Thor, Superman, X-Men: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Artwork Reveals Powerful Superhero Influences [Excerpt]

Charles the First, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982. Courtesy of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Basquiat’s Charles the First, viewed by many as a work celebrating the jazz icon Charlie Parker (see also: the reference to the Parker song CHEROKEE), actually contains more elements reflecting his love of comics. And though it doesn’t feature any figural drawings of superheroes, it does name drop a few of the medium’s best-known characters. The first of those named is the mighty THOR, whose name is written near the top of the first panel in the Charles the First triptych, and framed with a box. Hovering just above Thor’s name is one of Basquiat’s now iconic graffiti crowns, and above both the sardonic phrase HALOES FIFTY NINE CENT is written. 

The name of Thor’s publisher Marvel actually makes two appearances. The first is further down the aforementioned panel, just under the number “193,” but scribbles mostly render MARVEL COMICS INC illegible. The name, however, is easy to discern at bottom of the third panel, where it appears with a line drawn through it, recalling a practice from graffiti. Also extracted from graffiti culture is the once ubiquitous S symbol that kids across America formerly doodled on endless sheets of notebook paper and on classroom desks. Its stylized form appears in the first panel encased in a strike zone box, like those once drawn with chalk on the sides of buildings where boys gathered to play stickball now ages ago. Next to the stylized S in the strike zone box is the ever-recognizable chest emblem of Superman with an S nested at its center. Directly above Superman’s emblem is where X-MN is written, a somewhat abbreviated reference to Marvel’s merry mutant superheroes, the X-Men. 

A variety of non-comic book related elements also make up Charles the First, which — as a whole — recalls the youth-driven scrawl that covered the doorways, walls, and trains in New York in the 1980s. But none attract more notice than the insightful phrase written across the bottom of the first and second panel: MOST YOUNG KINGS GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF.

King Charles I of England, though not exactly young at the time, was beheaded for treason at the tender age of 55. Jazz great Charles/Charlie Parker, at the age of 35, died from a bout of pneumonia exacerbated by Parker’s many years of substance abuse. And in 1988, at the young age of 27, Jean-Michel Basquiat died from a heroin overdose.

Excerpt from the 2018 essay 'Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Artwork Reveals Powerful Superhero Influences'.