African American’s portrayal in comic books is as varied as their portrayal in other popular media. The misrepresentations run the gamut in all mediums; from casual, ignorant racist stereotype to outright re-writing of important chapters of black history in an effort to fully dehumanize them. Comics, however, offer the most effective counter to this. They are, as much of art is, a powerful anti-venom to the toxic rhetoric filling the screens, blogs, and pages of a media system controlled by a white majority. While it is truly positive to shed light on black superheroes or comic strip characters that live and fight in the bustling metropolises of the U.S. North, it is ever more groundbreaking to reach deep into the soil of the U.S. South for more effective narratives of despair, as well as freedom. Not because the South is a monolith of racism and mistreatment of African Americans, but because it has, like the rest of the United States, a vast and complex history. This history has given the South an identity in comics and other media of being a place capable of the deepest hatred and the brightest hope.