Cyborg being pushed as any kind of important character is due to 1) Teen Titan cartoon/TTGo and 2) Geoff Johns having far too influence over DC, in movies and comics. Johns is committed to pushing all of his childhood wishes into reality and, while some have gone over well (the Rainbow Lantern corps just makes me roll my eyes, bringing back Barry Allen has yet to yield anything worth sacrificing Wally [I could go on and on over the stupidity of Johns]), this elevation of Cyborg hasn't been well received anywhere. As others here have stated, he's not a character than can or has ever stood on his own. His whole gimmick is boring, cliched, and past current sell-by date -- does *anybody* find cyborgs "cool" these days?
Meanwhile, John Stewart (probably the most well-known Lantern thanks to JLU), Black Lightning (the first and probably most interesting of DC's black superheroes, who also has a CW show), Jason Rauch Firestorm (completely discarded by DC despite being a "hot new character!" a few years ago), and Static (again pretty well-known thanks to Static Shock and Young Justice) languish in the corner.
John's the mainline JLA lantern right now, Black Lightning is being set up for the big stage, Static's getting a new Milestone imprint series.
Jason Rusch Firestorm is underutilized but that's more to do with Firestorm just not having any appropriately good villains that can actually deal with his cosmic power level imo. If you didn't know, it was a trope in Suicide Squad books to kill off Firestorm rogues for a while. I think the best they could do is try to rework the weird and funky 80s Ostrander stuff with the elementals and shit until they actually get a Cosmic book or sth for him. They've been trying to push him since he first appeared, but the writing standards for him have never been that good and revolved too much around Ronnie Raymond's legacy than letting Jason stand on him own imo. Kind of a shame too. But I guess that's what happens when you have villains like fucking Hyena and Slipknot.
Cyborg isn't bad, but he's too generic without the Titans stuff. He's just an overall good guy with godlike tech and the durability and power to stand up to gigantic threats. He's also an in-universe paragon of sorts. DC has far too fucking many of those, The Superman Family, Wonder Woman and co., The Marvel Family, the Flash Family, etc.
Hell, that reminds me, we already have a black, technology-powered hero that's already a "paragon". It's
Steel. Remember him? He's part of the Superman Family and is already EVERYTHING that Geoff Johns wanted to turn Cyborg into. He's no B-lister. He had a shit movie and several iconic runs and stories. (Louise Simonson's a damn fine writer.)
It's honestly a decent idea to have thrown him into JL Odyssey. Let him get some character development. Maybe he'll return to Earth and suddenly the Titans canon returns and then Beast Boy grows up appropriately.
Vixen could potentially be a big name if they marketed her for a decade. She's fairly known due to JLU and The Legends show. She's also the only member of the Detroit league that made it to the big time. Gypsy never really went anywhere past the 90s and the other two rookies fucking died.
Mr. Terrific works well, but he's B list until they start marketing him properly. He's got potential, but too much of his story is tied into the JSA and being a legacy. Once the rebooted JSA kicks off, he should just be back there and in his own The Terrifics book.
As for other notable black heroes, we have the newer Aqualad who's finally getting screentime after getting cucked by the new 52. He's pretty new tho. The Signal is new as hell and shouldn't be a centric hero until we get an establishing run for him. Bumblebee/Herald are Titans and famous for being semi-retired. Uhh, we also have had Nubia, the black Wonder Woman? She's not a bad concept to extend that family of characters tbh. Wallace West isn't going to be relevant for a while. The new Kid Flash is kind of just there since no one wants to kill off the black kid hero. Bronze Tiger is an anti-hero that'll be with the Suicide Squad again, eventually. The Amazing Man was a retroactively created black hero from the 40s. His grandson got killed off in the Starman run by James Robinson. His other descendent joined the JSA in the 2000s and was just kinda there. I think the 2000s JSA run introduced a ton of modern legacy heroes for use. Black Lightning's daughters were pretty relevant in the 2000s in the Outsiders and JSA. Uh, we also have Batwing as another relevant black hero. The last one that comes to mind is the black Power Girl who just got written off as being trapped in limbo trying to rescue the original power girl. Dunno when they'll resolve that. There's probably Natasha Irons too, but she's kind of relegated to the background.
Can't think of more. I've probably missed some. Is Vixen really the most well-known black superheroine from DC comics tho? Man no wonder Naomi is getting pushed. Granted it's just DC giving Bendis a good shot.
