Woke Agenda in Comics, esp Marvel

[shevek]

OK folks, this is to build on the thread that DaJinx (Ultraheroix) started. I am going to continue to write about comics in this subforum. But I would very much doubt that I am going to cover (or buy) anything Marvel in the near future beyond the Mockingbird tpb I recently got.

Because it goes beyond just the sea changes that DaJinx noted above. In my opinion, there is a definitely a conscious agenda by most of its editors and major writers (and by that, I mean anyone from Sana Amanat to Brian Bendis..whom I do admire for his work on Powers and Jessica Jones) to eliminate, de-power and demote the white male from almost all of their titles. Two recent occurrences with She-Hulk and Iron Man have brought this to a head for me finally.

Namely:
The new issue of Hulk #1 pretty much eliminates the title "She-Hulk". And this is the final straw for me because Jennifer Walters is the single sexiest major character that Marvel has (especially since Carol Danvers still has that terrible short hairdo). First of all, Hulk himself is dead. He is replaced by an Asian teenager (see also Champions). Gone is the witty, sexy, intelligent in-control second-wave feminist She-Hulk of the Dan Slott years. She's not even green anymore, she's gray, and succumbs to random bouts of rage like her cousin did. So, she is now "The Hulk". From the previews I've seen, it doesn't look sexy in the least.

The second big event I've seen is the killing of Tony Stark by Captain Marvel. He represents the rule of law, the power of capitalism. She represents the "feels", the emotional rage that millennials are not getting their due and that justice can't be done by anyone except arrogant utopianist vigilantes spraypainting anti-fascist slogans on walls in the dead of night. She wins. There is no Tony Stark. Of the two Iron Men, one is a black female millennial teenager, and the other is a straight-up villain, Doctor Doom. Why Doom needs Tony's armor when he already has his own, I have no idea. You'd think given his long enmity with Reed Richards that Doom would be more satisfied becoming Mr Fantastic.

This brings to a head a long series of gradual changes involving genderswapping, racewashing and character-killing that's been happening for several years under the editors and writers I mentioned above plus a few others like Kelly DeConnick, G Willow Wilson and so on. Even Mark Waid seems to have succumbed with this new series of Champions.

Let's look at just some of the things that have happened that I can recall:
- White male Captain Marvel is gone. Female Captain Marvel takes his name and place.
- As a result, new Ms. Marvel is Pakistani teenager. [Note: there is a sexy grownup version of Kamala Khan in an alt-universe Inhumans book, but that won't be canon].
- In the new book Champions, the new Ms Marvel is one of the leaders. She lectures repeatedly using politically correct "woke" terminology like telling the heroes not to "punch down" and not to bother defending establishment institutions etc. Group also "correctly" includes black Spiderman, Asian hulk, and the teenage female Vision (Viv).
- New Hawkeye is female, Kate Bishop. She does not adopt a different codename.
- Black Spiderman Miles Morales.
- Black Panther comic series featuring writer Ta-Nehisi Coates who wants full reparations.
- Wolverine is dead. New Wolverine is female X-23.
- Captain America is evil (Hydra). Latest heroic Cap is black (ex-Falcon Sam Wilson).
- Thor is demoted and disgraced. New Thor is female Jane Foster.
- Hulk is dead. New Hulk is teenage/Asian. She-Hulk is now just called "Hulk".
- New Iron Man Riri Williams is black teenager.
- There's a new Black Widow series, but if you look at the art it has none of the fetish-level
hotness that Natasha exuded even five years ago (I have one Marvel Max Black Widow tpb that's off the charts as far as titillation in that regard!). It's abstract and cartoony.
- Peter Parker continues to hold on to the Spider-Man franchise, but it's now a worldwide concern where all of his other franchisees far outnumber him..besides his clone Kaine, there's the Asian Silk, Spider-Woman, Gwen Stacy and the Indian Spider-Man among others.
In the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Gwen calls her iconic high-heeled boots "torture devices of the patriarchy". Yep. Nobody's laughing.

Now, I'm not saying at all that I disagree with the idea of more prominent and iconic black, Asian and female heroes. As a second-wave feminist, I'm all for representation and diversity. But along with this change comes a very lazy agenda. Pretty much not a single new character (at least none with a brand new name) has been created. Actually let me take that back: one popular new character, Squirrel Girl, has risen to the A-List. She is a teenage female millennial who looks defiantly plain (although it is very possible to draw her and cosplay her sexily) and absolutely cannot be defeated by anyone in the establishment. Sound familiar? The types that represent Squirrel Girl are all over Tumblr.

My problems are two-fold: 1) That they had to take down pretty much every iconic white male character, rather than create a whole slew of new ones. Thus (almost) none of these are really new characters, they are just millennialized versions of the old ones.
2) As we've noted in the past, attempts to tamp down all possible sexualization continue.
To the point where whenever the drawing of an occasional hottie peeks through, it becomes an Internet twitter incident where the artist never seems to win.

Now here's where this really gets political. I voted for Hillary Clinton because I wanted a government that was centrist and competent. I would not change that vote. But with Trump now in office (and unlikely to be removed), the higher-ups at Marvel are going to feel even more justified than they already do about their ongoing agenda, which seems like it has almost completely overturned the whole order of its superhero universe to suit current politics (the kind that didn't win a presidential election, either).

I would also like to compare and contrast this with everyone else:

- Sure, DC has made some changes in the same direction, but they did not kill off or demote almost any of their major characters to replace them genderwise or racewise like Marvel did. Even a Muslim and Hispanic Green Lantern (Jessica Cruz is quite the looker) didn't eliminate Hal Jordan. Instead, they doubled down on promoting the female characters they did have, like Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Vixen, Harley Quinn, and Supergirl, and created comics and TV targeted at female audiences. DC already has considerably more prominent female characters than Marvel does.

- Image, with a huge stable of creator-owned comics, does whatever it wants. There are such a wide range of titles, whether you're into the hard-leftist agenda of Bitch Planet or the hardboiled crime noir of Ed Brubaker titles, or just the whizz-bang classic superheroism of Invincible, etc. that it's impossible to pin Image to any one agenda whatsoever. And if you're looking for brand newly created female characters, Image has a billion of them, and from Snotgirl to Monstress to Saga's hot milf Alana to Red One to Low's Stel Caine, they don't represent one particular view of the world and are pretty diverse.

-Then you have the "unabashedly sexy" companies, the likes of Avatar, Aspen, Dynamite, and Actionlab who still publish a fair range of titles that are reflective of good-girl/bad-girl art. Dynamite has done two series in recent years starring Dejah Thoris for example. They seem to have their successful niches, and I enjoy a fair amount of the art within them.

In the future, I think I will probably tend to lean towards all of these efforts rather than look at much Marvel stuff. If somebody feels like changing my mind, please do so in this forum and point out specifically where I'm wrong and I'll take a look at the title in question.

Again, please do not take this as any kind of expression of racism or sexism. I absolutely do not believe that any skin color, gender or sexual orientation is inferior to any other. And I do think that everyone deserves to see themselves represented as heroic. It's very cool when a young black girl sees herself in a powerful black heroine. I'd never want to take that joy away from her. But whether that results in the demoting or elimination of a slew of white-male heroes, in a kind of comic book push for reparations, is another matter. if that's controversial to say in a current climate where being white and male is seen as inherently evil, then so be it.

As far as comics go, I like two main things:
1) great stories that have many levels, are smart and inventive, and not too preachy.
2) beautiful representations of females in them.

I will put my money (and my words) where my mouth is.

[Femina]

OK folks, this is to build on the thread that DaJinx (Ultraheroix) started. I am going to continue to write about comics in this subforum. But I would very much doubt that I am going to cover (or buy) anything Marvel in the near future beyond the Mockingbird tpb I recently got.

Because it goes beyond just the sea changes that DaJinx noted above. In my opinion, there is a definitely a conscious agenda by most of its editors and major writers (and by that, I mean anyone from Sana Amanat to Brian Bendis..whom I do admire for his work on Powers and Jessica Jones) to eliminate, de-power and demote the white male from almost all of their titles. Two recent occurrences with She-Hulk and Iron Man have brought this to a head for me finally.

Oh here we go.

