Bishop was introduced in the pages of X-Men in 1991, into a comic industry that really did not have many black male characters to speak of. Luke Cage and Black Panther were virtually unknown to comic goers at the time. X-Men was riding a wave of sudden popularity around the time Bishop first appeared and joined the team making him the most visible black male superhero in the 90’s.
I’ll assert here that Marvel has made a concentrated effort to de-emphasize the character in the past few years. Slowly but steadily, Bishop was written out of the books starting in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. He appeared here and there but was not as much of a regular recurring X-Men team member. The final nail in the coffin was Marvel’s “Civil War” and “Messiah Complex” which essentially vilified the character.
Anyone who’s followed the character’s history knows that the story Marvel’s created to turn him into a villain is specious. The only way they’re able to get away with it is because comic readers today did not read X-Men in the early 90’s. Also, Marvel’s not worried about its responsibility to include positive black male characters because it’s pushed Luke Cage and Black Panther to the forefront as of late.
Too bad for Bishop fans though. You’ll have to just suck it up and accept that no one cares about one of the most culturally important characters of a generation. WELL, I still care about him! I care enough to draw him sexy and naked! Roll over the above image!
That is sad. I had stop reading X-Men some time ago and had no idea they had done that Bishop.
Nice action pic of him. I especially like the cock and balls flapping in the wind.
see J.C….i knew u was my boy. Bishop is my absolute FAVORITE character and i HATE what Marvel has done to him. it is complete bullshit. I am glad that i am not the only one who feels this way. u r correct that the readers today do NOT get or even care about the character….so he is now fodder to eventually be a bad guy….and killed
I think Bishop is getting judged too harshly. He is only a villain cos he wants to kill a baby, a baby he thinks will bring doom and gloom to the whole earth..
Just like he did with Gambit at the beginning when he thought he was the X-Men’s traitor. He isn’t really a villain, he just thinks he is doing right which in reality he is not.
Awesome pic JC, he looks hot.
Thanks for stoppin by, dudez! I’m glad to see someone agrees with my take on this character. It’s sad because Marvel can’t ever use him again as a hero.
This story feels like it was pulled out of someone’s ass at Marvel. Bishop’s bleek fascist future was already explained in the comics 20some years ago with the “death of the X-Men at the hands of a traitor.” Bishop stopped the traitor (Onslaught) and thusly prevented his gloomy-doomy future.
Now Marvel’s acting like a bunch of us conveniently forgot about that storyline and are now saying it’s a baby that causes Bishop’s bleek future. It’s a total re-write of the character’s history. Not to mention what we’ve all come to love about the character. He was an over-zealous warrior with a great reverence and respect for the X-Men. The Bishop I know and grew up with wouldn’t have gone against Cyclops and Storm and ProfX. The Bishop I know would trust them– not all of a sudden fly off the handle.
But it’s not like Marvel hasn’t shown past precedence when it comes to re-writing character histories or retelling old stories all over again with the X-Men. They’ve done it time and time again in the past 10 years. In the 90s, Cyclops already had an affair on Jean with a telepath. In the 90s, Professor X already was revealed to have some dark side/ secret no one knew about. In the 90s, the Danger Room already became a sentient entity and tried to kill the X-Men. And in the 90s, Bishop already tried to harm someone innocent to prevent his sad future.
The problem with Marvel is, you can’t be a fan for more than 10 years straight– because then, all the stuff you were introduced to gets thrown out the window.
Meh. Marvel…after what they did to the black Goliath/Giant Man (I can’t recall his proper codename) in Civil War…I was DONE with Marvel. :/
Bishop was my favorite too, and reading your tale of what they did to him, wish I could say I’m surprised.
But seeing your deliciously illustrated pic of him brought back some GREAT fantasies of mine. (Yeah, I have had a hard-on for Bishop since day one.)
Great work, JC!
🙂
Hi I’m late and I know it probably doesn’t really matter but as a black person and a Marvel fan I’d like to point out that bishop isn’t actually black
He’s an australian aboriginal (I just got a comic about his life
He was born in australia and the comic shows that both parents were natives)
The extreme x-men series also pointed out that he had some sort of family connection to Gateway who is also an aboriginal mutant
So he may appear black but in truth he’s actually an aborignal of australia
Fair enough. I’d also like to point out that Bishop’s supposed Aboriginal lineage wasn’t “revealed” until X-Treme X-Men in 2001. The character existed for a full 10 years, with the vast majority of fans and creators alike assuming he was African American.
This is what us comic fans like to call a “recon.”
damn right. Bishop is BLACK. fuck Claremont and his fucking recon. just goes to show that marvel could give a damn about Bishop….sorry to get so emotional about this, but he is MY FAVORITE and they have forever ruined him.
tho it does explain the hair though….but it was like that in the beginning because artist and inkers and colorists didn’t know how to draw black men’s hair other than an afro or bald
Retcon– not recon. Sorry, I just learned this term existen only a few months ago. It’s retcon.
Oh, and bout his hair– I actually knew a black dude with a mullet in the early 90s. They were in, remember? haha
I used to buy a lot of comics in my younger days (I sometimes still miss them) and one of my regulars was the X-men series. I too remember Bishop entering the comics and he was also the most prevalent black character on the animated series too. I wonder why Marvel decided to take his character down this root?
I agree that there’s little long term consistency with in the long running titles, that was a small part of when I tailed of reading them, also there started to be too many alternate universes and opposing story arcs that kinda just got too confusing and off the wall for my tastes.