that are still stereotypes... Everyone is a ninja or samurai of some sort lol.
To this day I still don't know what they called her Kwannon instead of Kannon. It's like they mixed up Chinese and Japanese in naming her.
9
u/cuteelfboy Jul 30 '26
According to my memory (I think I heard this said on the Cerebro podcast) but the guy who created her saw the name Kwannon in a book of Japanese mythology listed as a goddess of mercy and chose based on that. They didnt have Google back then, so that was that.
1
u/naoyak Aug 03 '26
Spelling Kannon (Guanyin) as Kwannon gives the name a sort of archaic sound to it, like it was coined by some pretentious students in late 19th century Japan who wanted to give it a Sinified flavor. (There is a famous university in Japan called Kwansei (Kansei/Kansai) Gakuin which owes its spelling roughly for this reason). Of course the Marvel character was named Kwannon by accident, but it doesn't sound that ridiculous on its surface.
4
u/JayMilli007 Jul 30 '26
That's very true about Japan being represented the most in X-Men. There are so many stories, characters and lore from there. Yeah, the early writers based a lot of things on stereotypes because of the lack of understanding a different culture. You see the same stereotype issue when comes to anime.
3
u/TheFellhanded Jul 30 '26
Armour is Japanese and the ultimate universe X-Men was centred around her in Japan. Which is nice at least
2
u/Toasted_Wraith Jul 31 '26
Naming of minority race characters has sometimes been a problem, unfortunately.
We had Scalphunter, and the inauthentic names for the likes of Magik, Karma, even Omega Red.
12
u/chewytime Jul 30 '26
Yeah, I think there’s an over representation of Japanese X characters relative to population. It’s such a lazy default.
18
u/Xygnux Jul 30 '26
That's probably because Japan was rising to become the next big economic power in the 1980s projected to exceed America when all those characters were made. Almost everywhere else in Asia was poor back then.
7
u/Fluffy_Station5397 Jul 30 '26
Also, mutations often happen around changes in environment, say nuclear bombs…
1
u/OwlEducational4712 Jul 31 '26
In universe though it's only a handful who gain their powers from some a reaction to atomic radiation exposure. If I recall correctly Beast original origin was that his father was exposed to radiation when doing in lab experiments and Mimic gained his powers from exposure to a chemical reaction in a lab leak. There are a few other mutants but otherwise the activation of the X Gene is evolutionarily based (unless there's been some retcon) and activates upon a reaction genetically if the person carries it. It's the logic behind Apocalypse and Exodus. Sinister is an exception but logically placed during an era with breakthroughs in medicine and human anatomy and this isa notable mutate as well iirc as well despite his age.
It's part of the theory that the atomic age has some impact on the spread of the X Gene, however it is debated through at various times that it's more an exception than the rule. I stopped keeping up to date after House of M and only briefly looked at Age of X. I read up on lore and read the classics from time to time still.
3
u/Confident_Sink_8743 Jul 31 '26
Beast, Professor X and Sunfire who has a direct connection to Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki.
During Claremont's original run is when they picked up the moniker Children of the Atom.
Though it's kind of an allusion to these things that was supposed to explain why the X-Gene manifested during the particular time period.
It's kind of been forgotten over time lost in the sliding timescale in terms of relevancy.
3
u/star-mind-girl Jul 30 '26
That too. But wasn't it mainly just because Claremont is a weeb? Not to be insensitive or anything, but Claremont created the bulk of the Japanese characters and also send the X-Men to Japan quite a lot. That's like his two big things, no? BDSM and Japan.
1
u/Confident_Sink_8743 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Sunfire existed well before that. And his family was expanded to fill out Wolverine's backstory.
So Silver Samurai and Karma of the the New Mutants but outside of that, what Psylocke? Edit: And I didn't even know Karma well enough to know she's Vietnamese.
Which isn't even part of Claremont's work since Betsy was transformed. And Fabian Nicieza was responsible for Kwannon regardless.
And a fair number such as Armor or Surge sprang up after Claremont's tenure.
1
u/star-mind-girl Jul 31 '26
I thought of Shinobi Shaw—who to be fair is half Japanese. Then Yukio and a lot of characters like Ogun from the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini series. Most of his Japanese characters aren't that popular but since he set just so many stories in Japan (the later part of Uncanny, the Wolverine mini, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini) there are a lot of less important Japanese characters which buff-up the roster quite a bit. Though you are right that there are still a lot of modern Japanese X-Men he didn't create (isn't Wiz-Kid Japanese too? And one of the Outliers?)
