Ethnicity Change For Uncle Sam – The Spirit of America – in DC Comics New 52 (Spoiler’ish News)

News, Spoilers

This news article contains small spoilers for Human Bomb #1 by DC Comics.

As part of DC Comics New 52’s build-up of a potential new Freedom Fighters super-team mini or ongoing series, we saw during last week’s Human Bomb #1, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray with comic icon Jerry Ordway on art, that the mysterious African-American government agent who has been compiling super-heroes in other DC Comics titles, is actually Uncle Sam the leader of S.H.A.D.E. (Super Human Advanced Defense Executive). See the last three pages of the issue below.

While the comparisons to Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for Marvel Studios has been made – Freedom Fighters being DC’s Avengers – it is interesting that the Spirit of America, the super-powered Uncle Sam in the DCU, has seemingly been made African-American. I think it is progressive and a sign of our times. We do have an African American in the White House in 2012 after all.

I do wonder if Uncle Sam is just the agent’s code name and whether the traditional iconic Uncle Sam will emerge later. If not, I am intrigued by where DC may take this new diverse Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters.

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John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!