Bookmarked this thread. This is a very good topic to bring up and I like everyone's input thus far.

@Twentyfive said:

First of all, I think this is another good opportunity to thank author Judd Winick for his stellar first arc of Batwing. I honestly do believe that it is in the same calibre of storytelling as the Batman series is, and maybe that's just me. His book also challenged an entire medium, which fails time and again to cater to a broader demographic by highlighting heroes that look like them. Batwing's first arc took place in Africa, and just that setting alone helped to provide an amount of emotion I hardly read in comics these days. If you look at all the problems on that continent, and sprinkle some superheroes in the mix, you will see that there are truly compelling stories that can be told with African/Black characters. I encourage anyone to pick it up, and see what I'm talking about.

Now....The problem with the comic industry is not that we don't have many black characters. I think that the main problem is that comic readers are afraid of embracing the characters because it is not what they're used to seeing. As a side effect of failure to gain the interest of readership, the books are canceled, and good characters like Static will remain in comic book hell. Also, the failure of black books can also be traced to a larger gripe I have with the comic book industry, and that is among the superhero subgenre, nobody wants the stories, and the characters to progress.

People will always expect Hal Jordan to be THE Green Lantern because that is who they are used to seeing, because again, the people don't want to see anyone but him. It is a perpetuating cycle that will end up destroying the validity of the industry. People don't want to see Cyborg elevate to the status of "Big 7" because they want the lineup they grew up with. The black Invincible enraged fans when he was first unveiled, If you go scouring around, you will see that these issues aren't mere coincidences, and they actually indeed transcend the race topic. Whenever there is a major change in comics, the readers go up in arms, and demand things go back to the way they were, and worse than that, the publishers conform to such stupid demands. The problem with that is that 50, 60 years from now, kids are going to be reading Green Lantern stories (new stories, may I add) about the Origin of Hal Jordan. People in the year 2070 will be reading again about how Peter Parker got bitten by a spider, and lost his girlfriend to the Green Goblin.

The people who hold down the comic industry are indeed the very people that the industry is catering to, and that must come to a stop. But judging by the comments I see on this and other websites, that may never happen.