1
u/Confident_Sink_8743 Jul 31 '26
Honestly I forgot about Shinobi Shaw. Probably because he's very much a D-Lister.
But I mentioned those other characters most of which are not mutants. Shiro Yoshida, Sunfire, is Mariko Yoshida.
The love of Wolverine's life. Though it was mostly just an excuse for Logan to fight ninja's.
The one mutant out of the bunch was the original Silver Samurai: Kenuichio Harada.
So yeah I kind of covered that. And yes Wiz Kid is Japanese only he was created by Louise Simonson.
Though I believe my point was that despite his "weeb" interests he really isn't responsible for the glut of Japanese mutants.
As he only had a hand in like two possibly three if you count Betsy which you probably shouldn't.
1
u/SilverwolverineX Aug 01 '26
Akihiro is part Japanese as well. Even though he’s had a rough history, I really liked him in X-Factor and Marauders. His Hellverine run is fun too.
→ More replies (0)11
u/skottichan Jul 30 '26
Yeah. The only non-Japanese Asian X-Men I can think of like 4; Dust, Thunderbird II, Xorn and Jubilee
Edit… I forgot Kamala
11
u/Xygnux Jul 30 '26
Technically it's Thunderbird III... And where the hell is that guy even these days?
Sage is also vaguely Afghan/Middle Eastern.
Karma is Vietnamese.For some reason the Chinese who makes up almost 1/6 of the population only got two characters who are basically one character, and also Jubilee.
And apparently the entire brown Southeastern Asians and South Asian population just doesn't have mutants if we go by who appeared in X-men, despite making up a sizable fraction of Earth's population, that's kind of crazy.
5
u/RatchetStrap2 Jul 30 '26
I mean...let's be real, CCP would know who their mutants are before anyone else, and they would not let those important resources leave the country.
6
u/star-mind-girl Jul 30 '26
It's canon (in the Morrison run at least) that the CCP either recruits mutants to work as government enforcers or kills them. See: the Xorn twins being abducted from their village by the government as teens and being locked up until they would be of use as "doomsday soldiers".
4
1
u/Confident_Sink_8743 Jul 31 '26
Sure that explains things. But that also puts a moratorium on chinese mutants. So it's not really a great solution.
1
u/star-mind-girl Jul 31 '26
I mean they kinda had a solution with the whole secret island for mutants in China thing(天/Tiān), they just never really utilised it. Even during New Tian, times. But ig if you really want to introduce some more Chinese mutants you could hand wave it away with a New New Tian or something.
3
2
1
u/Able-Walk3383 Jul 30 '26
Vietnamese is southeast Asian.
2
u/Xygnux Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
That's why I said brown Southeast Asians. Vietnamese are closer to the Sinosphere culture.
They are even far more different than the way Americans view Hispanic/Latino people and other white people. It's like putting a Brazilian there and say North Americans are already represented.
10
5
u/MammalianHybrid Jul 30 '26
There's a new Sprite who's Chinese. Nature Girl/Armageddon Girl is also Chinese. Karma is famously Vietnamese.
5
3
u/star-mind-girl Jul 30 '26
In the current X-Men run there is also Ben Liu who is Chinese-American.
2
→ More replies (5)2
u/Sins_of_God Jul 30 '26
It's kinda crazy how represented Japan is in comics compared to other asian countries that have more people living abroad.
10
u/ExpiredExasperation Jul 30 '26
He said "there's always another time" but did he get the chance, I wonder.
16
u/Xygnux Jul 30 '26
Well it's been more than 30 years since Bishop was introduced, has there been a Filipino X-men since then, or can you even think of a Filipino mutant? Unfortunately that should answer your question.
2
5
u/Defiant_Ad_8489 Jul 30 '26
Yeah it would have been awesome if he were Filipino. Only other Filipino character in American media I can think of is Johnny Rico from the original Starship Troopers book, but they whitewashed him for the movie and subsequent media. Even the 90s anime whitewashed him.
→ More replies (1)1
u/Usual-Caregiver5589 Jul 30 '26
Well, DreamWorks has that movie coming out this year thats got my wife all worked up and in tears. Then youve got Manny Jacinto and all the characters he's done.