Namely:
The new issue of Hulk #1 pretty much eliminates the title "She-Hulk". And this is the final straw for me because Jennifer Walters is the single sexiest major character that Marvel has (especially since Carol Danvers still has that terrible short hairdo). First of all, Hulk himself is dead. He is replaced by an Asian teenager (see also Champions). Gone is the witty, sexy, intelligent in-control second-wave feminist She-Hulk of the Dan Slott years. She's not even green anymore, she's gray, and succumbs to random bouts of rage like her cousin did. So, she is now "The Hulk". From the previews I've seen, it doesn't look sexy in the least.

It's still ABOUT She-Hulk though isn't it? I mean, she's still the star, and likely there is going to be a lot involving the memory of Bruce (if not the wholesale resurrection of Bruce down the line cause we all know that's inevitable) Though I'll agree it's lame they're taking away her hulk out self control.

The second big event I've seen is the killing of Tony Stark by Captain Marvel. He represents the rule of law, the power of capitalism. She represents the "feels", the emotional rage that millennials are not getting their due and that justice can't be done by anyone except arrogant utopianist vigilantes spraypainting anti-fascist slogans on walls in the dead of night. She wins. There is no Tony Stark. Of the two Iron Men, one is a black female millennial teenager, and the other is a straight-up villain, Doctor Doom. Why Doom needs Tony's armor when he already has his own, I have no idea. You'd think given his long enmity with Reed Richards that Doom would be more satisfied becoming Mr Fantastic.

Well somebody had to lose, but then Cival War 2 hasn't made any sense at all for anybody. I don't actually believe Tony would fight against Minority Report considering his stance in Cival War 1. I don't actually believe Carol would fight FOR Minority Report considering her past. So the whole thing has been pretty lackluster contrivances from start to finish, so I've not paid it any attention at all. Somehow though, I doubt her killing Stark constitutes as her 'winning' the fallout is on the way, Tony had his fallout for 'winning' against Cap America and it resonated into the best run Iron Man ever had. Nothing wrong with Iron Heart at all. There's crapwads of people who have Iron Man armor. Literally it's the most overused 'power' in Marvel, anyone who works with stark longer than a year or two seems to get a suit, doesn't seem like anything to cry about. Rhodes (whose dead... for now, and Potts just off the top of my head) and Von Doom is getting the armor for toys and publicity most likely.

This brings to a head a long series of gradual changes involving genderswapping, racewashing and character-killing that's been happening for several years under the editors and writers I mentioned above plus a few others like Kelly DeConnick, G Willow Wilson and so on. Even Mark Waid seems to have succumbed with this new series of Champions.

I won't argue this stuff isn't dumb, it's always better ordinarily to just make NEW heroes if you want to fill in the blanks. I honestly don't know why they won't just make new characters for ethnic diversity... it isn't like there's no room.

Let's look at just some of the things that have happened that I can recall:
- White male Captain Marvel is gone. Female Captain Marvel takes his name and place.

Considering that male Captain Marvel was A: Never that popular and B: Has been dead for almost as long as comic books have existed and was never coming back and C: That 'Miss Marvel's' backstory and origin heavily involved him this is one of the few cases of 'inheriting' the name that really makes sense though.

- As a result, new Ms. Marvel is Pakistani teenager. [Note: there is a sexy grownup version of Kamala Khan in an alt-universe Inhumans book, but that won't be canon].
- In the new book Champions, the new Ms Marvel is one of the leaders. She lectures repeatedly using politically correct "woke" terminology like telling the heroes not to "punch down" and not to bother defending establishment institutions etc. Group also "correctly" includes black Spiderman, Asian hulk, and the teenage female Vision (Viv).

'Establishment institutions' are things like corporations and 'the 1%' and frankly... they don't NEED protection or defence, and quite often don't deserve it. THAT'S what I took from that.

- New Hawkeye is female, Kate Bishop. She does not adopt a different codename.
- Black Spiderman Miles Morales.
- Black Panther comic series featuring writer Ta-Nehisi Coates who wants full reparations.
- Wolverine is dead. New Wolverine is female X-23.
- Captain America is evil (Hydra). Latest heroic Cap is black (ex-Falcon Sam Wilson).
- Thor is demoted and disgraced. New Thor is female Jane Foster.

Agreed this is all dumb. JUST MAKE NEW CHARACTERS MARVEL!

- Hulk is dead. New Hulk is teenage/Asian. She-Hulk is now just called "Hulk".

Lot's of people died in CW2. SOME OF THEM BLACK!

- New Iron Man Riri Williams is black teenager.

Iron HEART not Iron Man. Again I attribute the comic's title to mean Tony's memory and eventual resurection imply the comic book simply intends to stick close to the 'stark' issue.

- There's a new Black Widow series, but if you look at the art it has none of the fetish-level
hotness that Natasha exuded even five years ago (I have one Marvel Max Black Widow tpb that's off the charts as far as titillation in that regard!). It's abstract and cartoony.

People remember a VASTLY different pre-Johanson Black Widow landscape than I do. Yes she had very occasional spots in a mainstream comic book with fantastic art where she was shiny and formed, but even then, almost all of her own mini-series simply had shmexy covers and were filled with abstract art that was far from 'sexy.'

- Peter Parker continues to hold on to the Spider-Man franchise, but it's now a worldwide concern where all of his other franchisees far outnumber him..besides his clone Kaine, there's the Asian Silk, Spider-Woman, Gwen Stacy and the Indian Spider-Man among others.
In the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Gwen calls her iconic high-heeled boots "torture devices of the patriarchy". Yep. Nobody's laughing.

Go spend a day in high heels? They ARE torture devices and they are worn entirely to attract men. I like heeled boots as much as the next girl, but I always wear flatter heels, never stilletos. Hard to call Gwen out when she isn't wrong. Remember when it was left up the the greatest majority of human males to decide what footwear women would wear, they were breaking our feet in asia, folding the toes underneath our soles and wrapping them up so that we would have tiny feet. This was considered 'beautiful' on a woman basically because it meant she couldn't run away. Granted this was never true in America but as far as 'total population' it still holds up. Now I'm not saying it's a 'torture device entirely of the PATRIARCHY' here, we all have a CHOICE in what we wear, but I do still challenge anyone who gets annoyed with women who complain about heeled shoes to try it themselves for awhile before just condemning her as a whiner.

Now, I'm not saying at all that I disagree with the idea of more prominent and iconic black, Asian and female heroes. As a second-wave feminist, I'm all for representation and diversity. But along with this change comes a very lazy agenda. Pretty much not a single new character (at least none with a brand new name) has been created. Actually let me take that back: one popular new character, Squirrel Girl, has risen to the A-List. She is a teenage female millennial who looks defiantly plain (although it is very possible to draw her and cosplay her sexily) and absolutely cannot be defeated by anyone in the establishment. Sound familiar? The types that represent Squirrel Girl are all over Tumblr.

My problems are two-fold: 1) That they had to take down pretty much every iconic white male character, rather than create a whole slew of new ones. Thus (almost) none of these are really new characters, they are just millennialized versions of the old ones.
2) As we've noted in the past, attempts to tamp down all possible sexualization continue.
To the point where whenever the drawing of an occasional hottie peeks through, it becomes an Internet twitter incident where the artist never seems to win.

Won't argue any of this. I mostly agree. The 'gender/raceswap' needs to quit in favor of new characters, it just does.

Now here's where this really gets political. I voted for Hillary Clinton because I wanted a government that was centrist and competent. I would not change that vote. But with Trump now in office (and unlikely to be removed), the higher-ups at Marvel are going to feel even more justified than they already do about their ongoing agenda, which seems like it has almost completely overturned the whole order of its superhero universe to suit current politics (the kind that didn't win a presidential election, either).

Sadly I have to agree with you here as well. There's going to be twice as much complaining about it as well. We just saw a HUGE push back from angry racists and sexists or else anti-'PC' and then anti-white house politic business minded people who voted in Trump because they wanted something different (Or else just wanted a platform to justify posting racist rants on Twitter and in youtube comments but I refuse to believe those are the ONLY people who voted for Trump... I have to believe that many of them had actual reasons) they made a successful push back, no question, and they consider themselves justified to push... now I wonder how they will respond when the inevitable push back from their push comes... and I sincerely doubt it will include less bitching and moaning as we've already experienced... or that they will consider that push justified.

