To those who have just joined the superhero nerd club, welcome. The world of meta humans, gods, and alien beings may seem milky white and you’re probably wondering if Black Panther is the only black superbeing.

Thankfully, this is not true. While you wait in eager anticipation for the premiere of the Black Panther film on the 18th of February, I have got a few black superheroes that you can get acquainted with.

Cyborg

Cyborg whose real name is Victor Stone was a high school football star before morphing into part man part computer following an accident involving  a portable supercomputer from Apokolips.

His mind is a quantum computer so he can “talk” to technology and read data from other types of computers, he can fly and his body is an armed metal suit.

When he is not fighting crime, Stone is still just a regular black teenager who loves pizza and has a complicated relationship with his father.

The Justice League member is soon to join the ranks of Batman and The Man of Steel who have their own live action films

The Cyborg film is scheduled for 2020.

Check out the trailer for the upcoming Justice League movie to see how dope Cyborg’s suit is.

Storm

You might know her from the old X-Men films on e.tv where Halle Berry played the silvery-white haired character. She is the O.G member of the X-Men and the wife of T’Challa aka Black Panther.

Ororo Storm Munroe is the daugther of a princess from Kenya. She was raised in Harlem and Cairo. Apart from being a member of the X-Men, Storm has also served with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four (superhero teams who form part of the Marvel universe).

The weather wielding legend is the epitome of #BlackGirlMagic.This is a woman that can hold her own against male heroes. Storm often uses the experience she gained during her pickpocketing days to get out of tricky situations. No one is more deserving of a solo movie than the white haired heroine so why haven’t we seen one, gods of the movie-making world?

Powers: She has the ability to control weather, she can fly.

Here is a video of all the moments where Storm annihilates her villains.

Green Lantern

You might have encountered a Green Lantern by the name of Hal Jordan from that Ryan Reynolds movie that flopped real bad in 2011. However, the witty fighter pilot is not the only Green Lantern from our planet. The other Green Lantern is… wait for it… a hunky black man.

He goes by the name John Stewart and was the first African American superhero to appear in the DC universe.

As a Lantern, Steward uses will power to create objects through his power ring. The ex US Marine can now materialise anything with his only limit being his imagination and how strong his will is.

The badass member of the Corps will be coming to your movie screens in 2020 for the Green Latern live action movie.

Here’s John Stewart saying the Green Lantern oath while the rest of the Justice League is left shook.

Kwezi

History was made in the South African comic world with the birth of Kwezi in 2014. The superhero story features black characters with the dopest powers who look like they can kick the ass of a few of your Marvel faves. His squad is made up of a Basotho warrior, a Zulu maiden and a Khoisan archer.

The Joburg native hero, Kwezi, discovers that he has powers and has to navigate being a young black man in the city while living with superhuman abilities. He, at first, seems more interested in using his new-found powers to attract girls and gain followers (the Twitter kind) but he realises that there is evil in the world that needs to be stopped. He also discovered that doing good is the key to gaining social media popularity.

You can read more on the website kwezicomics.co.za

Powers: He has superhuman strength and can fly.

These are but a few of the badass black heroes in the comic book world.  Honorary mentions include Static Shock, Falcon, Martian Manhunter and Pax Africa,  and if we expand to the “of colour” realm then you can check out Blue Beetle, Katana ,Tye Longshadow and Dani Moonstar.

We still have a long way to go to make sure that these legends become as well known as Superman or The Dark Knight.