DC Comics has been creating superheroes for almost a century, so it's not really surprising that many of its heroes' names haven't aged well. Cultural mores and trends change, and names that sounded interesting in 1938 can now come across as ridiculous or even problematic. Some heroic personas have too much baggage attached to them, some are simply outdated, and others were simply unlucky.

Examining comics history, one of the big problems that comes up repeatedly is cultural insensitivity. Even characters created only a decade ago can come across as problematic. Often, it's possible for writers to re-brand characters and separate their best aspects from their problematic pasts. However, when the biggest problems are in a hero's name, that's a very tall order.

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Updated on September 30, 2023 by John Dodge: The number of DC titles continues to expand across the world of comics, not to mention the big and small screens. Among them, there is no shortage of superhero codenames that have proven themselves to be tragic products of their era, evidenced by their controversial nature.

This article discusses sensitive topics, such as mental health issues, racism, and colonialism.

15 Gypsy

Cindy Reynolds as Gypsy in DC Comics

Cynthia Reynolds, a white woman, presumably chose her codename, "Gypsy," because she likes to go barefoot. However, both the archetype and the term "Gypsy" are offensive misnomers for the Romani people, a nomadic ethnic group from Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.

Cindy has interesting precognitive, telepathic, and illusion-casting abilities, so she has plenty of options for a more descriptive heroic name. Like many DC heroes, Gypsy's costume and her codename need updating. Cindy has yet to appear in Rebirth stores, but in the New 52, she was still using her troubling codename and outfit.

14 Aztek

Curt Falconer's Aztek in DC Comics

Spanish conquistadors wiped out the Aztec Empire in 1521 that had been thriving for over two hundred years. A team of Scottish comic book writers creating a superhero based on the Mesoamerican indigenous mythology, without significant input from any indigenous people of Central America, feels willfully ignorant of Europe's gruesome history with colonialism.

Though Uno, the agent of Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, isn't human, he looks like a blond-haired, blue-eyed white man. Nayeli Constant, the second DC Comics character to use the name "Aztek," is, at least, of indigenous Central American descent. Still, the "k" at the end of the codename is cringe worthy on its own for the way it commodified a colonized civilization.

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13 Captain Marvel

Carol Danvers and Billy Batson as Captain Marvel in Marvel and DC Comics, respectively.

Captain Marvel was Billy Batson's original superhero title when he appeared in Whiz Comics in 1941, decades before Marvel had made a name for itself or even lost its original title, Timely Comics. However, now that Marvel's turned into an entertainment juggernaut, it makes sense that Earth's Mightiest Mortal is going by the less generic magic word that grants him his powers, "Shazam!"

Without getting into the name's legal history, Marvel Comics has also named several of its heroes Captain Marvel, including the Kree Mar-Vell, Monica Rambeau, and Carol Danvers — the star of the 2019 film Captain Marvel. This was the same year that DC released a film centered on Billy Batson, so updating the original Captain's name made sense on a lot of levels, even if it's a shame to lose some of the history attached to this memorable moniker.

12 B'wana Beast

An old DC illustration of B'wana Beast roaring at the reader

In comics, the White Savior trope goes all the back to Lee Falk's The Phantom, but B'wana Beast is still the least salvageable incarnation of this toxic idea. A white explorer who appropriated African powers, his name comes from Swahili, but it was mostly pulled from old jungle movies where the few lines the supposedly African natives intoned usually involved this honorific, identifying the white protagonists as their "masters." His other equally problematic titles included "Jungle Master," and "White God."

Grant Morrison tried to re-appropriate this name in Animal Man, where the original B'wana Beast died and a Black South African man used his strange new powers to battle apartheid. Dominic Mndawe improved on the concept by calling himself Freedom Beast, while the live-action Titans television series reinvented B'wana Beast entirely.

11 Uncle Sam

The superhero Uncle Same, posing in DC Comics

The superhero character Uncle Sam carries a lot of baggage because of the role Uncle Sam's imagery plays in American and global politics. Using the same general design for the hero as the man on the "I Want You..." posters inevitably reflects on the hero, even though he is distinct from the political cartoon.