I would also like to compare and contrast this with everyone else:

- Sure, DC has made some changes in the same direction, but they did not kill off or demote almost any of their major characters to replace them genderwise or racewise like Marvel did. Even a Muslim and Hispanic Green Lantern didn't eliminate Hal Jordan. Instead, they doubled down on promoting the female characters they did have, like Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Vixen, Harley Quinn, and Supergirl, and created comics and TV targeted at female audiences. DC already has considerably more prominent female characters than Marvel does.

Very True.

- Image, with a huge stable of creator-owned comics, does whatever it wants. There are such a wide range of titles, whether you're into the hard-leftist agenda of Bitch Planet or the hardboiled crime noir of Ed Brubaker titles, or just the whizz-bang classic superheroism of Invincible, etc. that it's impossible to pin Image to any one agenda whatsoever. And if you're looking for brand newly created female characters, Image has a billion of them, and from Snotgirl to Monstress to Saga's hot milf Alana to Red One to Low's Stel Caine, they don't represent one particular view of the world and are pretty diverse.

-Then you have the "unabashedly sexy" companies, the likes of Avatar, Aspen, Dynamite, and Actionlab who still publish a fair range of titles that are reflective of good-girl/bad-girl art. Dynamite has done two series in recent years starring Dejah Thoris for example. They seem to have their successful niches, and I enjoy a fair amount of the art within them.

Thing about these is, none of them are large enough to 'reach' the sorts of people they might offend. The only people who find these comics are the people LOOKING for them. If they got popular enough, you'd see the same thing start to happen... I just don't think anyone who get's mad about it really understands why it happens.

[RedMountain]

I honestly have no problem at all with having female/minority characters, I just wish the comic companies would actually be creative and CREATE new ones that are awesome and have unique backgrounds rather than continually taking current heroes we've known and loved for decades and changing them "just because." Why do you need to take Iron Man(or any other major character) and make it be another character? Why not just have that super smart scientist girl build her own armor suit or something cooler and be her own unique heroine? That is really what I personally can't understand. There is just no creativity anymore with anything and I have to think that is one of the reasons comics aren't selling well.

[Femina]

I honestly have no problem at all with having female/minority characters, I just wish the comic companies would actually be creative and CREATE new ones that are awesome and have unique backgrounds rather than continually taking current heroes we've known and loved for decades and changing them "just because." Why do you need to take Iron Man(or any other major character) and make it be another character? Why not just have that super smart scientist girl build her own armor suit or something cooler and be her own unique heroine? That is really what I personally can't understand. There is just no creativity anymore with anything and I have to think that is one of the reasons comics aren't selling well.

Right, I think this is the point Marvel is missing, they don't seem to want to make new character or something. Because though I consider 'Iron Heart' less egregious than most people seem to (I mean it just isn't anywhere near as bad as femthor, she ISN'T actually taking 'Iron Man' as the name and she's far from the first person to wear an 'Iron Suit') It would be way cooler if she'd just made her own suit of COMPLETELY DIFFERENT styled and mechanical armor than just Stark Tech, and therefore act as a completely new character...

[KennyLoggins]

To keep it short : Don't worry, it will not last. As soon as sales goes down everything gets rebooted back to status quo or as a hope of last resort Public Domain takes over everything.

If you really miss She-Hulk send an e-mail to Anastasia Pierce, ask her when and if she might be available to be body painted green and Angela Sommers body painted Red, call it She-Hulk vs Red She-Hulk Clash of Titans.

I don't care for whatever Marvel does this days, my passion are the custom made videos and deviant art graphics. If is not fun I just don't buy it.

[Dazzle1]

Makes me glad I prefer D.C

Although we have several Green Laterns and they JLU used the less popular John Stewart, they have resisted the urge to make major changes to Cannon.

[Richpartist]

Haven't bought or read any comics in years and now it seems I haven't missed anything.PC crap took over and as usual as screwed it all up.Female versions and ethnic versions of our favorite heroes and I guess heroines has shown that if you can't come up with a sellable hero on your own then change the "white" ones.Everything male is now female and everything white is now black or asian or whatever.Here's a thought COME UP WITH YOUR OWN heroes and leave the classics alone
I'm sure its only a matter of time before Wonder Woman is really a man trapped in a womans body and thinks she's black or something.

[Visitor]

Part of the problem is legal issues. Disney bought Marvel, but they don't have film rights to some characters so they are less inclined to use the ones they don't have. X-men and mutants are being replaced by Inhumans, Fantastic Four, and Spiderman are the others, but Disney is trying to regain some rights as seen with Spiderman's appearance in the Civil War.

Also by making new versions and removing the older ones, they get rid of creator rights to those characters. It's come up in recent years and it gives Disney control and the profits.

[Mr. X]

Also by making new versions and removing the older ones, they get rid of creator rights to those characters. It's come up in recent years and it gives Disney control and the profits.

I posted an article by the creator of Power Girl who pointed this out that now the comic book and movies companies are making these different characters that are similar so they can avoid paying the creators. This was pointed out with minor characters on Arrow where Smokes was a slightly different character than the comic book.

[Mr. X]

OK folks, this is to build on the thread that DaJinx (Ultraheroix) started. I am going to continue to write about comics in this subforum. But I would very much doubt that I am going to cover (or buy) anything Marvel in the near future beyond the Mockingbird tpb I recently got.

Because it goes beyond just the sea changes that DaJinx noted above. In my opinion, there is a definitely a conscious agenda by most of its editors and major writers (and by that, I mean anyone from Sana Amanat to Brian Bendis..whom I do admire for his work on Powers and Jessica Jones) to eliminate, de-power and demote the white male from almost all of their titles. Two recent occurrences with She-Hulk and Iron Man have brought this to a head for me finally.

I wouldn't waste time anymore worrying about this. This kind of activity is akin to someone sitting in a life raft punching holes in the bottom of the boat and screaming "I'm helping". Let the boat sink. In fact take the screw driver out of their hand and give them an axe. More than likely this will not bring in any new, sustained customers and will just alienate even the PC crowd.

Comics are slumped and always have been so they do these shocker things to get people to buy. Thor was doing real bad, they brought in female Thor, it spiked a bit then went back down.

Plus dead comics with no sexiness means more people will turn to the adult arena for their kicks.

I think you'll find most of these social justice people are just recommending things to trash something, not to make it better and this will backlash at some point. So let the house burn down.

[Heroine Addict]

Also by making new versions and removing the older ones, they get rid of creator rights to those characters. It's come up in recent years and it gives Disney control and the profits.

I posted an article by the creator of Power Girl who pointed this out that now the comic book and movies companies are making these different characters that are similar so they can avoid paying the creators. This was pointed out with minor characters on Arrow where Smokes was a slightly different character than the comic book.

Incorrect.

Berlanti Productions still has to pay DC for use of Felicity Smoak on Arrow. DC owns the character. DC has always owned the character. There was no conspiracy to alter the character in order to evade royalty payments. Looking at it logically, denying royalty payments to DC would be an incredibly reckless move if your main business is adapting DC characters.

The article you posted previously detailed Gerry Conway's grievance over DC's "equity participation" scheme. This is not about legal ownership, but rather about the way in which DC honors an agreement to share the wealth.

Basically, the DC "equity participation" scheme requires that creators file a claim for royalties before the show is made. DC stopped informing writers of when their characters were due to be adapted. Which means creators from the post-1975 era now need to be aware of studios' plans to use characters and file their "equity participation" claim with DC before the characters are used. Which is exactly what happened with Felicity Smoak on Arrow. Conway wasn't aware of her use and didn't file a claim in time. Therefore, DC pocketed 100% of the royalties for Smoak on Arrow. This is not due to a conspiracy to alter the character, but rather due to DC being dogmatic and cuntish in how they honor an agreement. DC owns Smoak. Berlanti Productions pays DC for the use of Smoak. There is no sinister plot to deny royalties for Smoak.

Now, the same article details DC being selective over what is and isn't a derivative character. Power Girl and the Jason Todd iteration of Robin are derivative, for example, while the Caitlin Snow iteration of Killer Frost is somehow not derivative. Once again, this is not a matter of the character Killer Frost being altered to deny Conway royalties. DC owns all versions of Killer Frost. DC has always owned all versions of Killer Frost. Berlanti Productions pays DC for the use of Killer Frost. It's just a matter of DC being selective and cuntish in how they honor the "equity participation" agreement.

http://www.newsarama.com/24341-gerry-co ... ssues.html
http://comicsequity.blogspot.co.uk/

None of this applies to Marvel Comics. In fact, most of the characters altered recently were created or co-created by Stan Lee himself. The Miles Morales Spider-Man is still credited to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, for example, alongside Bendis, Pinchelli and Quesada. Creating a derivative character isn't a magical loophole to deny royalties.

