Identity Politics and Representation in Comics

[Prak]

(Split off from the Industry Defeatism thread in IMHO)

No, it is entirely companies wanting money. Make no mistake the people making these comics, are not true believers in your identity politics. They're just hacks who have been told to write a story to try and sell copies by shock value. Eventually they'll realize it's not making them as much money as they want and they'll retcon the whole thing. Probably really lazily.

Things get approved or disapproved by the companies based on whether they think they will make or lose money. But Gail Simone, Charlie Spike Trotman, Danielle Corsetto, Kieron Gillen, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Robert Morales and Lana Wachowski, just to name a few, are real people who are in the industry whose inclusion of their identity politics in their works is not intrinsically linked to cash grabbing. They are creators, several of whom are employed by, others who freelance for, the big companies, who create characters that draw on their own experiences as people who are not cis het white dudes much like Stan Lee created cis het white dude characters who drew on his experiences as a cis het white dude. Granted, Lee never, to my knowledge, created a Jewish character, but I would imagine that would have been hard to sell back when he was regularly creating characters. Hell, you can look at Alan Moore as a pagan, for that matter, to see a person who drew on their "identity politics" to create characters and stories that did not (necessarily) represent the experiences of the mainstream reader, and you can't say that he was motivated by blatant cash grabbing.

Which is to say, the producers are not True Believers, but the people creating the characters and stories, increasingly, are.

Also, Prak, saying identity politics aren't a political agenda is retarded. Please stop.

Alright, I think I'm on the wrong end of a semantic argument here. Mea culpa.

[AcidBlades]

Well it's a good thing that white people should be the only people who are doing comic books unless the minorities have minority theme powers. Like rappers who use dragon-shout based abilities around rapping, and Asians who use karate to chop down yakuzas or some shit.

sidenote: I think that minority representation should be better done without relying on the identity of white super heroes. But the comic book fans are not known for being an adventurous lot.

[PhoneLobster]

I'm sure any minute the comics industry will totally dump the failed identity politics characters like Wonder Woman in order to improve their profit margins by appealing exclusively to minority of a minority of white straight males who also only ever want to see fiction about white straight males interacting with white straight males.

Coming to their senses on all this identity politics Wonder Woman bullshit any decade now I'm sure. Certainly soon enough that anyone eagerly awaiting it should probably start holding their breath about nowish.

[MGuy]

As I said in the other thread I'm not so avid a comic reader anymore so I'm unfamiliar with what is upsetting people. I didn't get the whole thing with the alt batman cover and I don't get this thor thing. After looking it up I find out that, Thor "the" Thor, is not gone and is just once again not the acting Thor. This time a woman is. So what? Why is that bad? Why do fans care? He is still there. Just depowered "again".

[name_here]

Considering that the first issue of the new Thor run was the sixth best-selling comic book of 2014, behind the spiderman relaunch first issue, the rocket racoon first issue, the death of wolverine issues one and four, and the walking dead issue 132, I think in aggregate the fans don't actually mind so much.

[OgreBattle]

How much have you guys spent on comic books lately?

I've been following Felipe Smith's Ghost Rider (who is a new spirit of vengeance, so the old one is still around) as I already knew of his work in Japan as one of the westerners who's made it there. Hard to come by in Thailand tho'. Also met Felipe at Japan Expo, he has lots of great stories about life as a mangaka in Tokyo.

Picked up the all-female X-Men comic 'cause I liked the art... didn't like the story though so haven't followed up and last I heard Disney is wiping out X-men and all mutants to spite Fox owning the movie rights.

An artist I've been following since his Deviantart days, Afu Chan, has been doing variant covers of fem Thor and so on ... but then I like his original creations (his Romeo & Juliet Tybalt is super stylish).

I enjoy Frank Cho's big booby ladies of Liberty Meadows, so I might pick up a copy of his Amadeus Hulk.

