Eli Bradley/Patriot of the Young Avengers is a character that comes up fairly often when discussing the portrayal of race in comics.
Back in 2006, David Brothers posted about his problems relating to Young Avengers, specifically Eli Bradley:
Let’s run down the Young Avengers.
Iron Lad: Will one day grow up to be Kang the Conqueror, but is fighting his destiny.
Hawkeye: Was attacked in a park, so she trained and learned to be prepared for next time.
Stature: Inherited her father’s powers through exposure to Pym particles, became a hero with her new buddies.
Wiccan: Probably a son of Scarlet Witch and Vision. He almost gets beaten up by a bigoted jerk when he tries to help a kid from the same fate, but nearly kills the guy when his powers activate.
Hulkling: Used his shapeshifting powers to get by at first, but found the strength to be himself after visiting the wreckage of Avenger’s mansion. He learned not to hide himself.
Patriot: Used to get beat up a lot because he was weak, gets tempted into using Mutant Growth Hormone to get revenge, and finally uses it so that he can be a hero like his grandfather.
One of these things is not like the other.Eli was a coward. He was weak and his idea of overcoming his hardships was not, like the rest of the team, putting in that leg work and making yourself into a better person. It was to take the shortcut, get hopped up on MGH, and then lie about being a super-soldier to the people he called his friends. He’s just another failure. He’s 1970s Luke Cage, Ebony White, and Bishop. He’s Captain Marvel getting demoted and drummed out of the Avengers.
In a recent post regarding the portrayal of race in comics, Mad Thinker Scott posts his own perspective on the character controversy:
I do think that the characters created by well-meaning liberals might tend to be more boring if those writers try to remove anything that might be considered offensive from the character. For instance, there were people who were really bugged that Patriot was using mutant growth hormone to get his powers. I understand why people wouldn’t want the black character to be the one using drugs; however, I have to admit that that origin of his powers and the conflicts it created for his ethics (i.e. do the ends justify the means?) and his teammates (i.e. is our teammate a hero, a villain, an addict, or some combination of the three?) was inherently more interesting than what was assumed to be his origin (i.e. he inherited his powers.) In the area of gay characters, I think it’s kind of sad that so many gay readers are affronted by characters portraying what could be called “gay cultural influences” but are usually called “stereotypes.” There is this strange irony that many of us want more minority characters in comics are frequently the first to dismiss those minority characters as “tokens” and to find flaws in them so we don’t have to like them and can continue to complain about the injustices were are subjected to.
Notintheface responds to Mad Thinker Scott’s comment with his own perspective on the problem with Patriot:
Why did he have to regain his Super-Soldier powers in the next story arc? We could have seen Eli over several issues working to improve himself to compensate for the lack of powers. We could have seen him strive to become a great non-powered hero in the tradition of Batman or Nightwing or the original Hawkeye Clint Barton. Or even his fellow non-powered teammate, Kate. (Kate’s origin is not without its own problems, particularly the hackneyed rape-as-motivation angle.) Even if he eventually regained his powers, we could have watched him grow, whether in YOUNG AVENGERS or elsewhere.But that never happened.
And that’s the heart of the problem: Heinberg, and Marvel, went to great effort to tell us how Patriot was a great leader, with or without his powers.
But they never really showed us.
What do you think?
February 24th, 2008 at 12:39 am
The final arc of Young Avengers shows a powerless Patriot suiting up and trying to rescue his kidnapped friend. Later in the arc it has a powerless Patriot sacrificing himself to save Captain America.
While I agree they didn’t show why he was a great leader, but Heinberg did show us what made him a hero.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Captain America got his powers via a drug too. There have been accusations about him not being a good role model because he’s essentially a steroid user. Gruenwald did a whole storyline because of it.
Granted there are many differences between the two origins. Captain America was given the drug by the military, where as Patriot bought it off a dealer. I suppose one could ask if that *really* makes a difference ethically speaking. I do see how the drug dealer aspect can be viewed in a negative light considering black stereotypes.
But being a ‘great leader’ has more to do with your personality. Specifically maturity, intellect, decision making abilities, social skills and more. Physical ability (and origin story) comes in a distant 2nd to all that stuff and really shouldn’t be a issue. It can help earn some additional respect, but that’s it.
We can (and do) ask if somebody that’s taking an illegal drug to get an unnatural advantage is an ethically right thing to do. That answer is always no, and that’s the story they are telling with Patriot.
I agree the origin is not as respectable as say Batman, and yes it would be good if there were more black heroes with those types of origins. Assuming they can come up with an original one.
On the other hand Spider-Man’s has a “feet of clay” origin as well. He used his powers for fame and fortune, to show off and feed his ego. He didn’t care about anybody but himself and his adoptive parents. Shit happens and he learns this was bad behaviour. He would overcome his character flaws and become a respectable hero.
I don’t think we should assume anything negative on the creators part. There are all sorts of different ways of looking at it and it might not be a race issue.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Patriot is just a lame character. Not only is he lame, but he also goes the extra mile and reminds you of the black bucky from a few years back.
So he is a lame character that reminds you of another lame character.
Hopefully when the next big crossover comes Marvel can just kill him.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am
The quote from Notintheface really cuts to the heart of why Patriot is so controversial.
In retrospect, I wonder is Patriot getting his powers from his grandfather, the Black Captain America, was a knee jerk decision by Marvel and Heinberg to quell accusation that the character had been reduced to a Black junkie stereotype. But, the change is so abrupt that we never see Patriot learn from his major setback (i.e., taking MGH) and becoming a better person and leader.
This approach can work. A great example is Storm who became a MUCH cooler character in my eyes as a kid when she proved worthy of leading the X-Men after beating Cyclops despite having no powers at the time. Without preaching, Chris Claremont made clear that Storm’s smarts, courage, charisma, drive and compassion were the real reasons she should be leader not her mutant powers.
If Heinberg and Marvel had been just as brave, Patriot’s gradual maturation would have earned comic fans’ respect.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Nah, there’s enough in the first few issues to show Patriot making all the calls (subject to Kate bickering) and generally fulfilling the leadership role. Not all the decisions were right, but that was part of the general theme about the YA being inexperienced, the point is that the others did look to him.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
The origins of ALL the characters soured me on the series.
Patriot had the drug angle, Hawkeye the tired rape thing, Hulkling and Wiccan couldn’t be the sons of those they are said to be without having grown much faster than normal (like both other Marr-Vell kids) - which can’t be since they appeared to have normal childhoods (and the fast-grown super-hero kid is ANOTHER hoary cliche itself).
Frankly, I wish I hadn’t bought that second YA trade.
Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)
June 7th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Patriot had to get his powers in the following arc because Young Avengers got the axe to the neck.
He’s a great character, and I for once, do not care that he’s black, and not see him as a black guy, I see him as Eli, a nice guy who tries to cope, to get ahead, and have some advantage to live up to the huge name of Captain Bradley.