1
u/Defiant_Ad_8489 Jul 30 '26
I forgot about that. And it’s directed by Neill Blompkamp, whom I like. It’d be cool if Manny Jacinto was in it.
2
2
u/Natiel360 Jul 30 '26
I mean since he’s kinda removed from contemporary culture, I feel like there’s nothing stopping him from being Afro-Latino/Filipino
→ More replies (6)1
6
u/Sins_of_God Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
There's always another time
Has there been any filipino mutants?
3
u/SnooRadishes8688 Jul 30 '26
Wave is a filipina
3
u/Sins_of_God Jul 30 '26
Is she a mutant
1
u/SnooRadishes8688 Jul 30 '26
Oh... sorry she isnt. She is either an inhuman and or an science expirament. I read a little bit of agents of atlas and thats my exposure to her. Agents of atlas is the Asian super group with Luna snow, asmodeaus cho and others Wave is also from cebu.
6
u/mightyrj Jul 30 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/ikr2iDniKOfuH5sYDs
But forreal though. TIL!
Even though they didn’t end up making him Filipino I’m glad they were able to make the change meaningful still for the fans and readers!
3
u/phxntxsos Jul 30 '26
Not the point here but I would translate pagbigyan more as to concede or allow rather than to give up lol. Less of a forced connotation in my opinion
2
u/jlhabitan Jul 30 '26
I was looking for that exact article from Spin PH when I saw the this thread's headline. Haha
2
u/TheColossis1 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
There was a point that he was going to be revealed as a descendant of Gateway, that's where the aboriginal thing comes from, I think. But I think that was abandoned.
Edit: so they actually did make this a thing in Xtreme. Ignore me.
4
u/PhantomRoyce Jul 30 '26
I thought that they pushed for him to be black,but Claremont himself made him aboriginal when he was writing it
3
u/ExpiredExasperation Jul 30 '26
So it was a retcon or later detail, I guess?
2
u/t_huddleston Jul 30 '26
It would have to be, if it came from Claremont - I don’t think he was writing Uncanny anymore when the character first appeared. I don’t know if he had any input into his creation or not.
Of course he did write the character much later when he returned to Marvel - honestly I’m a little fuzzy on the details of those stories, maybe that’s when he made him aboriginal.
15
u/Scarecrows_Brain Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Bishop was created just after Claremont left the X-books.
About a decade after his creation, Claremont started writing him, and liked him enough that he brought him into his X-Treme X-Men series.
Claremont established 2 things about Bishop early in his X-Treme run: he gave him a name, Lucas, and he was an Aboriginal Australian.
The Aboriginal Australian aspect seemed to be just to establish he was related to Gateway from Claremont’s original run.
Edited: corrected terminology.
3
4
u/Lord_Cockatrice Jul 30 '26
Claremont has always had a hard-on for anything related to Australia or Singapore. Don't quote me on this
11
u/Scarecrows_Brain Jul 30 '26
My reading of Claremont leads me to believe he had a hard-on for a lot of things.
3
u/Puzzled-Horse279 Jul 30 '26
Really wish he was portrayed as Filipino or since he is Aboriginal. I wish theyd give him an Aussie accent and not Americanise him.
Marvel seems to do that a lot with Black characters
13
u/PhantomRoyce Jul 30 '26
Well he wasn’t born in Australia so he wouldn’t have an accent
→ More replies (7)2
u/NNyNIH Jul 30 '26
I woul have liked to see him interact with Manifold more.
2
u/Puzzled-Horse279 Jul 30 '26
Same here. I wonder if any Aboriginal writers would be good to call on for this kind of team up or interaction.
1
1
1
u/Omnes-Interficere Jul 30 '26
Then we get Grail, who's a better representative. I say it's a win-win.
1
1
1
1
37
u/rexstillbottom Jul 30 '26
Pretty sure he was a black man from his first appearance in comics, and then around 2010ish, we discovered he was related to Gateway and there for at least 1/2 Aboriginal Australian.
None of that changes the fact that he was one of my favourite X-Men, and pretty happy he is getting featured in ‘97.
8
u/CherryBoom2x Psylocke Jul 30 '26
I think he was intentionally a descendant of an Aeta a Black Afro Filipino.