[darkmaster]

As I said in the other thread I'm not so avid a comic reader anymore so I'm unfamiliar with what is upsetting people. I didn't get the whole thing with the alt batman cover and I don't get this thor thing. After looking it up I find out that, Thor "the" Thor, is not gone and is just once again not the acting Thor. This time a woman is. So what? Why is that bad? Why do fans care? He is still there. Just depowered "again".

Part of it is knee jerk reactions, but another part is, having the hammer doesn't make you Thor. Hulk wasn't Thor that one time he used the hammer, Beta-Ray Bill isn't Thor. There are other people in universe who could just as easily call themselves Thor and have just as strong a claim to the name. But people have become Thor before. The first comic version of Thor was just a guy. He was kind of bookish and small too. But he picked up the hammer and became Thor. Physically he transformed into Thor. And since then it's been pretty consistent. Having the hammer doesn't make you Thor. Being Thor makes you Thor because Thor is a person who has a connection to the hammer. It's not a Title like Green Lantern, you don't get the name just because you can hold the hammer. I think a lot of people feel like the move obviates an important part of the character.

As for the Batman cover... certain groups of people used bully tactics to force the company to censor a cover which was playing homage to the classic Batman comic the killing joke which if I recall the comic was coming out as an anniversary edition or something. For obvious reasons, a fair number of people objected.

[name_here]

Personally I don't buy American comics, at first because hunting down the back issues seemed like too much trouble and now because I have a manga problem so bad that I keep reading webcomics in the wrong direction and that has left me spectacularly unsympathetic to people whining about female action leads.

I do like the American comics I have read; I once got my hands on a Best Of Alan Moore collection, with The Killing Joke, Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?, the Green Lantern story with Mogo, and a couple more Green Lantern and Superman stories. That was pretty spectacular.

[MGuy]

As I said in the other thread I'm not so avid a comic reader anymore so I'm unfamiliar with what is upsetting people. I didn't get the whole thing with the alt batman cover and I don't get this thor thing. After looking it up I find out that, Thor "the" Thor, is not gone and is just once again not the acting Thor. This time a woman is. So what? Why is that bad? Why do fans care? He is still there. Just depowered "again".

Part of it is knee jerk reactions, but another part is, having the hammer doesn't make you Thor. Hulk wasn't Thor that one time he used the hammer, Beta-Ray Bill isn't Thor. There are other people in universe who could just as easily call themselves Thor and have just as strong a claim to the name. But people have become Thor before. The first comic version of Thor was just a guy. He was kind of bookish and small too. But he picked up the hammer and became Thor. Physically he transformed into Thor. And since then it's been pretty consistent. Having the hammer doesn't make you Thor. Being Thor makes you Thor because Thor is a person who has a connection to the hammer. It's not a Title like Green Lantern, you don't get the name just because you can hold the hammer. I think a lot of people feel like the move obviates an important part of the character.

As for the Batman cover... certain groups of people used bully tactics to force the company to censor a cover which was playing homage to the classic Batman comic the killing joke which if I recall the comic was coming out as an anniversary edition or something. For obvious reasons, a fair number of people objected.

I'm familiar with the latter thing. A number of friends were getting all up in arms about it and I argued with them about why and how making a big deal about an alternative comic book cover just made them all seem like a bunch of idiots. If you don't like the alternate cover just don't buy it. I also happened to know that none of the people in question were actually even likely to BUY the comic anyway so it was making a bunch of hoopla over a product they had no interest in supporting anyway.

The female Thor thing to me just seems like BS to me. I don't see it as propaganda and I don't see how it takes away from the character seeing as he is still apparently an important character in the comic. What I want to know is what about the current state of comics are actually pro-whatever propaganda. Is it an actual thing people feel (and if so what examples are there) or is this the very loud clanging of a very small amount of people that may even be a joke (like the Star Wars: White Genocide thing).?

[OgreBattle]

I do like the American comics I have read; I once got my hands on a Best Of Alan Moore collection, with The Killing Joke, Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?, the Green Lantern story with Mogo, and a couple more Green Lantern and Superman stories. That was pretty spectacular.

check out Jack Kirby's comics with the New Gods or the Celestials if you can, they have a zaniness that's closer to shonen manga sensibilities than many hero comics today (which focus more on drama and brooding).

