Black Fans Are the Main Characters in the Future Afrofuturism Promised

Walking into New York Comic Con is a Black nerd’s dream. You wade through a sea of people decked out as everything under the sun, from comic book heroes to anime characters, from the Power Rangers to Godzilla. But what hits the most is seeing a Black community in all of their glory. For a long time, being considered a “nerd” in our community wasn’t exactly “cool.” Sneakers? Always. Basketball? For sure. Anime and comic books? Not so much.

But over the last decade, that’s changed. Blockbuster movies, readily-available anime on various streaming platforms, and social media have made these worlds more accessible than ever. Black fans aren’t just participating — they’re thriving, remixing, and even cosplaying characters in ways that claim space for themselves in these stories. It’s in this energy, this celebration and reimagination, that Afrofuturism really comes alive.

The idea behind Afrofuturism is about envisioning a future shaped by Black imagination — one that reclaims the past and rewrites the present, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The term itself came from writer Mark Dery’s 1994 essay Black to the Future, where he asked a very real, yet haunting question: “Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures?” That question still lingers and remains as the backbone of a concept that has now come to life. 

But what began as a scholarly framework has turned into a cultural engine — a movement, an aesthetic, a language. Afrofuturism and Afroimagination both run through music, fashion, film, comics, and art like an electric current. Its identity, agency, and freedom are expressed through the act of imagining what’s next. And to me, that’s the beauty of it. It isn’t just about the future; it’s about belonging to it.

For a lot of Black people, the first time they felt that sense of belonging — that spark of seeing ourselves in the future — was through comic books and anime. “The first Black character I remember seeing was Storm. What stood out about her was—well, one, she was the only Black woman I saw as a young Black girl. That was the only one I was seeing on TV,” says Tatianna King of the For All Nerds Show. “I remember her on Fox Kids and just seeing how regal she was, how powerful and strong she was, how people listened to her. She commanded everything on the spot — that spoke to me.”

Storm wasn’t just another superhero; she was the superhero — regal, calm, and powerful, breaking the mold of how Black women were portrayed just by existing with that kind of grace and authority. Erin Grace Clarke of Run Hustle Run puts it perfectly: “I grew up learning to be like her. She carried herself and spoke with a presence that felt like what my parents and grandparents wanted me to be. So it was cool to see a hero character portrayed like that.” Afroimagination’s not all spaceships and sci-fi — it’s about seeing yourself in the stories that define the future. And for many of us, that recognition started small, through characters who felt like us even when they weren’t written to be.

For decades, real representation wasn’t there; not in comics, anime, or the things we obsessed over after school. So, many people found reflections of themselves in the characters who felt like them, even if they technically or literally weren’t. “I mean, that’s why we claim [Dragon Ball character] Piccolo. That’s why we claim Sailor Pluto and Sailor Jupiter,” says Victoria Johnson of the Sailor Moon Fan Club Podcast and founder of the Magical Girls Festival. “It’s because we don’t have a lot of options in the first place. So we start looking for traits — little things we can connect to. Even when I was younger, if there wasn’t a Black character, I’d be like, ‘Okay, who’s the brunette? Maybe she could be.’ We’re always searching for something that feels like us, because for so long we just haven’t had enough Black anime or comic book characters to pull from.”

Around that time, many young fans were glued to Dragon Ball Z and became fully convinced Piccolo had to be Black. “I know for me, it’s because he’s one of the few who has sense in the series,” says DJ BenHaMeen of For All Nerds. “He takes responsibility, he takes accountability, he steps up. Now he gets washed most times, but he’s still trying. And also, he’s cool — he’s got aura, he’s aura farming all day. He got the drip. And Black people love that. We love that.”

It was the way Piccolo carried himself — the weight of his upbringing, that no-nonsense attitude — that felt straight out of every Black dad’s playbook. He isn’t the only one, however. Some people saw pieces of themselves in characters like Wolverine or The Punisher — heroes hardened by circumstance, misunderstood, and carrying a mix of rage and resilience within themselves.

“For me, it’s the 'against-all-odds' thing,” says Rob Markman, Vice President of Music and Content at Genius. “Wolverine isn’t your typical superhero. When you think of Superman, you think of truth and justice — but that’s not real life. The Punisher comes from gang violence: his family was murdered, and he turned into this vigilante. Those characters represent the harsh realities of life, the same systemic issues we’re forced to overcome.”