Patriotism for one's country of origin certainly makes sense, and several of DC's heroes act as diplomats for their home nations. However, many history scholars now regard the political cartoon of Uncle Sam as an overly sanitized and incomplete depiction of the essence of the U.S. As a hero whose powers are somehow tied to Americans' belief in their nation, the superheroic Uncle Sam has a lot in common with his equally symbolic cartoon counterpart.

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10 The Yazz

The Yazz Speaking Into A Microphone in DC Comics

The Yazz, an alien technician onboard the Refuge, debuted in Justice League America stories in 1995. In 2006, the FDA approved Bayer's drug "Yaz" as an oral contraceptive. Yaz is still on the market and, sadly, Yazz died in issue #113 (by Gerard Jones, Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Bob Dvorak, Gene D'Angelo, and Clem Robins).

This overlap isn't Yazz's fault, their creator's (Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Chuck Dvorak and Gerard Jones) fault, or even Bayer's fault. As anyone named "Allegra" can attest to, sharing a name with a medication is just a rather unfortunate coincidence. At least there's an extra "z" that helps distinguish between the pharmaceutical and the heroic alien.

9 Creeper

DC's unpredictable antihero, The Creeper, leering

The name "Creeper" seems to worsen with time. Jack Ryder's alter ego continues to reflect badly on him, instead of illustrating the good he does. While he's usually a bizarre ally of Batman's, the name The Creeper has fallen deeply out of favor in recent years, to the point where he's a villain in several DC continuities.

Creeper's Joker-esque appearance doesn't help his case, but his name is the primary culprit for the fact writers and readers think of him as a villain. Names like "Superman" and "Hawkgirl" feel very positive, but "creeper" has negative connotations that have only increased over the decades.

8 Plastic Man

Language, including its connotations and parts of speech, changes with time. Even the meanings of individual words can shift, and quickly. Some characters whose names were once descriptive of their powers are no longer as accurate as they were in the past.

Plastic Man is one example of this phenomenon. Historically, the word "plastic" was used largely as an adjective meaning "elastic" or "stretchy." Today, it often refers to products made from petroleum and is much more likely to be used as a noun. "Eel" O'Brian is still a great character, but contemporary readers think he's made of plastic.

7 Judomaster

Rip Jagger's Judomaster in DC Comics

Rip and Tommy Hunter, two of the individuals who've taken up the mantle of the Judomaster, are white. While Asian superheroes were unheard of when this DC character was created in 1965, that's no longer the case. It's a transparently inappropriate title for heroes of European descent.

While people from any racial background can master Judo, white characters with the codename "Judomaster" are appropriative because there is no way to credit the martial art's culture of origin with just a codename. Skilled martial artists have plenty of options for codenames, from Bronze Tiger to Batman, and don't have to hang a lantern on one part of their training. To the show's credit, Peacemaker included an Asian Judomaster in its first season, taking some of the curse off of this name.

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6 Crazy Jane

Crazy Jane from DC Comics' Doom Patrol

Kay Challis is one of the few heroes in DC Comics with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition wherein multiple personality states, or "alters," are present within an individual. A cartoonish version of the condition pops up regularly in Batman's rogue's gallery, where it's also aged badly, but Kay's codename is as much a symbol of self-hatred as it is a title.

Kay's dominant alter is Jane Morris or Crazy Jane. It's possible to interpret this as Kay reclaiming the word "crazy," since it's been weaponized against mentally ill people for generations. However, it's messy in a way that requires regular clunky exposition, since the word's still used as a euphemism for everything from heightened emotions to bad behavior. Unfortunately, Jane's character is similarly messy, based more on sensational books like Cybil than actual medical knowledge. Keeping this name only highlights these problems.