Conway was only denied royalties on Smoak because he had no legal right to the character and he failed to meet the deadline to claim his share. The denial of royalties for Killer Frost is a little more problematic, but the bottom line is that KF - in all her iterations - remains corporate property. During the era Conway worked at DC, he was a hired hand whose creations were owned outright by the publisher. This has the added advantage (for DC) that characters created by businesses never enter the Public Domain.

Of course, who owns what rights to which characters is a minefield. However, the majority of characters to come out of Marvel and DC since the 1970s are owned outright by Marvel or DC. Except where a special deal was cut for a big name writer such as Alan Moore. But that's a whole other can of worms.

There is no credible evidence whatsoever to suggest that the legal owner of a character can be denied royalties for derivative characters such as Miles or Iron Heart. (DC's "equity participation" is not about ownership.)

There is no credible evidence whatsoever to suggest that the legal owner of a character can be denied royalties if a white character from comics, such as Nick Fury, is played by a black actor.

You're conflating different things. The bizarre terms of DC's own "equity participation" agreement cannot be applied to other companies unless you know for a fact that similar arrangements were in place.

Now, there are certainly political/ideological reasons why these changes are being made at Marvel, whether we agree with them or not. However, the conspiracy theory that it's all a nefarious scheme to deny royalties is without foundation.

Think about it for a moment. Marvel Entertainment pulling a scam on Stan Lee? Stan fucking Lee?! If true, that would be massive news.

While it's undoubtedly true that companies such as Marvel, Disney, DC and WB have not always treated creators fairly, a scam on the scale you're proposing is frankly ludicrous.

If you have credible evidence that Marvel Entertainment is changing characters and casting black actors in order to deny royalties to the rightful beneficiaries, then please present it. When making claims of this type, EVIDENCE MATTERS!

[shevek]

Good post, Heroine Addict. Yeah, I personally didn't think this had anything to do with financial matters. People can be self-righteous dogmatic moralizers (in Marvel's case, for the relentless PC cause and its Progressive Stack of Oppression) just fine without any fiduciary motive to do so.

[shevek]

Hey folks: Two pieces of news re Marvel's lefty politics and de-emphasizing of white male characters. Occasoinally it looks like some decent stuff comes out of it.

1) In this month's Champions (which has been known for social-justice preachiness as led by Kamala Khan), the team comes to the aid of young women who are being oppressed by an Islamic fundamentalist militia group. This article explains it (as well as hinting that Viv, the daughter of Vision, might just be a lesbian synthezoid. Huzzah!).
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/12/07/ ... ampions-3/

Instead of directly intervening in the conflict, the Champions make it look like the women are fighting their own battles and offer tactical superpower support from underground (physically rumbling the battlefield without being seen). This is supposed to be a reference to how it's better to offer moral support for social progress in the Middle East/Islamic areas rather than just rollling in the tanks. To a certain extent, that makes sense, but is it really going to matter to a hardcore fundamentalist whether Western support of modernization of Islam is overt or covert? Nonetheless it's nice to see Marvel recognizes that hardline Islam is a full-on violation of human (especially women's) rights. I wonder if the company will receive a fatwa for their efforts. I would very much doubt that this comic is going to end up on the shelves of mosques around the country...I mean, Kamala actually looks pretty cute in this (rather than awkward and nerdy) and as usual, does not wear a hijab in a country full of women who do. What do you think?

[BTW we know the African country "Sharzad" is imaginary, because people speak Urdu there, and Urdu is actually spoken in Pakistan.]



2) Also, this month introduces the new solo series of Kate Bishop as Hawkeye.
The art and milieu (Venice Beach, CA) kind of gives it a bit of a Miami Vice feel, not unlike the Starfire series which was also very beachy (set largely in Key West). Also reminds me a bit of Emma Peel. The covers, and her latest costume, do look rather sexy, and there's a flirty feel to the writing (she admires a villain's abs, for example). I'm probably going to check it out. If I like it, I'll make a separate thread on it.

[shevek]

BTW, I hope the ban on 'politics' doesn't extend to not talking about (socio-)political slants with regards to superheroine-themed comics, TV shows and films?

Can we differentiate between the specific advocacy for a political party or distaste for candidates/elected officials, and that of general sociopolitical philosophy and cultural theory etc.? (sorry to sound like a professor but y'know, the difference is academic)

[Mr. X]

Were comics really ever a source of erotica to begin with? Sure there maybe those classic scenes we all remember that get us hooked, like Shanna the She Devil getting wrestled down and chloroformed, but given the advent of the internet how have comics recently been a source for erotica? If sex sold then Wonder Woman and Power Girl would be the top grossing comics. But if you look at the top lists, sexy comic book characters aren't stellar sellers.

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicss ... 16-11.html

If you check the top sellers for Nov 2016 there isn't one "hot chic" comic on the list. In fact not even one female on the list. Don't know what IVX is. In fact you have to go to 25 to find one comic and its Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman has hardly been "sexy" for a long time. Sex apparently does NOT sell.

The industry as a whole is blah in sales.

I would say PC helps our fetish industry. You deny someone chocolate for so long its like a rubber band and sooner or later they snap back and snap back hard. Also hentai tends to fulfill the naughty niche far better than comics. So I don't see comics as source for this.

My only gripe is character replacements vs building up a new character from scratch and the one sideness of it. Why not dishonor Diana, cut her arm off and take away her belt, lasso, gauntlets and give them to a man? But we'll never see that happen which kind of shows the bias here. And I'm sure the logical fallacy special pleading nonsense will soon come to explain the difference.

I say let comics go this route. See where it goes. No one likes a Dean Wormer and I would imagine even the most ardent PC person will get sick of being face slapped with "lessons". Trying to manipulate people is like trying to crush jello in your hand, they just ooze through your fingers and find other markets. All you are left with is an empty, sterile market. Yeah let them punch holes in the bottom of that boat. That just means more people jumping to producers.

[Disciple]

Ehhh. I think comics as a whole is on its way out, regardless of PC culture or whatever. Right now, most people can get their superhero fix from TV and Hollywood (and if they want to see hot women, there are literally hundreds of websites out there offering nothing but - I doubt even the most fanservice-laden comic could hope to compete). The only people who'd bother buying a comic - or even pirating one - are the ones who grew up reading them, or who have friends/family that did. And even that pool's been shrinking for a long, long time.

[sugarcoater]

I think another PC issue is that each person has only their lifetime to experience cultural shifts. As a result, boys/young men today are only experiencing a pro-female (which is cool) yet unintentionally anti-male (which sucks) shift in American culture. While young women are being told they can accomplish anything, GRRRL Power, and don't let men tell you you can't do something, young men today are being indirectly told that they aren't so valuable to society, they have had centuries of advantages (which these young men did not experience) and little is being done to promote "maleness". As a result, we have women outperforming men in academics, we have men shirking their responsibility as fathers (because the 90s focused heavily on the lack of a need for a child to have a father--see that Murphy Brown episode touting the irrelevancy of the dad), and how many men are simply grown up boys incapable of holding down a career and not a job.
Into this culture, we have the comic book industry "bravely" supporting women now (ignoring how in the 90s and early 2000s it was okay for Wonder Woman to have a thong and mainstream male characters weren't being altered). It is a bit depressing to say the least. I miss the simplicity of a George Perez Wonder Woman, beautifully drawn with some peril, or the Todd McFarlane art on the mainstream Spider-Man, or Jim Lee drawing an incredibly sexy Psylocke. I used to spend between $40-50 a month on comics; I haven't bought a comic in almost two years now (and I still love the genre). Maybe I've been replaced by younger consumers, but being in my 30s it feels a bit premature to quit on guys like me who are socially liberal but like attractive women in spandex and are cool with the traditional characters as well as open to new characters (so long as the art is good and the plots aren't trite).

[Femina]

Were comics really ever a source of erotica to begin with? Sure there maybe those classic scenes we all remember that get us hooked, like Shanna the She Devil getting wrestled down and chloroformed, but given the advent of the internet how have comics recently been a source for erotica? If sex sold then Wonder Woman and Power Girl would be the top grossing comics. But if you look at the top lists, sexy comic book characters aren't stellar sellers.