Imagination wasn’t just in the nerd realm — it was everywhere in pop culture, especially as the new millennium approached. Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson’s “What’s It Gonna Be?!” felt like futuristic Blackness, Missy Elliott’s videos were transmissions from another galaxy, OutKast floated through ATLiens and Aquemini like interstellar prophets, and Erykah Badu’s “Didn’t Cha Know” and André 3000’s “Prototype” sounded like anthems from a cosmic elsewhere. Then Janelle Monáe arrived, picking up the torch and running with it. The ArchAndroid, tipping its hat to Metropolis, wasn’t just sci-fi for show — it was rebellion and joy in motion, a claim on the freedom we’d always deserved. By the time Dirty Computer landed, love had become resistance, self-expression was armor, and Afrofuturism wasn’t just an aesthetic — it was a language, a philosophy, and a way to rewrite our past while imagining what’s next.

All those ideas that lived in our music videos, in our imagination, in our playlists, have all come to life in places like New York Comic Con. It’s where the culture we dreamed up decades ago now breathes, walks, and talks among us. It’s not just people dressing up; participants are showing up as the versions of themselves that pop culture routinely forgot to imagine. There are now Black artists pushing indie comics, cosplayers reworking characters through their own cultural lens, and hip-hop showing up right alongside it all.

One of the weekend’s biggest crossovers came from Mass Appeal and Marvel, who teamed up for their Legend Has It… comic series — turning hip-hop icons like Nas, DJ Premier, De La Soul, Slick Rick, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, and Big L into superheroes. Hosted by Rob Markman, the panel felt like a homecoming and also redefined what weekends like this can resemble. Rob Markman says, “I think people come to Comic Con and think it’s like The Big Bang Theory. But it’s also Black people here, Latinos here, always representing. And that’s how it’s always been. But to have representation on stage like this is a true reflection of reality.”

During the panel, hip-hop’s biggest legends discussed what the collaboration with Marvel meant to them and talked about their favorite superheroes, just like we do. Ghostface Killah told the story of meeting Robert Downey Jr., who called him the “real Tony Stark.” De La Soul laughed about watching The Hulk and The Thing growing up, seeing bits of themselves in those larger-than-life characters. It all clicked — these rappers were just as big as the superheroes themselves.

For Black cosplayers, stepping into these characters is Afrofuturism in motion — claiming space in imagined worlds, reshaping them through our lens. Yet for a long time, Black cosplayers were outsiders in a space that didn’t always recognize and acknowledge them, getting “reminded” that characters weren’t Black, or earning skepticism or exclusion in the face of other fans. As Derron Payne of BrunchxBros puts it, “Cosplay is an expression of whoever’s cosplaying… when people put their own little touches on it, bring their culture into it, I think it’s dope.” Victoria Johnson echoes that creativity, saying she likes to “remix it a little bit,” whether that means styling an Afro-textured wig or reimagining a costume with Black hair textures and colors.

At Comic Con, that creativity was on full display: Static Shock, Green Lantern, Zoro from One Piece, Frieza, and Black Panther walked the floor, each interpretation a reflection of identity and imagination. Black fans no longer inhabit these worlds — they’re reshaping them and proudly claiming them as our own.

Seeing Blackness thrive in a space like New York Comic Con hits different. It is community, creativity, and culture manifesting in real time. The sight of Black fans flooding the Javits Center, trading anime theories, repping their favorite characters, and wearing brands like Hypland — it all feels like a small revolution in motion. 

“More Black spaces everywhere, especially Comic Con and anime spaces? It’s glorious,” says Mary A.G., acquisition and licensing advisor for the Black-owned anime studio N'LITE and co-founder of RetroCrush. “A couple of years ago when Hypland was just coming up, everybody at Anime NYC was literally wearing it — mostly Black folks, but also non-Black fans. It just speaks to Black culture, to a Black-owned business being trusted with precious IP and creating something that everyone wants to wear.” 

That’s the power of visibility— being able to see yourself in the crowd and in the culture, not as an exception but as the norm. For Mary, the next step is simple: “We just need to make our own stories with Black characters. You can have any kind of story — horror, fantasy, whatever — but what makes it authentically Black is the culture behind it,” as Tatiana King of For All Nerds puts it, seeing that reflected back is its own kind of hope. “To see it is a phenomenal thing. It fills me with joy, it fills me with hope. Because that means the younger generations are getting it… I think it’s a way to show expression in your culture. I think it’s a way to be pro-Black. So seeing that here gives me so much joy.”

Walking through NYCC, you realize: the future we imagined is already here — and it looks like us.