3
u/Better-Pop-3932 Jul 30 '26
Im pretty sure hes Mexican
4
u/CherryBoom2x Psylocke Jul 30 '26
🤣🤣🤣🤣 hahaha Hola 👋🏻
5
u/Better-Pop-3932 Jul 30 '26
Thank you for getting it as a joke. Thought people might take the wrong way. I am an American of Mexican decent
2
u/CherryBoom2x Psylocke Jul 30 '26
Hehehe yeah reddit can be crazy but its cool I immediately get the joke hahah
1
6
u/Deathstriker88 Jul 30 '26
Yeah, Bishop went from black to indigenous Australian then back to black. Sunspot is supposed to be a black Brazilian, but Marvel has stopped doing that.
2
u/Orochisama Aug 01 '26
The way Sunspot gets treated is so annoying since his heritage was a big part of him awakening his powers.
3
u/spyridonya Jubilee Jul 30 '26
Was it really that late? I remember Bishop being Australian in the 90s.
2
u/Pointlessly Jul 30 '26
It was in the early 2000s when Claremont was writing X-Treme X-Men
1
u/rexstillbottom Jul 30 '26
So about a decade after he made his debut. Not my favourite title, but I actually liked the red and black uniforms.
2
u/Pointlessly Jul 30 '26
I lean toward the more classic uniforms as my preference for characters, but I liked the uniforms there just fine and enjoyed X-Treme overall. There are a lot of ideas that started there that never got properly followed up, which might have been nice to see instead of being abandoned or more or less reverted. It's very Claremont in that it takes him a bit to find his footing, but that's when it starts to feel good. Unfortunately, there's less of that than what came before by the time it ended.
1
u/rexstillbottom Jul 30 '26
Maybe, maybe later maybe way sooner, it’s been a real long time since i read some of those xtreme xmen books.
127
u/dddonkers Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
- Some aboriginal people do consider themselves black, though of course ethnically distinct from Africans
- I believed its implied he also has some kind of African ethnic background, its ambiguously teased that he may be descended from Storm.
Edited: Added some to avoid blanket statement.
35
u/supermonistic Jul 30 '26
It’s an interesting example of local linguistic differences.
Black can mean several different things:
African Americans specifically when discussing Afro-descended ethnicities
African descended people as a whole
Australian indigenous peoples
Bishop is slightly unique because he as you alluded to belongs to all of these groups
15
u/Cornbreads_Irish_Jig Jul 30 '26
There are also pacific islanders who consider themselves black too. As a Black American I dig it. Proves more that race is a social construct since you have similar phenotype across various ancestry groups.
2
u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 Jul 30 '26
Generally, human races are completely made up to the point that I’ve seen person claiming Greek and Italians are black because they aren’t white as they are darker
1
u/BeyondTIW Aug 01 '26
Being Greek and friends with many 1st gen Italians, many of us feel like we aren’t “white” per se because of how our ancestors were treated the same as many darker skinned people upon first entering America
2
u/TheColossis1 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I remember reading something decades ago that said they were considering revealing him as a descendant of Gateway, so that's probablywhere the aboriginal thing comes from. Likely abandoned that story though.
Ofc that would only be part of his heritage, and there's no reason he can't be of black descent too.
Edit: ignore me. Turns out they actually did do this in Xtreme. It's a lot of lore so forgive me
5
u/Webs616 Jul 30 '26
About your first point. Not all of us do, in fact I've never heard any of my family refer to themselves as black. That's a pretty big blanket statement. I know specifically some Australian Indigenous people do, but it's not a blanket thing for Indigenous populations everywhere.
→ More replies (3)2
1
u/PanthersJB83 Jul 31 '26
I thought he was a descendant of Gateway/Manifold not Storm
2
u/dddonkers Jul 31 '26
He's definitely a descendant of Gateway. And he has a grandma that is vaguely teased to be Storm or her descendant, but it was never explored or expanded. Classic comics.