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicss ... 16-11.html

If you check the top sellers for Nov 2016 there isn't one "hot chic" comic on the list. In fact not even one female on the list. Don't know what IVX is. In fact you have to go to 25 to find one comic and its Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman has hardly been "sexy" for a long time. Sex apparently does NOT sell.

The industry as a whole is blah in sales.

I would say PC helps our fetish industry. You deny someone chocolate for so long its like a rubber band and sooner or later they snap back and snap back hard. Also hentai tends to fulfill the naughty niche far better than comics. So I don't see comics as source for this.

My only gripe is character replacements vs building up a new character from scratch and the one sideness of it. Why not dishonor Diana, cut her arm off and take away her belt, lasso, gauntlets and give them to a man? But we'll never see that happen which kind of shows the bias here. And I'm sure the logical fallacy special pleading nonsense will soon come to explain the difference.

I say let comics go this route. See where it goes. No one likes a Dean Wormer and I would imagine even the most ardent PC person will get sick of being face slapped with "lessons". Trying to manipulate people is like trying to crush jello in your hand, they just ooze through your fingers and find other markets. All you are left with is an empty, sterile market. Yeah let them punch holes in the bottom of that boat. That just means more people jumping to producers.

:O I actually agree with pretty much everything you said. The only time 'Sex Sold' on the sort of scale that Marvel/Dc/Hollywood etc. would necessitate on their marketing checkbook has been 50 Shades of Grey which can basically be looked at as a sort of cultural fluke 'perfect storm' (I mean it's not even good smut... it's not good literature, it's not good ANYTHING and it sold like the bible) but nothing else has ever even cracked the radar... and even the movie for THAT book was tamed way way waaaay down from what I understand. The basic takaway is and always has been, as far as I can deduce, that people prefer their smut in private, not 'out and about' for the most part, and 'marketing' is often something you have to deal with out in the open rather than in the quiet of your own little bubble.

And I've said it before, and I'll say it again. New Thor is stupid. She looks flippin awesome, which just makes me more sad that the whole concept sucks, I'm a huge sucker for Valkyrian design but where it comes to 'the goddess of thunder I'm basically with the men on this (and I hope most women as well.) Gender (or even just PERSON) swapping characters is dumb. This means White guys shouldn't play black characters, black characters shouldn't play white characters. Women shouldn't be taking men's NAMES as titles and vice versa. MAKE NEW CHARACTERS. And make them FAST if you need to, but for Christ sake, Thor was his fucking (excuse my language) NAME not even a title, a name!? It isn't even like she inherited an old unused hero's name. This isn't Captain Marvel whose been gone for thirty years and passed on to the obvious successor, or Stephenie Brown stepping up as the third Batgirl to uphold a mantle... Jane took his NAME!? It doesn't make any kind of sense at all and one of the very few times I would actually agree with men that a woman was being forced into their personal space (I STILL hold that a vast majority of the terror of maleness under siege is either imagined or grossly overestimated so for gods sake don't take this as me going 'oh yeah everyone but men have got it good but...) While Mjolnir is certainly simply a weapon that could flip around, Thor's damn name is not. On top of it all, it doesn't even serve to honor the recipient, didn't Marvel even consider that maybe Jane deserved her own super name? It's baffling. Absolutely baffling, and it's stupid.

[Mr. X]

DC doesn't seem to be doing as much of this role swapping. For example one of their new green lanterns was the girl who got power ring from the alt universe green lantern. There's a whole story development there. They just didn't cut off Hal Jordan's finger and hand a ring to an unknown girl.

Jane took his NAME!? It doesn't make any kind of sense at all and one of the very few times I would actually agree with men that a woman was being forced into their personal space

I would say women actually suffer as well here because its condescending to women. Its like someone breaking the legs of a man in a running race so the woman can win then that person thinks they are helping women. In reality these "helpers" are just being really sexist. I can imagine this just creates resentment among male readers and I can't imagine women want characters handed to them like that. I can see Thor losing his hammer, that's fine. His unworthy story line is actually pretty good reading. But her story is not.

If you look at literature women read like romance novels the female character is extensively developed in the story line. Its pretty much about her. With female Thor and a lot of these other "swaps" there isn't any development, just tokenism and by probably guys who think they are doing something heroic when in reality its just condescending. Women aren't helpless damsels. They have created whole industries of literature. If they want comic books, they will make them. Heck JK Rowlings is worth billions of dollars. I have all the faith women can make any industry they want and don't need a hero to beat me up, take my property and provide some buffet table of choices then pat themselves on the back for being a hero.

[Femina]

DC doesn't seem to be doing as much of this role swapping. For example one of their new green lanterns was the girl who got power ring from the alt universe green lantern. There's a whole story development there. They just didn't cut off Hal Jordan's finger and hand a ring to an unknown girl.

Jane took his NAME!? It doesn't make any kind of sense at all and one of the very few times I would actually agree with men that a woman was being forced into their personal space

I would say women actually suffer as well here because its condescending to women. Its like someone breaking the legs of a man in a running race so the woman can win then that person thinks they are helping women. In reality these "helpers" are just being really sexist. I can imagine this just creates resentment among male readers and I can't imagine women want characters handed to them like that. I can see Thor losing his hammer, that's fine. His unworthy story line is actually pretty good reading. But her story is not.

If you look at literature women read like romance novels the female character is extensively developed in the story line. Its pretty much about her. With female Thor and a lot of these other "swaps" there isn't any development, just tokenism and by probably guys who think they are doing something heroic when in reality its just condescending. Women aren't helpless damsels. They have created whole industries of literature. If they want comic books, they will make them. Heck JK Rowlings is worth billions of dollars. I have all the faith women can make any industry they want and don't need a hero to beat me up, take my property and provide some buffet table of choices then pat themselves on the back for being a hero.

I touched on that a little bit where I wrote about how they didn't even seem to think Jane's 'Thor' deserved her own name. It IS condescending. It's like saying 'oh you want to be a superhero? Here, here's Thor's hammer TADA! Now go play.' Rather than bucking up, cracking knuckles and writing a damn story with cause and effect and letting her earn it... I mean at the very least if you're going to take one superhero/heroine's powers and stuff it's got to be hard earned in the plot line! (You can gain superpowers for free with radioactive spider bites only when that's the originating origin.) It'd be one thing if there were years of lead up to something like this... but they didn't even bother to tell us it was Jane stealing his name for like... a year! I'm not even convinced they DECIDED she was Jane until they revealed it! Until that point, before they bothered to tell us she was Jane with cancer and dying and such things which might have served as great drama as a LEAD into this thing, she was just some lady flying around screaming 'I'm Thor now!!!!' at the top of her lungs. I mean shit, take the gender out of it entirely and its basically exactly as stupid. Say Steve Rogers suddenly becomes Thor because he picked up the hammer. No he's not Steve or Captain America anymore.... he's Thor now? No one would have stood for that either! The whole damn thing was just botched from concept up. A decision that served nobody.

Now to be very clear, women don't just like to read romance novels (I'm sure that's not what you meant, but I am touchy on this subject ever since that whiny New York Times lady wrote about how women didn't read Fantasy novels in her review of the first Game of Thrones episode) SOME edging toward MANY do, but it's not like the sole marker. I can't stand romance novels personally (About 90% of every romance novel I've ever read was like reading something a 12 year old wrote for a class project... I suppose having a reasonable grasp on the language hampers my enjoyment of some things) We like everything, I'm sure there's lots of men who like romance novels to and have to like... hide it from their friends or something (which they really shouldn't have to do)

All of this aside, if you can convince somebody to actually sit down and watch/read/play something that seems to clash with their ideologies/morals/sensibilities/etc. but it's well done, well plotted, well developed, and at least speaks its message intelligibly most people don't consider it a complete waste of their time, and I believe many would even say it was worthwhile even if they don't agree... Some people are annoyed that the new Star Wars is staring a woman 'again!' (forlorn sigh at non-problem) but if it turns out to be damn good filmgoing, the vast majority will forget they were ever annoyed with it.

Basically everyone is still annoyed about Thor, and she's been out for over a year now. That says about all that needs saying I think.