5 Apache Chief

superfriends' apache chief holding a group of villains in one hand and a massive lizard in the other

1977's The All-New Super Friends Hour brought many iconic DC superheroes to the small screen, yet Hanna-Barbera sought to ensure that the series' themes of friendship and diversity were more obvious than what the likes of Batman, Superman, and Aquaman might imply. To that end, Hanna-Barbera created various heroes specifically for the series. Apache Chief is among the most memorable of them for some unfortunate reasons.

Apache Chief's abilities came as a result of an encounter with a grizzly bear and the application of a magical powder. This allowed Apache Chief to expand in size to a soaring fifty feet which, while impressive, didn't have any obvious ties to the character or his origin. Between the strange origin, the lazy name, and Apache Chief's stereotypical Native American "accent," there simply aren't any redeeming qualities to the character beyond his appearance in Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and Young Justice's reimagining of the character's name and powers.

4 Black Vulcan

black vulcan as he appeared on the classic dc animated superfriends

Another creation of The All-New Super Friends Hour, Black Vulcan was capable of not only harnessing the power of lightning, but could transform himself into a living lightning bolt at will. This, combined with his force fields and seemingly random bouts of being able to travel through time, made Black Vulcan a potent member of the Superfriends.

Black Vulcan's name, on the other hand, didn't do the character any favors. As a stand-in for the far more iconic Black Lightning, Black Vulcan was already a pastiche of a preexisting character with plenty of problems of his own. In the years since, various attempts have been made to reinvent Black Vulcan by having another character step into his shoes, giving him a new name and origin, or outright replacing him with the hero he was always meant to be.

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3 Vibe

vibe in his original vest and sunglasses costume with his arms out wide

Thanks to The CW's Flash, Cisco Ramon, aka Vibe, has gone from being a D-list hero to a fan-favorite for millions of viewers. His name has even been given a new meaning. His "vibes" now referencing both his vibrational blasts and his dimensional manipulation powers.

Long before The CW, however, Cisco, or rather Paco Ramon, was going by Vibe for an entirely different reason. The original incarnation of the character was no lab rat. Instead, he was the Justice League Detroit's resident party supply, who took the name Vibe for the fact he was always grooving and gyrating no matter what circumstances were at hand. This made the moniker more cringe worthy than it was outright offensive at the time. If it weren't for the changes made to the character in recent years, it still would be today.

2 Extraño

extrano in his purple cap and green pants as seen in early appearances in dc comics

When Gregorio de la Vega, better known as Extraño, debuted in 1988's Millennium #2 (by Steve Englehart, Joe Staton, Ian Gibson, Carl Gafford, and Bob Lappan), the character was an obvious stand-in for Marvel's Doctor Strange. Wielding powerful magic and telepathic abilities, Extraño could have made a name for himself as a genuine DC superhero. Instead, his story devolved into something every bit as strange as his name would imply.

Extraño, meaning "strange" in Spanish, might have held up better if it weren't for the fact he was the very first openly gay DC superhero. That alone gave his name a tinge of uneasiness to it, yet his most infamous story made things infinitely worse. It was in 1988's New Guardians #1 (by Steve Englehart, Joe Staton, Mark Farmer, Anthony Tollin, and John Costanza) that Extraño and the rest of the eponymous team faced off against the Hemo-Goblin, a racist "AIDS-vampire" who infected numerous members of the team with HIV. While it was never explicitly stated whether Extraño had contracted HIV prior to his encounter with the Hemo-Goblin, that didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, nor would it help his legacy age any better.

1 El Dorado

el dorado using his psychic powers as seen on the superfriends animated series

Yet another member of the Superfriends created by Hanna-Barbera, El Dorado's name is an obvious play on the legendary lost city of gold. This name made little sense in terms of the character apart from El Dorado being Mexican and wearing gold on his costume. The fact it was never explained didn't make it any better.

El Dorado never got an origin story. He never had an opportunity to reveal his real name. El Dorado didn't even get to explain why he could cast illusions with the same eyes that fired lasers, or why he could change his size and mass, or why he could read minds or teleport. If anything, El Dorado was simply a mismatched set of powers in a highly questionable costume with an even more controversial name. So far, no other version of the character has been able to make up for any of those problems.