I wonder if Hirohiko Araki (Jojo) was influenced by Kirby in some way as the way JoJo stands look is similar to Kirby's cosmic beings.

[Almaz]

sidenote: I think that minority representation should be better done without relying on the identity of white super heroes. But the comic book fans are not known for being an adventurous lot.

IIRC the main thing that is going on here is that they had tried to grow up minority heroes "naturally" but then they found that really hard to pull off successfully, mostly because comics fans are very reluctant to pick up new characters. Not impossible, but very hard. So they started splicing minority identities into existing heroes and... it worked. A lot better. By providing a fresh take on an existing subject it both attracted new readers and also rejuvenated interest in an older character. One of the more well-known examples is Miles Morales, who is basically Black Spider-Man... except, rather than making another character who is black and has spider-themed powers, he's just Spider-Man (in his continuity).

Yeah, people kicked up a snit about it, but Miles Morales was really well received in the end, and helped buoy Ultimate Marvel to success, which is the reason for and basis of all those movies we've been getting. The alternative was Marvel possibly dying out. I know, hard to imagine now, but the Ultimate continuity was a Hail Mary. There were lots of different elements to its success but if even one of them was missing, the line probably would have crashed. It almost did, with Ultimatum. Marvel is using this formula because it's both a proven success story and (limited) experimentation is how they keep themselves in business and keep themselves from getting stale.

As far as FemThor goes, the inscription on the hammer is totally "whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall have the power of THOR." Well, she now. It totally turns you into Thor for all practical intents and purposes. Nitpicking over the name is just that -- nitpicking. If you want to do it, be my guest, but from a strictly practical perspective -- for the purposes of anyone needing or fearing "the hero, Thor" -- the person with the hammer (who be worthy) is who is Thor.

With any other character, we wouldn't be having an argument about that, because we understand that even though Batman or Captain America are actually singular forms of address for one guy, i.e. proper addresses, they're names that represent something that it is possible for more than one person to be. Batman is a super detective in a funny cape. Captain America is a patriotic dude with the super soldier serum. Due to being sourced in mythology, we're used to thinking of Thor as this one person, this one god. But in the Marvel continuity, it is possible for "Thor" to be transferred. Then, whether the next person calls themselves "Thor" is a matter of preference.

[Chamomile]

Yeah, people kicked up a snit about it, but Miles Morales was really well received in the end, and helped buoy Ultimate Marvel to success, which is the reason for and basis of all those movies we've been getting.

Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America were all released before Miles Morales' debut issue.

I think the difference in reception between Miles Morales and FemThor might be due at least in part to how the old character was shuffled off-stage. Peter Parker died and Miles Morales tried to live up to what he'd done. Odinson became unworthy of his powers and Jane took over for him.

I don't actually read the comics so I'm guessing, but I'm reminded of the Buffy season 4 transition from Willow/Oz to Willow/Tara. It didn't suck because lesbian relationships are bad, it sucked because of the contempt with which Oz was shuffled offscreen.

[DSMatticus]

And it's not like Female Thor couldn't have worked, it just would have had to be well written. But instead, nop, lazy retconn.

I like how the amount you actually know about the thing you're bitching about is inversely proportional to the passion with which you are bitching.

Canonically, the Artist Formerly Known as Thor has become unable to wield the hammer because [reasons] (I hear it's all Samuel L. Jackson's fault), and has discovered by accident someone else who happens to be up to the task. That person has boobs. Thor said "fuck it," and gave her explicit permission to call herself Thor and run around doing Thor things while he calls himself Odinson and... probably runs around doing Thor things.

It's not a sudden continuity rewrite. It's just a bunch of incredibly benign and inoffensive things that canonically happened; someone else picked up Mjolnir, got Thor's powers (which is kind of what the hammer says on the label, if you weren't aware), and now has the hammer's former owner's explicit permission to take the name on the hammer as her own and be the new goddess of thunder or whatever.

