A few weeks ago, I sent the following tweet:
I left it open-ended as not to restrict the potential answers. The purpose of the tweet was to see which Black superheroes people knew without looking them up. Here are the results:
| Superhero | Count |
|---|---|
| Black Panther | 17 |
| Storm | 16 |
| Luke Cage | 11 |
| Spider-Man | 10 |
| Static Shock | 9 |
| Falcon | 8 |
| Green Lantern | 7 |
| Nick Fury | 6 |
| War Machine | 6 |
| Bishop | 6 |
| Spawn | 6 |
| Cyborg | 5 |
| Mister Terrific | 4 |
| Black Lightning | 4 |
| Blade | 4 |
| Ironheart | 3 |
| Shuri | 3 |
| Misty Knight | 3 |
| Icon | 3 |
| Bloodwynd | 2 |
| Steel | 2 |
| Batwing | 2 |
| Catwoman | 2 |
| Monica Rambeau | 2 |
| Bumblebee | 2 |
| Martian Manhunter | 2 |
| Lightning | 2 |
| Thunder | 2 |
| Deadshot | 2 |
| Human Torch | 2 |
| Vixen | 2 |
| John Diggle | 2 |
| Okoye | 2 |
| Starfire | 2 |
| Black Vulcan | 1 |
| Jakeem Thunder | 1 |
| Rocket | 1 |
| The Herald | 1 |
| Forge | 1 |
| Superman (Val-Zod) | 1 |
| Apocalypse | 1 |
| Pixie | 1 |
| Rage | 1 |
| The Signal | 1 |
| Batman | 1 |
| Goliath | 1 |
| Amenadiel | 1 |
| Blue Marvel | 1 |
| Bat-son | 1 |
| M’Baku | 1 |
| Michonne | 1 |
| Hardware | 1 |
| Deathblow | 1 |
| Battalion | 1 |
| Killer Croc | 1 |
| Sister Night | 1 |
| Blood Syndicate* | 1 |
| Max (from Batman Beyond) | 1 |
| Bronze Tiger | 1 |
| Lunella Lafayette | 1 |
| Frozone | 1 |
| Domino | 1 |
| Butterfly | 1 |
| Valkyrie | 1 |
| Hancock | 1 |
| Victor Stone | 1 |
| Hawkgirl | 1 |
| Firestorm | 1 |
| Darwin | 1 |
| Amanda Waller | 1 |
| Dr Mid-Nite | 1 |
| Dr Manhattan | 1 |
| VooDoo | 1 |
| Cloak | 1 |
| W’Kabi | 1 |
| Heimdall | 1 |
| A-Train | 1 |
I will be updating this periodically if any new responses come in but, unsurprisingly, Black Panther came out on top (although he was neck-and-neck with Storm for most of the time).
For any of the pedants out there, some of these aren’t technically superheroes but I didn’t try to correct anyone because 1) my Black comic book knowledge is poor and 2) I wanted to see what people’s interpretation of Black superheroism was. Do you need to have superhuman powers to be a superhero? That’s a question for another day.