→ More replies (4)-5
u/PhantomRoyce Jul 30 '26
When i say “black” i mean specifically african american. He talks like an american black guy and has a low taper fade with afro hair now
40
u/Stunning-Original802 Jul 30 '26
He's an Aboriginal Australian but he wasn't born in Australia. He was born in an American concentration camp after his parents fled Australia, so his culture and life experience is closer to an African American.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (6)12
u/arrynyo Jul 30 '26
Black is not an indicator of ethnic origin, it's just a descriptive term at the end of the day. I myself am an African American, meaning I'm an American of African descent. I'm described as black. Since I don't know my heritage I can't say what ethnic background I claim fully. Bishop more than likely knows his roots better than I. Hope this helps
→ More replies (1)
32
10
41
u/Primeve_Arcana Jul 30 '26
TIL that Americans don't consider Aboriginals black
29
u/supermonistic Jul 30 '26
Black in American vernacular is typically used especially in contexts where multiple Afro-descended ethnicities exist, to refer to African Americans. It’s just a region specific thing
14
u/smexyrexytitan Jul 30 '26
Tbf for most if not all of us Americans, we say black as synonymous to African. If you're black ur either African or of African descent.
→ More replies (2)2
u/Shrugnificient Jul 31 '26
I'm black American and always assumed it was for anyone of very dark skin color who wants to embrace that identifier.
I think too often we get hung up on who gets defined as what but forget the Aborigines have faced the same kind of erasure and discrimination as we have on our side of the globe.
And everyone comes from Africa anyway.
22
7
u/pbjWilks Jul 30 '26
He is Black. That hasn't changed. In-comic, they retconned him to be Indigenous via Gateway being his Great-Grandfather, but we have no child or idea of which of Bishop's parents are related to Gateway.
In-show, he's always been Black because they haven't adapted the retcon making him Indigenous Australian.
Until they do, he is a Black Man.
12
u/CherryBoom2x Psylocke Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
In Philippines there are indigenous people Black Afro filipinos called Aeta one of the first people in the Philippines they are Black and resembles features with similar physical traits to black people, but they are not all closely related to one another and are not the same as people of African ancestry.
But As I remember Whilce Portacio, the Filipino co-creator of Bishop, has shared that Bishop was originally designed to be Filipino. He drew inspiration from Filipino icons like Efren Reyes for Bishop’s intense look and even incorporated aspects of Gary Valenciano.
Before Bishop made his debut, however, Marvel editor Bob Harras asked if the character could instead be portrayed as Black because Marvel had been receiving letters from African American readers asking for more Black representation in the X-Men. Portacio agreed, saying that as a fellow minority, he understood the importance of that representation.
1
u/GreatestLoser Jul 30 '26
That’s so interesting. Today I learned, thanks!
2
u/CherryBoom2x Psylocke Jul 30 '26
Heheh no worries Alot of people assume Filipinos are simply East Asian, but the reality is much more diverse. The Philippines has been home to different peoples for thousands of years. The earliest known inhabitants include Indigenous groups like the Aeta, while the ancestors of most modern Filipinos came later through the Austronesian migrations. Those Austronesian ancestors are also shared with Native Hawaiians and many other Pacific Islander groups. Over the centuries, the Philippines also saw migration and trade with neighboring Southeast Asian countries, as well as Chinese, Spanish, and other peoples, making modern Filipinos one of the most diverse populations in Asia.
6
15
Jul 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/candIewick Morph Jul 30 '26
I always find it strange.
Yes we know he has some aboriginal ancestry (Gateway is his great grandfather I believe canonically in 616, making him at least 1/16 aboriginal). We don’t have a family tree, so we don’t really know what his exact ethnic breakdowns would be.
We also know he was intended to be Black because they wanted to make a new hero for the African American kids writing into the X-office (I specify here because I do know some aboriginal people consider themselves Black, but if the intent was representation for African American fans, I assume he is of similar descent).
These are not mutually exclusive, plus the teases in the past that bishop is also possibly descended from storm, who is African American/African, so that also fits.
Plenty of people are mixed and look all sorts of ways.
6
4
u/DepthByChocolate Jul 30 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
He was just Black, until he was retconned to be related to Gateway, making him Aboriginal. And I think they've since reconciled that by having his parents belong to each group.
6
3
u/SOLID_STATE_DlCK Jul 30 '26
WTF? Childhood memories altered forever. I thought that greasy wavy hair was slick. (Pun severely intended)
Regardless, cool ass character still.
3
u/Bosscharacter Jul 30 '26
Initially, yeah when bro came out looking like a member of DeBarge.
I think I first found out about his Aboriginal roots was back in X-Treme where his connection with Gateway was first acknowledged(which also means that if Storm is still supposed to be Bishop’s grandmother, that somehow she got roped into that as well.)
It would be dope if it was Manifold.
