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Are you counting villains in that mix as well?

Omega Red.
Rockets Red Brigade.
Superman Red.

That’s most likely because in the initial two waves of superheroes, Red meant Communist and good superheroes FOUGHT Commies. Then, once the naming conventions get set, it becomes harder to think of them differently — that’s why US sports teams tend to be named after animals — because that was the trend when we first started naming teams, and now it’s just what’s expected.

What about Yellow? I can’t think of any Yellows off the top of my head.

How ’bout Red Tornado? And the Red Bee? Both names date back to the golden age; although they do both predate McCarthy.

(And for yellow, Yellowjacket.)

Yellow is in the same boat as red, except worse, really, since as a pejorative it was actually racist. Yellow Claw, Yellow Peril, etc.

Not to mention that yellow is also considered cowardly.

Pwerhaps I’m wrong, but it seems like the trend has generally been away from names that contain color terms for awhile now, with a a few exceptions. You don’t even see old standbys like “the Black Avenger,” “the Green Team,” or “the White Knight” too often now.

Red is largely tainted by its continuing political associations, but it’s also been used in its semi-pejorative sense for the Native American hero Red Wolf. And yellow, in addition to being pejorative in multiple senses, is simply not euphonious to my ears. Try constructing short phrases or codenames with it and you’ll see what I mean.

But of course, here comes Red Arrow* to turn the tide!

* the former Arsenal, aka the even-more-former Speedy. Now there will be TWO Reds on the Justice League of America. (Looks like Edgar J. Hoover was right; they’re secretly Commie spies.)

“And yellow, in addition to being pejorative in multiple senses, is simply not euphonious to my ears. Try constructing short phrases or codenames with it and you’ll see what I mean.”

The same applies, I think, to Orange and Purple. I don’t think they have any perjorative connotations, but they just don’t “zing!” when you say ‘em like one-syllable colors do. Can anyone think of any Purple _______ crimefighters?

How about Red Star? I forget whether he survived the B-List Titans Massacre in Infinite Crisis, but he was certainly around for a long time.

Re: Red Arrow — are they definitely renaming him again? I flipped through JLA #1 and they seemed to be calling him Arsenal there.

Red Star did survive, and he’ll be appearing in Teen Titans next week. His wife and son, Pantha and Baby Wildebeest, died. So you know that cliche still flies.

Was there ever a hero named “Purple Heart”? Because that would be a pretty good color-named character.

There was a Purple Girl who was a member of Alpha Flight. She was the daughter of the Purple Man.

Purple Heart could fly. Good one.

They are indeed calling him Arsenal in the #1 issue, but on the cover I’ve got, he’s got a big R on his belt buckle. So I’m willing to stick my cyber-neck out just a bit.

Red Star and (the various) Rocket Red(s) are, of course, both Russian/Soviet heroes, so the Red makes sense from an American perspective. I wonder (and pardon my ignorance here), could the Soviets have possibly referred to themselves as Reds? Or did we come up with that based on the red hammer and sickle on their flag?

btw, I believe Red Star used to be codenamed Starfire, and Marv Wolfman renamed him after introducing the voluptuous alien Starfire we all know and love.

If I remember my history right and I’m not dumb, they probably would, since it did come out of Russian history, with the Red Army being the Bolshevik forces (the red, like with the Soviet flag, symbolizing the blood shed by the proletariat in the struggle against capialism) against the White Army during the revolution.

Purple Heart is a Bongo Comics character– the Radioactive Man version of Green Arrow. He later changed his name to Bleeding Heart and then Heart of Darkness or something.

There’ve been two Red Ravens at Marvel, and Todd Nauck created Red Rover for his Wildguard series at Image.

Paladin’s been described as “The Purple Paladin,” for what that’s worth.

Orange is sorely lacking, though.

Oh, hey. Casey created Agent Orange for Wildstorm. I’m not sure he’s technically a hero, however, and I’m even less sure he still exists after the “soft reboot” of the universe.

I vaguely recall a DC villain by the same name. I think he fought the Outsiders.

Perhaps Marvel could annoy the UK and the RoI by giving their minor Irish hero Shamrock an archfoe named the Orangeman.

“They are indeed calling him Arsenal in the #1 issue, but on the cover I’ve got, he’s got a big R on his belt buckle. So I’m willing to stick my cyber-neck out just a bit.”

He probably just stole one of Robin’s belts from the last Titans meeting. I would laugh very hard at a JLA story where one of the members was revealed to be a kleptomaniac, stealing various DC superhero gadgets and paraphernalia and causing them to be in danger when they go into battle.

Wonder Woman- “Crap! Where’d my bracelets go?” *Wonder Woman gets riddled with bullets.

“Speedy!”

Though with Meltzer, I’m sure we’d learn he was stealing the stuff so that he could sell it for smack, having relapsed into horrible addiction between issues. And he’s accidentally kill someone with a flamethrower he accidentally brought along…or stole, yeah. Stole so he could trade it for sweet, sweet heroin.

Don’t forget Red Sonja, Kingdom Come‘s Red Robin, the revival of the original Golden Age Daredevil renamed Reddevil to avoid a lawsuit, western hero Red Ryder…

Speaking of Westerns, there was a Marvel Native American hero named Red Wolf. That’s almost as PC as an Asian hero named Yellow Fever, but those were different times.

And you can get pedantic and include folks like the Scarlet Skier or the Crimson Avenger, but that’s kinda cheating. If I were a superhero, I would like to be known as Red Bull. Full of energy.

So which color has the most heroes named after it? Black? Green? Gold?

Black, easy.

Not only is almost every early Black character named “Black such and such,” (Black Panter, Black Lightning), you get your Black Adam, Black Bolt, Black Bison, and the completely inexplicable Black Canary.

Now I’m imagining Red Bull being hit by a teleporter accident and being split into Red Bull and Black Bull.

“I believe Red Star used to be codenamed Starfire, and Marv Wolfman renamed him after introducing the voluptuous alien Starfire we all know and love.”

Yep. He first appeared in the original Teen Titans #18, in 1968. Wolfman and Perez brought him back in The New Teen Titans #18 (1982) and renamed him, since they’d already… appropriated the name Starfire.

Interestingly, the cover bills him as the “return of the original Starfire,” but IIRC they call him Red Star throughout the book.

Interestingly, there’s a letter in New Teen Titans #3 addressing the whole “wha6t about the Russian Starfire?” thing, and Marv responds that he’s already planning to bring the guy back….since he and Len Wein co-created the Russian version for the previous incarnation of the book.

To be fair to Red Wolf, however, he DID wear a red wolfskin as his “costume.”

Though at taht point, I suppose you could make the same arguement about Blacks Panther and Manta. but not Black Lightning, who wore blue. Hmmm…

Arsenal’s belt has an “R” on it because his name is R-senal.

I mean… isn’t that obvious?