The first comic version of Thor was just a guy.

The first comic book version of Thor was a memory-wiped Thor trapped in the body of a partially crippled doctor Odin. It was not some dude who picked up Thor's hammer and became Thor. It was a cursed Thor who picked up Thor's hammer and became Thor again.

The second comic book version of Thor is first-Thor possessing the body of his mortal BFF Eric Masterson, who runs around using Thor's hammer, Thor's powers, and Thor's title to do Thor things. Later first-Thor is separated from second-Thor and banished to wherever it is Marvel sends characters to be forgotten, and second-Thor continues using Thor's hammer, Thor's powers, and Thor's title to do Thor things despite very specifically not being first-Thor and not being possessed by first-Thor. Then [plot] happens and first-Thor returns and takes his hammer from second-Thor and second-Thor becomes Thunderstrike.

Thor-with-lady-bits is very explicitly not even the first person in Marvel canon to call themself Thor and not be the specific person whose actual name is actually Thor, nor are they the first person to have Thor's permission to do so.

And secondly because, by saying the way to show that women and minorities can be main character equal to white men, is to change a preexisting character is saying "we want female and minority heroes but don't think they can succeed on their own merits so please have them ride on the coat tails of successful white male characters."

Go fuck yourself. Start naming popular comic book identities created in the past ten years, any race, any gender, go. I know you (and acidblades) think you are making a deep and meaningful point, but all you're really saying is "I'm okay with female and minority leads, but... can we just wait, like, twenty years? We'll just make a bunch of new lead characters, and they won't all be white dudes, some small fraction of them will take off, and maybe by 2035 or 2055 or you know whatever, we'll have a slightly more balanced roster of heroes."

But also, fuck your asinine inability to understand what comic books are. The fact is that every single incarnation of a popular comic book character - every single one - is built on the legacy of the former incarnations. If done well, each new incarnation contributes to that legacy. Comics are a living mythology, and they are always changing as the stories are retold over and over and over and over by new authors with new ideas. Have you ever once in your life bitched that a new white male incarnation of a character who was already white and male was merely "riding on the coattails" of its predecessor? Of course not, because you don't give a shit. But when the latest incarnation is a different race or gender, then it's suddenly very important to talk about whether or not it's okay to launch new personas off of the backs of old ones? If those new personas successes are really their own?

Miles Morales is a completely legitimate entry into the Spiderman mythos. Thor-with-lady-bits is a completely legitimate entry into the Thor mythos. Sam Wilson is a completely legitimate entry into the Captain America mythos. They are no more "leeching" off the success of their predecessors than white male Flash #17; which is to say of course they are because that's how comic books have always worked, you fucking twat. But they will also add to and shape the mythos exactly like every other incarnation before them, and people will judge their contributions for what they are. Or they'll be racist/sexist pricks about it, whatever.

[DSMatticus]

You're assuming that murdering civilians requires xenophobia. This assumption is very, hmmm... Western.

No, I definitely didn't make that assumption. You can tell because that assumption is not anywhere in the thing I actually said. You can tell because only one of the three examples I gave even implies xenophobia was an element at all. You can tell because one of the three examples is the fucking Holocaust, which includes the mass murder of German undesirables by German soldiers you ignorant fuck.

I get that you want some kind of "gotcha" so you could dodge around the issue with a bunch of bullshit that is completely irrelevant to the underlying point, but your craft (diversion) check failed, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the die's fault so much as you being a fucking idiot.

No, of course not. You seem to subscribe to the absurd notion - the pervasive influence of which, to think of it, is another thing why I finally dropped mainstream comics - to the notion that one should stick to all the rules when fighting an enemy, which pointedly disregards said rules whenever it is advantageous to do so.

And you apparently subscribe to the absurd notion that it was okay to round up Japanese Americans and place them in internment camps because the Japanese government attacked pearl harbor, which is perhaps the most poignant admission of racism you have made thus far - you are, after all, claiming that our enemy during WW2 was not Japan, but those of Japanese descent.

So, yeah, methinks the racist shitbag doth protest too much.