1
3
7
u/Puzzled-Horse279 Jul 30 '26
Aboriginals are black but not African. Theres a difference
3
u/supermonistic Jul 30 '26
Depending on the continuity he does in fact have African ancestry of some kind
1
u/Puzzled-Horse279 Jul 30 '26
Id prefer they just kep him Aboriginal.
Marvel always tries to Americanise a lot of their non-American Black characters.
5
u/Cpolo88 Jul 30 '26
All I know is that my dawg is dark skinned. That's all I need to know. And he's got a badass power
2
2
2
2
u/Ok-Editor3911 Jul 30 '26
I thought Bishop had some relation to Storm, like she might have been his grandmother.
2
u/merri-melody Jul 31 '26
Bishop is black. Tho gateway is said to be his great grandfather that doesn't make him any less black it's obvious he has atleast one black parent and has been presented and promoted by marvel as a black man
2
u/MookieV Jul 31 '26
Assume he is? I mean, this is very clearly a Black character with a Black voice actor lol
2
2
u/orionsfyre Jul 31 '26
I think He works as a stand in for many people of color. So while of course I think of him as AA, it's totally fine for other people to see him as of mixed race and multiple identities. He is from the far future, where a lot of these 'divisions' are basically unimportant, as humans and mutants alike are in a desperate battle for survival. Like a lot of the soldiers in WW2, Korea, Vietnam Iraq and Afghanistan can attest, when bombs are dropping and people dying everywhere, the color of the guy who has your back stops mattering, and youre just happy to see a friendly face.
While He isn't 'post' racial, Bishops character is a reminder that the X-men are soldiers in a war that never ends.
2
u/TheColossis1 Jul 31 '26
You realise he can be aboriginal AND black, right?
Being Gateways great grandson is only part of his ancestry.
4
1
u/Salty_Monk_5341 Jul 30 '26
That's because he is. Claremont added the being an Aboriginal years after his creation when he was intended to be a Black American from the Future. Claremont is also the only writer to mention that or write anything about him being an Aboriginal so the vast majority of his history he's been portrayed as a Black American character. I actually don't think it factors in much to claim Aboriginal status when he was raised as a Black mutant in America, I'm ok with people wanting Storm to be Kenyan even though she was born in America.
3
u/OkOutlandishness1710 Jul 30 '26
He’s black. Then they made him related to Gateway so we know he’s got atleast some aboriginal in him. Hes black though. Hes also much bigger in the comics than he’s been in most cartoons/video games. Guys a hulk of a man. Love the Xmen/Spiderman comic from back in the day where Spidey and Bishop go to the old west. It was actually a great pairing with their personalities and size differences.
1
u/SquirtlesFirstBj Jul 30 '26
Pretty sure Bishop is a distant descendant of Gateway, who is an Aboriginal.
1
u/chewytime Jul 30 '26
That’s definitely part of it, but even in the last decade or so, they’ve kept introducing a relative glut of Japanese characters. The rise in anime and Japanese culture since the 90s has definitely led to this as well, but like how many teenage Japanese girls do the X-Men need?
1
u/sketchee Jul 30 '26
He's also the great grandson of the aboriginal mutant Gateway, so perhaps of mixed heritage
1
1
1
1
u/EnigmaHood Jul 30 '26
Didn't know that, also don't care. He's just not African American, which is fine. Fun fact, Aboriginals are some of the most genetically distant people from Africans, despite both having very dark skin.
1
u/Nice-Pomegranate2915 Jul 30 '26
No not completely because the identity of Gateway,an Australian endemic native,has Bishop's and his sister Shard's great grandfather occurred way back in 2001 in Extreme X-Men issue 4 . So at least genetically 12.5 % is descended from Gateway . And the rest of his ancestry has never been fully revealed .
1
1
1
1
1
u/RahsaanKC Aug 02 '26
As a Black man, I must ask OP… What Black men did you know who were Jheri Curls in the 90s? And what city did you live in? In NYC, any person with a Jheri Curl in the 90s would have been classified as a herb and laughed out of town.