[shevek]

Wow, I thought we were almost done with the politics and I could just go ahead and say that now that the Mockingbird series has concluded, there's this new sexy retro-beachy Kate Bishop series, and although they're still not allowed to give Ms Marvel boobs in IVX (that's Inhumans vs X-Men, Mr X! and it's filled with female characters on both sides thankfully..I think Medusa might be the hottest heroine Marvel has now!) she is being drawn more beautifully so we finally get to see the gorgeous Indo-Aryan face we've been looking for (have you ever seen female film stars from India? tremendousness there - and every time Subcontinental beauty is brought to comics [Maya, Rakshasa, Karima Shapandar, Solstice] it's a Six! to use a cricket reference).

But of course we can't forget that Marvel is also the company that has keeping a Muslim female heroine in an abaya and niqab (although characters in the comics often call it a burqa, so it might as well be one - the distinction only lies in the two-piece vs the one-piece) for over a decade. This X-Men character, Dust, will never, never wear regular Western clothing like Kamala Khan. So, ya know, really really PC.

Anyway...yes, comics are a small market, and although there are more publications coming out than ever thanks to incredible companies like Image, the audience base is shrinking. I won't reveal why I know this yet, but... it's still hard, even in the vaunted millennial generation, to find above-average-looking women who really read comics and know comic-related references. The few ones I've found are actually Generation X. Ironically, all the younger employees at my comic shop are women, but they fit the Tumblrist/queerscene stereotype and would probably applaud every PC move Marvel makes (although they're not any happier about Marvel's vastly overpriced TPBs than I am. The X-23 collection for $40? seriously?).

You're right, these days pretty much everyone gets their superheroes from movies and TV. Even most of the people on this forum! (A lot of the comicbook threads I've made have barely been commented on **crickets chirping**). But if you say few people are looking towards comics for erotica, then why are Milo Manara collections prominently displayed in my comic shop? (and mind you, this is a shop staffed by third-wave feministas which also has a clearly-marked LGBT section).

Sure, people don't have to fantasize about Wonder Woman using a George Perez drawing anymore because there are infinite images all over the internet. But it doesn't mean we can't contine to appreciate the major role that comics have played in forming our fetish for superheroine bodies and their costumes. Without comic books, that fetish would never have existed!

So, the upshot of it is, I'm going to write about comics that I find sexy. Whenever I find the time to do it. And you can either read these threads (and read these comics!) or not. Thanks to MH for providing this forum in general...it's been one of the coolest things I've come across in my life (and I've come across a lot of things).

[Femina]

Kamala Khan was born and raised in America though wasn't she, so it'd make sense she had a more American mindset of fashion? Most middle eastern women FROM the middle east refuse NOT to wear a burqa from what I understand (There were two just in my history class this year) So it's kind of hard not to find a 'realism' argument valid there in terms of characters that originate from middle eastern countries.

PC or not, burqa's are of religious significance to those women, so portraying a bunch of middle eastern women all fresh faced and marching in the streets, while I suppose has the potential to offer a sexy character or two... can be sort of 'suspension of disbelief' breaking for middle-eastern readers. I mean... 97 out of 100 characters in comic books (Total educated guesswork statistic full disclosure) don't wear burqas I can't really think of why the other 3 would constitute as a big deal.

[shevek]

Of course Kamala has an American mindset..the whole point of her character is that she represents the real-life story of Pakistani-American Marvel editrix Sana Amanat as told (at least initially) through Muslim convert G Willow Wilson. Now, though, as an Inhuman, she is being written and drawn by writers and artists other than her originators, and is starting to look more conventionally beautiful like a Marvel superheroine, which is great.

Femina, it's not really burqa, but hijabs that Muslim women from the Middle East often refuse to let go of. The Middle Eastern women of the imaginary country Sharzad (in the Champions comic) wear hijabs and baggy clothing and are very hard to tell apart from one another because of that - even the artist must wonder "how am I going to draw all of these angry brown girls so that they don't look almost identical to each other?" Islamic dress for women is about conformism and visually, it's difficult to get away from that without involving some kind of concession to Western fashion like letting girls wear different color shirts, jeans and shoes (which this comic did not).

BTW, I was at my comic shop today to pick up the second TPB of Beauty (Image) and I saw someone buy a Kate Bishop comic right in front of me. The female Hawkeye is flying off the shelves! Sexy book of the month. (I will, as usual, wait for the TPB).

And Islam does get this special PC attention to itself. I don't think there's ever been an attempt to portray a superheroine who wears, say, traditional Orthodox Jewish or traditional Amish/Mennonite dress for example.

[Femina]

Of course Kamala has an American mindset..the whole point of her character is that she represents the real-life story of Pakistani-American Marvel editrix Sana Amanat as told (at least initially) through Muslim convert G Willow Wilson. Now, though, as an Inhuman, she is being written and drawn by writers and artists other than her originators, and is starting to look more conventionally beautiful like a Marvel superheroine, which is great.

I admit I only just really started to warm up to her costume design the other day, before it really looked like ordinary clothes with some special insignia designs. Recently it's started to look more like a classic Mary Marvel dress worn over a skintight bodysuit. (Superhero costumes I like to think of myself as a bit of a connoisseur of :P I like costumes with a lot of flair and style)

Femina, it's not really burqa, but hijabs that Muslim women from the Middle East often refuse to let go of. The Middle Eastern women of the imaginary country Sharzad (in the Champions comic) wear hijabs and baggy clothing and are very hard to tell apart from one another because of that - even the artist must wonder "how am I going to draw all of these angry brown girls so that they don't look almost identical to each other?" Islamic dress for women is about conformism and visually, it's difficult to get away from that without involving some kind of concession to Western fashion like letting girls wear different color shirts, jeans and shoes (which this comic did not).

Right but I'm still saying that this is just how it is in real life. It may not be everyones cup of tea obviously, but when the argument FOR it comes down and they say 'we did it for realism/religious sake' It's very difficult to say 'poo! Give us booooobs!' and not get a few raised eyebrows because A: we already have dozens and dozens of characters FOR that and B: burqa/hijabs/etc. are part of a lasting culture that doesn't look to be dying out anytime soon... maybe it makes a few background characters similar... but so what? Half the time there's no difference in the way Kitty Pride and Jean Grey appear aside from the minute shade of red in Jeans hair (especially when the X-Men are all rocking the standard blue/yellow uniforms) [/quote]

BTW, I was at my comic shop today to pick up the second TPB of Beauty (Image) and I saw someone buy a Kate Bishop comic right in front of me. The female Hawkeye is flying off the shelves! Sexy book of the month. (I will, as usual, wait for the TPB).

And Islam does get this special PC attention to itself. I don't think there's ever been an attempt to portray a superheroine who wears, say, traditional Orthodox Jewish or traditional Amish/Mennonite dress for example.

That's true enough, I can't even THINK of a devout Jewish superhero... Miss Marvel herself may be part of the reason for all the middle eastern opinions. I mean it makes sense that when you finally get around to creating a character like that you'd explore the cultural idiosyncrasies involved. But mostly, like it or not aside from the never ending tension between blacks and whites, middle-eastern fear mongering is the fad this decade, so it additionally makes sense that comics would focus more on that as it is currently socially relevant (vs say, the German, Russian and Japanese heavy imagery of the forties and fifties when WW2 was relevant but aren't currently)

[shevek]

Oh, of course it makes *tons* of sense that topics is comics would focus on the Middle East - they never really stopped, I mean for example look at Black Adam and Isis back a few years ago in the new 52. Both DC and Marvel, to a large extent though, prefer to use *imaginary* countries like "Shahrzad", "Qurac", "Bialya" and "Kahndaq" rather than involve themselves in real-life situations for some reason. Maybe they think that Iran will sue them or that ISIS will send a terrorist to blow up their offices? Who knows.

So...in the continuing quest to search out more Marvel heroines who have their own books: Gamora #1 just came out. And despite the fact that she's known as a scantily-clad green-skinned goddess (and probably has a fan base for exactly that reason), she seems to be mainly depicted as wearing a TURTLENECK. Boo hiss Marvel! Hope that's not a thing!

[Femina]

Oh, of course it makes *tons* of sense that topics is comics would focus on the Middle East - they never really stopped, I mean for example look at Black Adam and Isis back a few years ago in the new 52. Both DC and Marvel, to a large extent though, prefer to use *imaginary* countries like "Shahrzad", "Qurac", "Bialya" and "Kahndaq" rather than involve themselves in real-life situations for some reason. Maybe they think that Iran will sue them or that ISIS will send a terrorist to blow up their offices? Who knows.