[Almaz]

Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America were all released before Miles Morales' debut issue.

Oh... fucking fuck. Am I that daft on time? I am. Fuck! I'm sorry, I must confess, I am a time traveler and sometimes forget which year came first.

I stand by the rest of my statement though. THIS WAS ONLY A SETBACK!

[PhoneLobster]

I just want to bring this in from the other thread...

I must say that the political agenda you are actually defending is "women and blacks should have the rights to everything white men have earned, while shouldering none of the responsibilities"

...and just... sorta... point at it, while making a very disapproving face.

I'd do more, but, apparently, as a white man I just have too many responsibilities and all my time is tied up in constantly earning my basic human rights.

[Stahlseele]

what's this about an alternative cover of the killing joke being censored because #outcry?

[angelfromanotherpin]

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/19/he ... girl-cover

[Stahlseele]

Thank you.

[CaptainComics]

I absolutely had to register and add my two cents for this particular topic. I am a huge comics fan and I have been for a long time. A lot of the information in this thread seems to be the kind of thing people pick up from Wikipedia, which is factually accurate but lacks nuance. Sorry if this makes me the "um, actually..." guy, especially for my first post here.

I have read comics, especially Marvel comics, all my life. I love these characters and I've got a pretty deep knowledge of their story events and themes. I stopped buying Marvel comics around the year 2000 due to pretty much every title having drastic changes that made the heroes not seem very heroic any more, and actually seem as bad as if not worse than their villains. I didn't stop following the stories, though, and by hook and by crook I've managed to read most of the major stories of the last fifteen years and have a pretty good idea of what's going on.

I am a hardcore liberal. I very much support minority representation and marketing push to get the public to accept it. However, I hugely dislike the new Thor, the new Captain America, the new Captain Marvel, Nick Fury Jr., and Miles Morales. This is actually very difficult to talk about now online because disliking these characters is seen as evidence of racism and sexism. However, the stories involving these characters ARE JUST BAD, and no real attempt has been made to justify any of the events therein or make these characters likeable, unique, or interesting. On the other hand, I really dig the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel, where they actually make a new character who I love to read about and doesn't make me incredibly angry at every creator involved.

When darkmaster first started talking about how comics were propaganda these days, I originally thought I agreed with him. I didn't put together that he was talking about POLITICAL propaganda. The comics actually read as propaganda FOR THE WRITERS AND STORIES BEING TOLD. Rather than write a story, the tell you over and over that they wrote a story, and that it's good, and that everybody loves it, and that you're an idiot if you wanted something different.

The new Thor is spinning out of a bizarre series of choices made by several creators over the past few years. Jason Aaron has been writing Thor's main title, and then was given a major event crossover called Original Sin, in which a bunch of weird random stuff happened and the Watcher got killed. During this crossover, it eventually turned out that Nick Fury (the original white one from the 60s, not the Ultimate one based on Samuel L. Jackson, or the new biracial illegitimate son who looks like Samuel L. Jackson too) was kind of the big bad guy. During a fist fight with Thor and Fury on the moon, Nick Fury whispered something as yet unrevealed (because Jason Aaron doesn't know what it is) in Thor's ear and somehow this made Thor unable to lift the hammer. You may notice that this doesn't make any sense - Thor's worthiness to lift the hammer is not and cannot be in any way tied to SOMETHING HE KNOWS OR DOES NOT KNOW. It is a result of his deeds and character, which are extensively cataloged on a monthly basis and did not change because Nick Fury whispered sweet nothings in his ear.

So the inciting incident of this whole thing is nonsensical. Now the female Thor story development gets going. They cancel the Thor title and relaunch it with a new #1. They go for a formula that has been fairly successful in the past decade - the mystery hero. See, the idea is that there's a new character wielding the hammer, which is shocking by itself, and no one knows who she is! Not even the reader! That'll be four dollars. Per issue. For over six months. The first arc of the story is the worst kind of "mystery" - the kind where there are no clues and the story has no momentum. The character is, by necessity, a cipher - if she had a personality beyond "generic good guy" then the readers could potentially figure out the big reveal early. As a result, after six issues we have no idea what drives this character, what makes her unique, what flaws she struggles against, or why we should be glad to be reading her book instead of a book starring the original Thor, or Thunderstrike, or Beta Ray Bill, or Venom, or anyone else.