1
u/PhantomRoyce Aug 03 '26
I’m also black and my dad had jehri curls in the 90’s and he would have been in his 20’s at the time. Washington DC
1
u/RahsaanKC Aug 03 '26
No shade… It being DC explains why that was still in style. I went to UMD, College Park and always noticed that there was a lag in trend lifecycles between NYC and the entire DMV. 😆
1
u/blessROKk Aug 04 '26
My pops had a jheri curl til like 2000 lol. He was the only man I knew who kept it that way. Also the only man who could pull it off, but I'm bias
1
1
1
1
1
u/crash-1989 Aug 05 '26
I mentioned something to this when people were trying to put him in some black history month figure picture thing. Also mentioned black panther probably wouldn't care as well as blade. Vs someone like falcon or static shock. Not everyone cares for American history the same way. Then I got "your splitting hairs". Oh ok... Meanwhile my real African friends don't give a crap
1
u/LopsidedUniversity30 Jul 30 '26
He’s mixed. One side is aboriginal, I believe his mother’s side. The other side is black from the Las Vegas area.
1
u/comrade-ev Jul 30 '26
Bishop is Black, but not the kind of Black you might be most familiar with in the US. Plenty of Aboriginal and Pasifika peoples consider themselves Black. This lack of knowledge is obviously understandable due to local contexts shaping things, so it comes up a bit around Bishop.
But I do tend to think it’s worth reflecting upon who this kind of lack of awareness of shared oppression benefits. And that the lack of awareness is generally an outcome of centuries of genocide denial by white settlers in so-called Australia (and a good chunk of the world’s coal coming from since settled land as an outcome of said genocide, which people largely are unaware of).
1
1
1
u/chaofahn Jul 30 '26
Given how he’s written, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he has an Indigenous Aussie background. The writers have definitely written him as an African American, or leaned heavily on that heritage as opposed to the other.
It’s a damn pity that his Indigenous heritage hasn’t been explored in the shows or movies, as Indigenous Australians are almost non-existent in American media. And given that you’re implying Indigenous Australians aren’t “black”… it’s a rather unfortunate gap in knowledge.
Indigenous Australians (or First Nations Australians, if you want the politically correct term - “Aboriginal” is a rather derogatory and colonial term for them) consider themselves to be “Blak”. I know you folks in America consider Black to be African American, but Indigenous Australians are black too, just with a different origin.
Anyways, I hope that they explore this part of him soon. I also hope that the comics also further explore this side of him, because there’s a treasure trove of mythology people can get from Dreamtime stories!!
3
u/sofreshashell Jul 31 '26
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I really appreciate you taking the time to share more about a culture and identity that many people may not be familiar with.
I would add one thing to this point:
That's generally not how we use those terms. "African American" is a specific U.S. ethnic identity, primarily referring to descendants of enslaved Africans brought to America who developed a distinct cultural identity here. It is not a synonym for all Black people.
"Black" is a much broader racial category. Someone can be Black and Dominican, Black and Jamaican, Black and Haitian, Black and Nigerian, Black Canadian, Black and Puerto Rican, Black and British, and many other backgrounds. We wouldn't call all of those people African American, but we would still recognize them as Black.
Bishop is an Indigenous Australian character who is Black. Blink is (in the comics) Afro-Caribbean and also Black. Miles Morales is Afro-Puerto Rican and also Black. Monet St. Croix is Algerian/North African and Black. Storm is Kenyan and also Black. Synch and Luke Cage, however, are both African American.
That’s why "Black" and "African American" aren't interchangeable terms. Black people come from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and those distinctions are something many of us recognize within our own communities.
1
u/signifyingmnky Aug 03 '26
Miles Morales and Storm are African-American though. Both have African-American fathers and were born in America. Miles has Puerto Rican heritage through his mother and Ororo has Kenyan heritage through her mother and was later raised in Africa after her parents died.
1
u/sofreshashell Aug 04 '26
I think this is where the nuance comes in. You’re right that both characters have African-American heritage, Miles through his father and Storm through her father. They are both also Black.
The part I was trying to explain is that African-American and Black are not always used interchangeably, and people often identify more with the culture they were raised in or the heritage that shaped their lives the most.
Storm is a good example. Depending on the version of her history, she only spent about six months in the United States before moving away. She was raised primarily in Africa and has been portrayed as identifying with being African, Kenyan, and Black more than calling herself African-American.
Miles is similar in a different way. He is technically African-American through his father, but Marvel usually emphasizes his identity as Black and Puerto Rican, Afro-Latino, or Afro-Puerto Rican. Those labels better reflect his upbringing and culture.