So...in the continuing quest to search out more Marvel heroines who have their own books: Gamora #1 just came out. And despite the fact that she's known as a scantily-clad green-skinned goddess (and probably has a fan base for exactly that reason), she seems to be mainly depicted as wearing a TURTLENECK. Boo hiss Marvel! Hope that's not a thing!

[img]image[/img]

I don't know actually. I think if you polled the world 95% of the world would say they know her as Zoe Saldana.

[Dogfish]

The reason that fake countries are used is because if real ones were used the world in the comics would rapidly become unrecognisable. North Korea? Don't worry, Superman fixed that last week. Afghanistan? Captain America sorted that out. And so on. Fake countries are put in with fake problems that can be solved by random superheroes, and they solve them.

Which is kind of ironic given how superheroes are determined not to fix actual problems in the USA. For example all these super geniuses in the science fields but not one of them sits down and goes, "Right, I'm going to develop a national constitution that is to lawmaking what the Iron Man suit is to current levels of flying robot combat suit".

[Visitor]

Marvel occasionally did cameos of US presidents since most stories appear in the US. Ford once got a tour of the Hulkbuster base conducted by General Ross.

The use of superheroes goes back to WW II where Clark Kent failed to pass his medical exam to enlist. Could have shorten the war.

[Mr. X]

The reason that fake countries are used is because if real ones were used the world in the comics would rapidly become unrecognisable. North Korea? Don't worry, Superman fixed that last week. Afghanistan? Captain America sorted that out. And so on. Fake countries are put in with fake problems that can be solved by random superheroes, and they solve them.

Which is kind of ironic given how superheroes are determined not to fix actual problems in the USA. For example all these super geniuses in the science fields but not one of them sits down and goes, "Right, I'm going to develop a national constitution that is to lawmaking what the Iron Man suit is to current levels of flying robot combat suit".

Or just find a cure for cancer. They come up with nano-this and thinking metal - that but can't cure toe fungus.

In fact if it wasn't for all the in fighting between heroes and heroes or heroes and villains they wouldn't get much done except for the occasional fire or flood.

I think Bruce Wayne would do far more better for people as a business man/philanthropist putting people to work with the same money he spends on his crime fighting habit. In all the years he's been fighting crime he has gained no real ground. Gotham is still a toilet.

[shevek]

If all the problems in the comics were solved, there would be no conflict or tension left to create new exciting stories, and then all of the stories would be like Seinfeld - about nothing. To some extent, humor does work well in superhero books (my favorite funny period is the mid-90s Justice League/Europe/International banter between Beetle, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner and some others at the same time that they were bringing the sexy with Fire, Ice and Crimson Fox etc..but there are plenty of other examples..Bomb Queen is hilarious for example, Deadpool and Squirrel Girl are newer examples of this, and Spider-Man is legendary for his quippage). But if it just amounts to the X-Men sitting on a couch ribbing each other with personal observations because they've defeated all of their enemies, it's a snoozer. So you have to keep the problems coming.

I think maybe millennials might be the downturn point for comics because that generation seems to want to see every problem in the world solved immediately through their obsession with instant gratification and their spoiled snowflake attitude. So when they see problem after problem addressed but never solved, they get triggered from the inadequate results of social justice and don't want to buy the books. I could be wrong about that

[shevek]

And Femina: No, Gamora's never been sexy in the comics:) Zoe's pretty hot in the movies too!

[Femina]

I didn't say she wasn't ever in sexy comics :/ I didn't even allude to my point of view except that I thought it was most likely that the majority of people know her not as 'that sexy or under dressed character from the comics' and more as 'that sexy Zoe Saldana' from the film Guardians of the Galaxy'

Like it or not, the films garner so much more press and notoriety toward the characters as to make a characters past iterations almost irrelevant to the vast majority of their present fan base. Do you think most of the world's Thor fans these days know that he ever had a (retarded) secret identity? Nope, he's Chris Hemsworth's Thor... and most of them don't even know that Jane stole his name in the comic books because they just don't care... it didn't happen in the movies.

That isn't to say you can't still hurt one of the films by betraying the source material to a degree (*Caugh* Mandarin *Caugh*) but the majority of Marvel's fan base aren't comic book enthusiasts now but casual to rabid film fans.

[shevek]

That is very true..and it's why the video medium has its importance. It still takes way more effort to obtain and read a comic book (even with the internet, and the fact that you can read most books for free online...[cough cough, that inestimable resource is back up!, cough cough]..it's still easier to absorb a video).

But..this particular subforum is (and will continue to be) about comics.

[Femina]

Yes I suppose that's true. The comics tend to mimic the films though as soon as a character arrives in the film verse (I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Carol has long hair in the Captain Marvel film for this express reason)

[shevek]

I don't necessarily agree wholeheartedly with everything this guy says below (I don't think for example that "feminism is bullshit") but he makes some very solid points:

Marvel is largely following a politically correct social-justice agenda while DC is not.

DC is instead pursuing diversity carefully and deliberately by focusing on wide-marketing its strong major characters while merely tweaking them here and there and bringing some C- and B-listers up to A-list status.

The Marvel film universe is successful because it sticks to its pre-SJW source material and doesn't try to push agendas.

The Marvel comics universe pushes social justice agendas which turn as many people off (if not more) than it turns new people on (except maybe for a rare case or two like Kamala Khan who does seem to have some real popularity). So the comic sales suffer.

Social justice warriors who complain about comics don't actually buy comics. They don't like corporations so they steal media or borrow it from the library. They don't necessarily spend money on pop-culture consumer products as much because vegan food and bicycle parts. And they are far too busy worrying about social causes to be full-time nerds, so they are part-time fair-weather geeks at best.

I would say that social justice warriors who complain about comics know just about as much of the actual material as some mall rat who watched
several episodes of Arrow because the lead actor is hot and takes his shirt off. Both are superficial in interest.

Some of that I'm just extrapolating. But here's the Youtube video. He mentions Mockingbird and Thor which we've talked about and also that dreaded Angela "unsolicited comments about Israel" panel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-2w5fBKZ8I

[shevek]

So after a hiatus where some of the opinions expressed her wound up spreading onto other less topical threads, this thread is back.

I think after many demonstrable Youtube videos and solid arguments, we can all agree that there is a 'woke' editorial agenda in many comics today, and that it exists to some extent in DC, Image and Dark Horse, but its main proponent by far has been Marvel, whose most promoted female characters (specifically Captain Marvel, Squirrel Girl and Kamala Khan) fit this agenda to a tee. we can agree that this agenda has been creeping up by dribs and drabs since the early 2000s but it only hit the industry full force around 2014 when the current editorial lineup at Marvel became cemented. [so the official Woke Era is still less than four years long]. I think that by now we can also all agree that over the previous decades, due to the representations of beautiful women and of peril situations, that comics were, in fact, a *constant* source of erotic inspiration and were thus 'sex-positive'.

We can feel free to still disagree on things like:
1) whether this woke agenda is a good thing (my opinion is that it isn't, and that it has helped to kill whatever little interest there is left in comics).
2) whether comics are even relevant anymore (and my opinion is that I love comics, and if they are dying out then that is a shame, but what I'm seeing on the burgeoning racks of the comic shop is another Golden Age of Creativity so maybe such pronouncements are premature. Plus if a woke agenda is helping to kill comics, that's a bad thing for sure).
3) or whether gradual or drastic changes in the representation of individual characters are symptomatic of PC-ness (my opinion is that they are).

The 'rebirth' of this discussion, by the way, was the long and drawn-out battle about Captain Marvel's costume in the upcoming Brie Larson movie. I think most people agree that the movie representation of Capt Marvel isn't going to be much more 'woke' than Wonder Woman's was..that is to say, there might be touches of the socially progressive agenda, but overall, Capt Marvel is going to look like a beautiful sexy woman who is also very powerful, because that's what current mainstream audiences identify with and want to see. They don't want radical woke change (hell, look at that Reuters poll from yesterday where 54% of Americans want the confederate monuments to stay up), and if WW or CM were re-imagined as looking like Tank Girl, they wouldn't go see it.