During this initial arc, we start getting the parts of the work that seem to me like propaganda for the story itself. See, it's not enough that Thor mysteriously can't lift his hammer, and now he needs to find a new way to fight crime. He decides to spend all his time drinking and whining about it rather than, say, look for a solution. Thor Odinson comes off as incredibly petulant and childish for this entire story in a way that comes out of nowhere and doesn't make a lot of sense. He's lost the hammer before - he just fought the guy who took it and got it back. He's had the hammer act weird before - he tracked down the Enchanters who were messing with it and made them say uncle. He's had bad setbacks and curses before - he went and forged some badass armor and then attacked the death goddess who had cursed him so she would take it back. He's had issues he couldn't deal with himself before - that's why he's got a team of Avengers for backup, and all the gods of Asgard too for good measure. However, it would be inconvenient to this story to have Thor actually try to solve his problem, and that adventure might actually be more interesting than Jason Aaron's new character, so it just doesn't happen. Then, Thor Odinson goes off to fight one of his old enemies, Malekith the Dark Elf. Now, Malekith is an enchanter, illusionist, and shapeshifter, not a brawler. He doesn't have superhuman strength or durability or anything like that, and it's well established that in a straight-up fight Thor would pretty much kick the tar out of him. Which is why Thor generally has to get past an army, or a bunch of illusions, and when Thor gets too close, Malekith usually tries to run away. This time, however, Malekith defeats Thor and CUTS HIS ARM OFF. Malekith spends the rest of the storyline WEARING THOR ODINSON'S SEVERED ARM LIKE A FEATHER BOA. Weird decision, and incredibly humiliating to the character of Thor. And when I say "rest of the storyline," I don't just mean, there's a fight and then someone shows up to save the day and that's the end of it, like a lot of superhero comics. Malekith leaves. Malekith comes back. Malekith fights some other dudes. Malekith kind of fights lady Thor (although really it's some frost giants who do the fighting). Malekith meets with a businessman who turned into a minotaur for some reason. All while wearing a severed arm. This goes on for several issues.

So how does lady Thor come off during all of this? Honestly, she seems largely incompetent. I don't say that because she's a woman, or a replacement character, or anything like that. I mean if you see what she actually does of her own volition during this book, compared to what is done for her or by other characters, she doesn't actually do much. She fights Malekith and his frost giant minions, and some of that is actually her doing - punching giants with superstrength is obviously something she's both capable of and good at. But the fight's actually really won by Mjolnir, the hammer. For some reason, it's flying around attacking things ON ITS OWN, which it generally didn't do before. So the hammer makes things incredibly easy on lady Thor, because she essentially has a free sidekick that Thor Odinson didn't have. Oh, and they explicitly say that the hammer likes the lady Thor better than the original Thor. Thanks for that.

Then, after the whole Malekith thing is over with, lady Thor encounters two of Thor's deadliest foes, the Absorbing Man and Titania. I say "encounters" rather than "battles" because as soon as Titania sees that Thor is a woman now, she beats up her husband and turns herself in. I'm not kidding, that's not hyperbole, that's literally what happens. Now, this is absurd to start with, because as far as storytelling goes it's the exact opposite of the beat that we need for this character. So far lady Thor has had things essentially handed to her. How she got the hammer is as yet unexplained, she doesn't need to fight her own battles because the hammer does it for her, people who cut off the old Thor's arm are scared of her for no reason. But if that had been followed up with a well-written and exciting issue or two in which she was outnumbered by villains who have always given the original Thor a run for his money - one of whom is just plain stronger and tougher than him and the other of whom can literally steal some of his power every time he gets hit - and she made a good showing of herself through her own ingenuity, tactics, and physical might, there might be some hope for this character. But instead, the villains instantly give up while explicitly shaming the readers if they're not one hundred percent on board with this new direction as insufficiently progressive.

