Writer Dwayne McDuffie informed Gruenwald that "Buck" is considered a derogatory term among African-Americans, as it was a term used before the American Civil War to refer to male slaves, and said that it was also racially offensive to have an adult black man taking on the identity of a teenage sidekick. Writer Mark Gruenwald had not known of the racial connotation of "Bucky", having grown up in a region with very few African-Americans, and worked with McDuffie to create a story to address the problem and give Hoskins a new name.