Afro Supa Hero is an exhibition of action figures, comic books, posters and other pop culture memorabilia featuring black characters from the 60's, 70's and 80's. This modest collection of artefacts currently being displayed at The Museum of Childhood belong to Jon Daniel who collected the majority them during his childhood trips to America.
The collection features famous personalities and familiar characters from popular series including figurines from Star Trek, the Marvel Universe and the Rocky Balboa movies. As well as some other more curious and quirky choices such as Shaft knockoff Slade Super Agent, Lee Scratch Perry, Nat Turner and a Michel Basquiat doll(?).
My favourite pieces of the display include DC comics Muhammad Ali vs Superman edition, the Mr T doll with customisable accessories and Lobo the black cowboy vigilante comic. Interestingly, Lobo was discontinued after only two issues due to the reluctance of shop keepers to display a comic with a black character as the cover star.
Overall, I quite enjoyed the Afro Super Hero collection and found the content quite enlightening. Through the autobiographic notations, it provides an alternative angle on popular culture of the era and also shows a brief moment in time when Blaxploitation and African American Pride had great presence in mainstream media.
The Afro Supa Hero exhibition is showing at the V&A's Museum of Childhood as part of 2013's Black History Month.
More images from the show can be seen on the Nino Tumblr page.
Nino Paulito