And what's even more absurd is that it's Titania who does this, and does it because the new Thor is a woman. Titania is a character who debuted in Secret Wars (the first one, from the 80s, with the toyline). She was a mousy plain small woman who got to be big, and busty, and powerful, and immediately went around rubbing all the heroes' noses in it. She's a bully, and she fought and defeated heroes like Thor, the Thing, and the She-Hulk. She actually became a recurring foe of the She-Hulk, appearing numerous times and always giving Shulkie a good fight. She's fought most of Marvel's female heroes, which is admittedly a short list but still has heavy hitters in it like Ms./Captain Marvel. So obviously, Titania's not going to go easy on a "girl who's doin' it for herself." She actually SEEKS OUT powerful female heroes to fight, because that's what makes her feel badass. But rather than be true to the characters, or have a cool fight that might win over some readers, Jason Aaron instead decides to berate the fans for not liking his terrible story enough.

Finally, the big reveal happens. Turns out lady Thor is in fact Jane Foster, who was Thor's girlfriend back in the Stan and Jack days of Journey into Mystery. Who is dying of cancer, refused magical aid, and has been spending her days in a hospital bed with tubes running through her and machine hooked up to monitor her vitals. In Asgard. It is essentially impossible for her to have gotten out of the Asgardian medical bay, snuck past everybody including the guy who can watch a fly in Zimbabwe land on a fencepost while he's standing an a rainbow bridge in another dimension, and got the hammer without anyone getting a clue what's up. Furthermore, there's no reason for her not to have told Thor what was going on and who she was, since they met up briefly during the stuff with Malekith and he was obviously pretty broken up about this whole thing. And then Secret Wars happened and the title was kind of canceled in preparation for a line-wide retcon thing.

So, in short, the replacement Thor story doesn't make any sense, doesn't do anything to establish lady Thor as an interesting or heroic character, makes the lady Thor character seem like she needs crutches and handholding to get anywhere rather than being able to stand on her own two feet and get the job done, and does it all at the expense of the guy whose power and name she stole in a way that also doesn't make any sense. Multiple times Jason Aaron writes in pointed jabs at his critics through character dialogue, but does nothing to alleviate the multiple plot holes, character derails, and just plain weird stuff that people were actually complaining about. The lady Thor is terrible. But it's not because she's a lady.

Obviously, this was a huge wall of text, but I can go into just as much detail about why the Sam Wilson Captain America is a far worse superhero than he ever was as the Falcon, or why Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel took one of my favorite B-list heroes and made her completely useless and out of control of her own life, or why Miles Morales brings nothing to the table, or why Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel is actually super great and exactly what Marvel should be doing more. There's a right way to do this (Ms. Marvel) and a wrong way (pretty much everyone else), and the reasons the wrong way is wrong is not because they're trying to make minority heroes a thing, it's because it's done very very poorly.

[shinimasu]

One of the common arguements against this sort of thing I've seen though is not that the comics aren't actually that good, but that it's just the company trying to make money. Which is??? What do people think the companies were trying to do when comics were a sea of white dudes?

It's always been a money game, but recent demographic shifts mean white het dudes are no longer the majority market share they once were and people are discovering "hey I can make a neat chunk of change if I branch out a little with my protagonists! White guys will still largely buy these things and now I'm also getting a new piece of the pie by drawing in formerly disinterested readers."

Like even if the New Thor is terrible people are still tuning in to see what all the drama is about, and those sales figures just encourage more atypical leads, which in turn will hopefully produce better written atypical leads (like Ms Marvel who is indeed super great) because comics have always been a kind of "throw this at a wall and see what sticks" industry.

[Stahlseele]

Welcome to the Den CaptainComics.

