the painting on the wall by Adeeb Yunus

My project is of a superhero-like figure. My main inspiration for this painting is Green Lantern. Without going into too much detail, the Green Lantern Corps is a fictional police force for the universe. For earth, there are two Green Lanterns (which is pretty excessive considering there are only like eight Green Lanterns but infinite alien planets). Anyway, the main Green Lantern is a white man named Hal Jordan and his "backup" Green Lantern is a black man named John Stewart. While growing up, I watched the Super Friends (the cartoon based on the alliance between Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.) and the Green Lantern in that series was Hal Jordan. Later, I noticed the new rendition Justice League used John Stewart for no explicable reason other than having a token minority character (which the Super Friends did with Apache Chief). Additionally, the creators of the Justice League didn't bother to change the character. He was still the same exact Green Lantern but just black. I have always been curious as to why the comics or the cartoons never really touched on the racial identities of these characters. It's a very cool concept (to me, at least) to have two identical superheroes but of different ethnicity and, accordingly, different uses and struggles with their powers. Thus, I have based my painting off my own rendition of these two characters, making them more diverse.

I decided to take a more stereotypical approach to the characters. The black superhero is much more rugged than John Stewart. He has cornrows, a gold chain, some tattoos and an Obama symbol on his shirt. I also gave him a prisoner's outfit, with ball and chain, in order to show that he's not the ordinary police officer but rather a reformed criminal whose soul has been trusted to enforce the universe.


The white superhero is more of the classical superhero. Like Superman and Batman, he wears a tie when dressed as his alter-ego. He also wears the standard domino mask, which makes it impossible to guess his identity.

I mainly stuck with black and white for this painting to symbolize the racial border between the characters. The fight scene here is to show that tension between the characters and that they're not really "super friends." Also, instead of omnipotent rings, I decided that robotic arms would be a better weapon. The less powerful robotic arms provide more of a weakness and invulnerability that comes with the job of being a superhero.

The ball and chain on the end of the black superhero's arm is used to transition to the next character who is surrounded by bubbles. Additionally, the fade from black to white is also used to this effect.