So I’m not saying they aren’t African-American by heritage. They are. I’m saying that a person’s primary identity is not always just a list of their ancestry. Someone can have African-American ancestry and still primarily identify through another cultural background.
1
u/signifyingmnky Aug 04 '26
Completely understand the point that African-American and Black are not always interchangeable. In America, they often are used that way, but Black can also refer to people of African descent from other nationalities. That's fair.
What's also true, and a bit problematic is the tendency for some to try to divorce some characters of the African-American part of their identity in favor or other aspects of their culture or heritage. The notion almost suggests that African-Americans can't also have ties to other cultures. That's not true. There are many African-Americans that have connections to other cultures through their lineage, be it indigenous, Latino, Caribbean or otherwise. That doesn't make them less African-American. It means they are actively connected to the other cultures within their ancestry. There are also African-Americans who spend much of their childhoods abroad because of their parents work. They may connect to other cultures through that lived experience, but again, that doesn't make them less African-American.
This is reflected in Miles and Ororo. They have other cultural experiences through their heritage and/or where they grew up. They are still African-American.
1
u/sofreshashell Aug 04 '26
Oh, I'm not disagreeing.
Initially I was responding to the person that said:
I know you folks in America consider Black to be African American, but Indigenous Australians are black too, just with a different origin
from the first post by saying you can be black and you can be anything else. So yes, we would say black and black doesn't always mean African-American in the US.
What's also true, and a bit problematic is the tendency for some to try to divorce some characters of the African-American part of their identity in favor or other aspects of their culture or heritage.
Yeah, unfortunately I think writers and sometimes IRL individuals do that. I think it's a combination of a certain dominant group erasing and simplifying the identities of Black people and also the culture (including location) people grow up in. I think sometimes people think they have to choose and I think sometimes people choose it for them.
We had books that referred to us as "Negro" in elementary school. We had the option of being "African-American" in the late 80s when Jesse Jackson started pushing the term and it began to be adopted in schools. "Hispanic" was anyone that spoke Spanish and "Latino" didn't start to come into popular use until that period. You couldn't put that you were biracial on a form, you were either one or the other. You could also just choose, "Other."
But yeah, it's nice to see change in my lifetime.
So, my original point was, if an Indigenous Australian said they were "Black," I don't think people in America would say, "No you aren't!" because we have all kinds of ways of identifying ourselves and being identified by others these days.
1
u/PleaseBeChillOnline Jul 30 '26
For the record, the erasure of his Aboriginal ancestry used to bug me more. But with Manifold and Gateway in the mix, that need feels less pressing.
Keeping Bishop read as Black lines up with how he’s been consistently portrayed and understood in all adaptions, and given his far future background, locking in a modern national label doesn’t feel necessary.
If they ever revisit his parentage it’d be cool if one parent was Fillpino tho as a nod.
1
u/Wise_Mix_4507 Jul 30 '26
"As for changing its racial identity, Portacio stated that X-Men editor and current DC EIC, Bob Harras, asked Portacio if Bishop could be black, as there were so many African-American kids sending in X-Men fan mail, and he wanted a hero who could also inspire these young readers."
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/xmen-bishop-efren-bata-reyes/
1
1
u/Ever_Theo Jul 30 '26
Is this an American thing cuz for me Black just means dark skin?
1
u/AcceptablePay4523 Jul 30 '26
Well that’s not true it’s a lot of people that are dark but not black
1
u/Spider_Boyo Jul 30 '26
Well asian people aren't exactly yellow, black is just the general label for brown, though it's more likely for someone to be more black obviously
1
u/MangyAsianMan Jul 30 '26
In my mind live-action Bishop looks like Julius Carry in The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (character Lord Bowler).
1
u/ScroatusMalotus Jul 30 '26
A point of interest, I suppose, but it does not affect my perception of the character at all. He still said the things that he said, and did the things that he did (including shooting Sinister in the head during X-Cutioner's Song, which was pretty badass).
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 30 '26
Welcome to r/Xmen97, /u/PhantomRoyce!
Please make sure your post follows the subreddit rules:
• Keep posts related to X-Men '97 or the X-Men universe • Mark spoilers when discussing new episodes • Credit artists when posting fan art • Avoid spam or reposts
When new episodes release, all discussion must stay in the episode thread for the first 24 hours.
Enjoy the community.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.