Character Introduction #4: Slaughterhouse Jive

Now this is where things get weird. Again.

Slaughterhouse Jive (Finian "Finn" Mathers)

Age: 19

Plucked from: New York, United States, 1982 AD

   Born a poor white child in Harlem, NYC, young Finn grew up enamored with African American culture, a longing outsider within his own neighborhood. Actually, he was more enamored with African American pop culture, forming his perception not from his surrounding reality, but instead from blaxploitation classics, early hip-hop, and stage acts. Stereotypes were increasingly enforced and accepted with everything he saw, from early minstrel shows to cutting-edge stand-up.

   By age thirteen, Finn was a good-natured, but wildly misinformed "afrophile." Alienated by both his schoolmates and his sexaholic single mother, Finn was able to secure a job at a butcher shop. Then, after eating a radioactive Christmas ham given to him by his boss, his melanin output increased tenfold and he became, in a word, black. Also, he got some superpowers or something.

   So yes, we agree that Finn is a bizarre, somewhat controversial character, but bear with us here. Finn isn't simply a misguided twist on the "token black" teammate so prevalent in today's entertainment. We of course plan to use him as a vessel in which to explore a number of other sociopolitical themes, an axe-wielding John Howard Griffin, if you will. Or maybe our pilot will get picked up by a wary network, and we'll be forced to change Finn into a genuinely African political activist named Malcolm Axe. Sigh... one can dream.