Ethnic stereotypes in comics (the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in mainstream comic books) have evolved over time, reflecting the changing political climate.
Sociopolitical impact of comics
Throughout history, comics have reflected the sociopolitical attitudes of their writers and readers. In America, early comics consisted primarily of short, humorous comic strips printed in newspapers. In the 1930s, comics evolved into longer, action-oriented storylines and transitioned into the comic medium format. It began addressing important contemporary political issues. For example, some have suggested that the Wonder Woman character and title evolved as a vehicle to communicate pro-American attitudes during World War II. X-Men creator, Stan Lee has frequently cited the Civil Rights Movement as the inspiration for his mutant team of superheroes, and has translated many of the tensions of majority-minority race politics into the X-Men title.
Nonetheless, for many years, comic book characters noticeably lacked racial and ethnic diversity. Diversity in comics first started during the 1940s but persisted during the decades. Comics writer and artist Kev F. Sutherland said "...when you look at the shelves and see half the titles on sale are characters like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man—dammit, these characters weren't even allowed to be Jewish like their creators, let alone be black". Recognizing the influence of comics on popular culture, some members of ethnic and racial communities have focused their attention on stereotypes within comics, and have begun lobbying to change them. This is accomplished in many ways, frequently by either writing new character of color or "trans-racializing" existing characters to become racial or ethnic minorities (e.g. the changing of Karate Kid's race from White to Asian).
Given the recent popularity of injecting characters of color into popular comic titles, a new concern has arisen regarding possible tokenism, and many writers advocate not just the inclusion of characters of color into predominantly White casts of characters, but that these minority characters defy the racial and ethnic stereotypes so prevalent in the history of comics, as well as maintaining the high standard of comic book writing. Daley Osiyemi, creator of Brodie's Law and co-founder of Pulp Theatre Entertainment said, "...we don't just want black characters or superheroes in comics as mere tokens, they have to be strong characters in their own right and have strong stories built around them".
In 2007 the scholarly journal MELUS (publication of The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States) devoted an entire issue to the literary and sociological representations of race and ethnicity in comics. The issue was guest edited by Derek Parker Royal, and it included essays on older graphic narratives (such as Jackie Ormes's Torchy Brown and Miné Okubo's Citizen 13660), more recent graphic novels (Ho Che Anderson's King, Ben Katchor's The Jew of New York, and Mark Kalesniko's Mail Order Bride), as well as various comic book series (Dwayne McDuffie's Deathlok, Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve, and Los Bros Hernandez's Love and Rockets). Gilbert Hernandez illustrated the cover, and the issue included an interview with him as well.
Arabs
On the other hand, Jack Shaheen, professor emeritus of mass communications at Southern Illinois University has written extensively on the plight of Arabs in the American mass media. He wrote that due to ignorance, fear, and political beliefs, Arabs are rarely portrayed as anything but villains. Those few positive portrayals are often passive, neither taking the limelight away from the most often Caucasian protagonists, nor overshadowing the active role of the evil Arabs in the book. Examples include Marvel's Fasaud, Apocalypse, Shadow King, Living Monolith, Asp, the Desert Swords, Abdul Alhazred, Saracen, the original Arabian Knight and from DC comics Ra's al Ghul and Talia al Ghul.
The terrorist
As far back as 1953, in an issue of John Wayne Adventure Comics, John Wayne captures an Arab who is attempting to drive American oil companies out by launching a terrorist campaign.
Black
An early black character to be incorporated into a syndicated comic strip was Lothar, who appeared in Mandrake the Magician in the 1930s. He was Mandrake's sidekick: the circus strongman, who wore a Tarzan-style costume and was poor, and uneducated. Since the introduction of Lothar, black characters have received a variety of treatments in comics, and not all of them positive.