Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Joe "Robbie" Robertson

Joe “Robbie” Robertson was created by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. in Amazing Spider-Man #52 in 1967. He was a reporter and editor at the Daily Bugle where Peter Parker was a photographer and was J. Jonah Jameson’s right hand man. IN the battle of wits between Peter and Jonah, Robbie was the person who helped them find the middle ground. Usually it was by showing Jonah how Spider-Man’s existence helped the city of New York and the Daily Bugle.
Robbie Robertson was also a break through in African-American supporting cast members of comic books. In the past they were either used as comic relief or, if they were not the comedian, they were just there. Nothing they said or did had any lasting effect. Even Gabe Jones, who was discussed yesterday, had very little effect on the Sgt. Furry book when he first started out. Ebony White, of the Spirit, was at times taken seriously but for the most part was really comic relief. With Joe Robertson we saw a man who took his job and his family seriously.
He was raised in Harlem and worked for the school newspaper. He wrote and article about the school bully Lonnie Lincoln. Lonnie threatened Joe and Joe dropped the article. Later when Joe Robertson moved to Philadelphia to work on a newspaper he saw someone killed by the hitman Tombstone. Tombstone was really Lonnie Lincoln. Again he threatened Joe if he told anyone what he saw. Joe never wrote about it or reported it. He moved back to New York and joined the staff of the Daily Bugle. Years later the Kingpin hired Tombstone to come to New York to kill some people. The killings started to make news. When Tombstone found out that Joe Robertson worked on a paper in the city he threatened him and his family again. This time Joe found the courage and testified against Tombstone. It helped put him in jail. However, when the Judge found out that Joe Robertson didn’t report that he witnessed one of the murders in Philadelphia he sentenced him to 3 years in prison. Somehow he wound up in the same cell block as Tombstone. Tombstone forced Joe to go along with a jail break. When Spider-Man showed up to stop it Tombstone tried to kill him but Joe saved his life. Later Tombstone tried to kill an Amish family but Joe stopped that too. Lonnie Lincoln saw that Joe “Robbie” Robertson was no longer afraid of him so he backed down. To this day Tombstone continued as a hitman to the end but was no longer a threat to Joe Robertson or his family.
Eventually Joe was made editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle when J. Jonah Jameson decided to step down from that position. Over the years Jameson’s vendetta against Spider-Man and the sometimes out of focus pictures of him that they published of him gave the newspaper a yellow journalism image. Robertson decided to change that image. He started with Peter’s photos. Peter was forced to take pictures of the villains before Spider-man showed up and then set is camera on automatic to take pictures of the battle. Now over the years there were hints that Joe Robertson may know that Peter was Spider-man. It didn’t help that the new pictures started to look out of focus or taken from a bad angle with ever Spider-Man showed up but were almost perfect when he was gone.
The character of Joe Robertson has continued to have an important role in Spider-Man the animated series. In the Spider-Man films he has been portrayed by actor Bill Nunn. They really don’t give the character much to do in the movies and don’t develop a background for him to work with. However, the movies are called Spider-Man and not Joe Robertson so I guess we should just be happy that they show him in a positive light.

This concludes the character bolgs of African-American characters in comic books for Black History Month. I hope you enjoyed them.

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