Karen Beecher came along in ’76 in the Teen Titans. OK, first, her name is not “Black Bumblebee”. Second, a Black Female character who is also a scientist AND developed her own tech. Third, she’s Mal Duncan’s girlfriend, and her powers set trumps his.Lastly, she looks KILLER in all of her visual variations. Win, win, win.
Mal was a (sorry, but…) token used to give weight to the late ’60s Teen Titans attempt to be socially relevant when they ditched their costumes and tried to be all revolutionary. He wound up becoming The Guardian when the group made a comeback complete with secret IDs once more, and that got done away with by his forgettable “Hornblower” persona, which to me, was as racially silly as the “weapons filled afro” dude from the Super Globetrotters.
The ‘bee was a scientist of color long before Mr. Terrific came along, and yet, has never been tapped as a substantial supporting character (moreso on the Young Justice cartoon than in comics), much less as a lead. She and Mal were briefly members of a short-lived Doom Patrol line-up, which was actually kinda cool. The whole reason the two of them made the cut was that Karen became trapped at a 4 inch height, and Mal, now called “Vox” had been impaled in the same disaster that rendered Karen to be stuck in the diminutive form, and needed a voice box to speak, which made them acceptable in the ‘incurable freak’ category of the Doom Patrol membership statement. In the New 52, neither have yet to be seen.
The current incarnation of The Titans is so forgettable and disconnected from what the team is even supposed to be about, and here we are with another member of the team who never even got the chance to get fleshed out and fully realized. Yet another female marginalized and ignored by a company that’s vision seems so distorted at this point, and so stubborn about expanding the horizons of their intellectual properties. Here we are with a character who stands out as a woman, a person of color, and a lovely blank palette just ready to be colored with creativity. Save the Bumblebee!
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Saving Wonder Woman 