Obviously, this was a huge wall of text,

and if you think that has ever stopped or bothered any denizen before, you have not been very attentive while lurking.

but I can go into just as much detail about why the Sam Wilson Captain America is a far worse superhero than he ever was as the Falcon, or why Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel took one of my favorite B-list heroes and made her completely useless and out of control of her own life, or why Miles Morales brings nothing to the table, or why Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel is actually super great and exactly what Marvel should be doing more. There's a right way to do this (Ms. Marvel) and a wrong way (pretty much everyone else), and the reasons the wrong way is wrong is not because they're trying to make minority heroes a thing, it's because it's done very very poorly.

please do, i'd like to read it. if not here, then maybe in the other comics thread?
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54327

[Leress]

Welcome to the Den, CaptainComics. I would also like to read your critques on the comics since I stop reading them around Spiderman's One More day and just have been reading mangas.

[MGuy]

I third that. I legitimately want to know what people are upset about. I don't really have a dog in the fight since I'm not into comics as I used to be so this is all news to me.

Edited for ninja.

[Prak]

And secondly because, by saying the way to show that women and minorities can be main character equal to white men, is to change a preexisting character is saying "we want female and minority heroes but don't think they can succeed on their own merits so please have them ride on the coat tails of successful white male characters."

Go fuck yourself. Start naming popular comic book identities created in the past ten years, any race, any gender, go. I know you (and acidblades) think you are making a deep and meaningful point, but all you're really saying is "I'm okay with female and minority leads, but... can we just wait, like, twenty years? We'll just make a bunch of new lead characters, and they won't all be white dudes, some small fraction of them will take off, and maybe by 2035 or 2055 or you know whatever, we'll have a slightly more balanced roster of heroes."

Oh, hey, I can do that-

• The Young Avengers
  • Notably-
  • Kate Bishop (Female)
  • Hulking (Gay)
  • Miss America (Latina, Gay)
  • Wiccan (Gay)
  • Patriot (Black)
• Miss Martian (Female)

Wow, it looks like we've already done what darkmaster is flaccidly suggesting we should. I'm only looking Wikipedia's list of super hero debuts here and listing characters that I actually recognize (as a person who does not follow comics closely) as a gauge for popularity. If we go outside of super hero comics, "popular" becomes somewhat of a dubious term, but allows the addition of an all women team of D&D murderhobos, the Rat Queens (I prefer to think of Hannah as trans, but so far as I know, she is specifically and explicitly cis female in canon). The other notable thing, beyond all of them reaching outside of the "Cis, Het, White, (usually) Ambiguously Christian Man" tradition, is that all of the above characters piggy backed on the theme and popularity of an established (C/H/W/AC/M) character. Kate Bishop is Hawkeye's protege, Hulkling is a shapeshifter who happens to look like a young Hulk most of the time, Miss America is some kind of dimension displaced junior Captain America-themed character, Wiccan's costume looks like he bought a high quality teen-sized Thor costume at a Halloween store, Patriot is related to Isaiah Bradley, who was the in-canon, chronologically first Captain America, created through the Tuskegee Experiments (Red, White and Black, very, very good. Seven or eight issues), and Miss Martian is, I believe, explicitly Martian Manhunter's actual niece.

On the Batgirl cover- I recognized the reference, I appreciated the reference, but I objected to the characterization of Batgirl for the cover (has Barbara ever been the type to react with paralyzed ugly-sob fear to danger?). I understood both sides of the fray, but given that the "Pro-Cover" side was basically "THESE DAMNED ESS JAY DOUBLE YOUS ARE CENSORING US! MENS RIGHTS! MENS RIGHTS! IMMA GO RAPE SOMEONE TO PROVE IM NOT A RAPIST" fedora wearing shitheels... I was not inclined to actually take their side. Like I said, I appreciated the reference, and I think it's a killer idea for a cover, if Batgirl had not been drawn so out of character, and it was a variant, and it could have been (and probably would have been, at least going by the shop I worked at) kept behind the counter, and yeah, it started with someone taking their triggers and trying to influence a publishing company based on what they personally found psychologically distressing, but at the end of the day, it was the artist who suggested it not be printed, and basically the whole thing couldn't have been further from censorship.

But...

MRAs, amirite?