And to revisit the Iceman thing
Added 2019-05-27 22:55:49 +0000 UTCThis is why I only roll my eyes a little when the Young Avengers or the Movement (remember them?) have a book and the cast is entirely or almost entirely minorities or disabled or queer (often times more than one). It is replacing the contrivance of the original Avengers having no minorities in it with the contrivance of somehow this team not having any majorities in it, (and you tell me whether it's more contrived that a random group of people who don't want to be invaded by Space Phantoms all belong to 95% of the population or 5% of the population) but it does beat 'revealing' that War Machine was trans all along.
I do think these companies should focus less on suddenly trying to 'represent' everyone all at once and instead on trying to build memorable characters who happen to be minorities, because a lot of the times it seems like the classic characters are being shoved out the door to make way for characters who are not well-liked enough to suddenly be THE Iron Man. It kinda makes me think that when social justice stops trending on Twitter, a lot of these characters are going to go the way of US-1. except without the kitsch appeal to have them looked upon with nostalgic fondness and brought back occasionally.
Of course, for that matter, another problem with modern comics is it seems like we have two dozen writers who all want to be "I'm the funnyman who writes about wacky obscure characters! It's funny because I'm joking around like X-Entertainment or Topless Robot, but in an Official Marvel Comic!" I don't know, God forbid I don't have a sense of humor, but I'd rather read a story by someone who legitimately thinks Armin Zola is super-cool than by someone going "ha ha, what if they played Pac-Man on Armin Zola's face? Ha ha, no, what if they played Pokemon Go!? HARLEM SHAKE!"
Comment now with who you think I'm making fun of in that last sentence!
Comments
Nailed it on the head here. The best people, the best writers, who know what to do with the characters and treat them like characters are the fans who grew up with them and have a passion for them. They don't treat them like props or as a way for the writer to insert themselves into the story.
Spartans300
2019-05-29 13:17:46 +0000 UTCWell, who else is going to become comic book writers other than comic book fans, right? This is sort a necessary quality of the comic book industry. Do your favourite characters constantly get killed off by someone who doesn't like them, only to be brought back by another writer who liked that character? Yeah. Do writers disagree with other writers' arcs and retcon stuff? Yeah. But this is also why comic book characters have such longevity, because Spider-Man and Iron Man and Batman have been rewritten and revised over the years to better suit the times. When Al Miller wrote The Dark Knight, there were some people who haaated it, because it fundamentally changed Batman... but ultimately, Al Miller probably saved Batman from cultural ignominy, because Adam West Batman wouldn't be selling out movie theatres. If Gail Simone wants to make Wonder Woman not some weird psychoanalytic bondage character, let's see it. If the story is good enough, I can forgive what the writer needed to do to make the story happen. (Including the stuff Mobofair writes. If he wants to "fix" things and retcon shit so he can write good stories, whatever.) The broader structural problems with comic books that reoccur time and again... I don't really know if there's anyways to fix that stuff without obliterating the American comic book medium as it currently is. (I.e. Japanese manga series that just end and are never seen again.) Happy to complain about its absurdities, but too old (and waay too late) now to try and be the vanguard of comic book continuity.
2019-05-28 07:04:36 +0000 UTCI don't just blame Jubilee and Psylocke being marginalised on nobody knowing what to do with them; I also blame fanboys becoming writers and editors, and then letting their prejudices get the better of them. The biggest example of that is Wolverine and his power creep, and conversely Cyclops becoming more and more monstrous. I especially despised things like the novelisation of one of the X-Men movies (Last Stand?) where it was hinted that Wolverine was Jean's ONE TRUE LOVE who would love her for her, or one of the comic writers who 'revealed' that Scott and Jean's marriage was essentially a sham because they never really got beyond their crush period from when they were teenagers. No, Jean's true love is Wolverine, who is also the true inheritor and true believer of Xavier's dream.
Ai Muhao
2019-05-28 05:00:46 +0000 UTC