And what brings it to this thread is this:
Unlike in movies, comic books are a tiny niche that seems to be getting tinier all the time. And in that niche, characters like Captain Marvel have been stripped of much of their femininity to the point where they are barely recognizable as female..and this has apparently been happening more recently in some animation as well. I would say that's not a good thing, and that 1) it has turned off the core audience of comic readers who are mostly males and probably 10-15% females, and 2) it has failed to attract the magical replacement 'diverse Tumblr people' audience that Marvel [at least] had hoped to attract, mainly because that audience is a) really small and b) does not buy comics.

And let's make something clear while we're doing all this, and that is that while I have no problem with 90s bad-girl 'contortionist' art, I do not advocate a return to it. What I do advocate is a return to the classic female representations done by such artists as George Perez and Neal Adams. In the 80s, such art was never assailed as being 'sexist', it was simply beautiful and it still is today. The only thing that has changed is that because of third-wave feminism and intersectionalism rising in academia since the 80s, there is now a small but vocal group of woke Tumblrists who love to complain about everything and there is now an editorial staff at Marvel basically trumpeting that woke Tumblr agenda. So it's the perspective that has changed: a woke person looks at a George Perez cover and deems it 'sexist' simply because he draws women differently than he draws men - they look demonstrably different. The Woke person's agenda, driven by their guilt over white cismale privilege, is to eliminate the 'heroic' differences in the proportions between women and men, and to draw everyone as androgynously as possible, while also vastly reducing the amount of powerful white-cis heroes and increasing the number of white-cis villains.

We can see this agenda realized in various ways when:
- Squirrel Girl now always looks dumpy and ugly
- (the now cancelled series) Unstoppable Wasp has a posse made entirely of Girls of Color With No Distinctive Personalities
- Captain Marvel pretty much looks like a man, or at least a very butch military woman
- Riri Williams wears a suit of totally androgynous armor (and it looks like Wasp in the Avengers Assemble does nearly the same thing)
- Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) basically exists to normalize Islam in the context of American pop culture
and so on.

----------

I also have no problem connecting the topics of this thread to what's going on in cosplay. (And yes I give people full permission to discuss cosplay in a thread about comics!). I feel that if the Woke Agenda of companies like Marvel is disconnected from what the comics audience wants, the opposite
is true in cosplay. And that maybe companies like Marvel should even look to cosplay to solve this disconnect.

Now, I do understand that the cosplay crowd isn't necessarily exactly the same as the comics-reading crowd. There are plenty of cosplayers who do not go deep into comics (many are influenced by TV, movies, cartoons, animes etc). But cosplaying, at least, is an expression of the people. You see what the current crop of superhero fans is into when you see cosplay. And here's what I see: yes, on the other hand, it's a Tumblr show in that there's plenty of gender-swapping and body-positivity and more diverse ethnic/racial participation. And nobody should have a problem with that, it all encourages free expression and it's fine. But the other trend is cosplay is that it has gotten ever more provocative and sexy, and that seems to be totally fine
to everyone in the cosplay world because it's all about being/doing whomever you want to be/do as long as there's consent and respect.

And to me, that has paralleled what I would characterize as a split in the third-wave feminist/intersectionalist philosophy, where I would say I agree with some of that philosophy (certain women's rights and LGBT rights etc) but I would disagree with other parts (eg the strident intolerance).
To me, at least, the current Marvel Comics agenda is the intolerant, strident side of Third-Waveism which wants to eradicate objectification and
gendered differentation. But the cosplay side is the positive side because not only does it reflect new open freedoms for groups of 'marginialized people' but it also respects anyone who wants to be 'sex positive'.

I think the positive way that cosplay treats sexiness (at least in theory, yes I know there's catty bullshit) dovetails nicely with the superheroine fetish
scene. Because except for the occasional weird outlier like Alisa Kiss, the vast majority of SHIP types are liberal, and have many associations with the LGBT community as well. I would venture to say that most of the female producers in SHIP, and quite a few of the actresses, would describe themselves as feminist, and because of the work that they do, they are by default also 'sex-positive feminists.'

-------------

So my point is this:
If cosplay can be 'sex-positive' and if superheroine fetish can be 'sex-positive', then why can't comic books be sex-positive as well? Why, instead, is there a movement afoot (since around 2014) to tamp down on sexiness in comic companies like Marvel?

[Mr. X]

So my point is this:
If cosplay can be 'sex-positive' and if superheroine fetish can be 'sex-positive', then why can't comic books be sex-positive as well? Why, instead, is there a movement afoot (since around 2014) to tamp down on sexiness in comic companies like Marvel?

Again I don't see why bother fighting any of this. The people who are for this will never admit this is happening and think they have good intentions and you can't debate someone like that. Marvel sales are way down. Merely replacing a main character and keeping the name and or title with a fill in the blank minority should clue people in. And people are clued in. Titles don't even break 10k when even one shots sold more than 100k in the past. DC isn't seeing that problem so its not an industry thing. Sales maybe down overall but there's a huge disconnect between Marvel and DC.

Let Marvel die. This is the Phoenix. Entryists think they are being clever by rotting a company from the inside out but what it really allows is for the company to jettison all its old baggage and start a new. The phoenix reborn.

People aren't dumb. They see this for what it is. And they see its done by self elected heroes who are just being condescending to minorities and women. This is a snowball rolling down hill and its too big to stop. You can't reason with these people. So instead, give them what they want, good and hard, faster than they anticipate and let what they do overload and collapse. You can't fix it so just get the collapse to happen as quickly as possible and move on.

And just remember the fuel for this community is straight men. Horny straight men. You kill that off and you might as well cut your own throat. Maybe its best to just leave people alone and stop trying to fix them.

[shevek]

So my point is this:
If cosplay can be 'sex-positive' and if superheroine fetish can be 'sex-positive', then why can't comic books be sex-positive as well? Why, instead, is there a movement afoot (since around 2014) to tamp down on sexiness in comic companies like Marvel?

And just remember the fuel for this community is straight men. Horny straight men. You kill that off and you might as well cut your own throat. Maybe its best to just leave people alone and stop trying to fix them.

Or just focus on the sex-positive comics..like I've mostly been doing in this subforum

But these "self-elected heroes", as you call them (good word choice) keep on trying to push their agenda.
The latest micro-controversy is surrounding artist Stanley "Artgerm" Lau who is a really good cheesecake artist.
He drew an August variant cover for Supergirl #12 (Rebirth) and got some minor criticism from Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool (one of the more annoying SJW comics critics online) for shortening her skirt.

supergirl-12-Stanley-Lau-600x911.jpg (64.7 KiB) Viewed 5176 times

Then he did a September cover and got blasted for being sexually suggestive...indeed one can see multiple entendres here if you look....

supergirl-13-Stanley-Lau-600x911.jpg (65.04 KiB) Viewed 5176 times

It's pretty delicious how Stanley Lau seems to know just where to draw the line. Add him to the greats like Cho and Lupacchino.

So the puritanical bullshit continues. And yet comics stores are saying they really like the cover because it's helping to sell the book to more
people. You put sexy stuff on the cover (and hopefully in the book), sales go up! (DC) You take all the sexiness out of the book, sales go down. (Marvel).

[ivandobsky]

I don't really read comics, but i do find this new puritanism fascinating and concerning.
I enjoy the "Diversity in Comics" Youtube channel.

[shevek]

Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE, except maybe Philo??? and maybe even him) interested in the pathetic state of superhero comics today should subscribe to these two comics criticism channels:
Diversity & Comics and Cap'n Cummings

Out of the two, Cap'n is a bit more hyperbolic and hyper-in-general, while D&C is a bit more measured and deliberative (but he can get mean sometimes).

I Love Comics (which I think used to be known as Grove of Eglantine) is worthwhile as well.

Here is an example of why these two critics are so important and why they are having an impact on 'needling' an industry that seems to have
fallen asleep at the wheel (especially when it comes to Marvel!!!) with editors and writers that do little but push far-left political agendas:
anti-white, anti-male, anti-sexiness/objectification, anti-heterosexuality, anti-patriotism, anti-colonialism, etc. And of course Anti-Fa.

I think many of the editors and writers at Marvel don't even really like the idea of "superheroes" per se as a fantasy idea - they only see the
characters as "practical" when they perform social-justice feats that benefit the average person or, even better, some downtrodden oppressed
special-interest group. For example, one of the most "woke" books (they even use the term) Marvel puts out is Mark Waid's Champions, with a teenage team of woke heroes led by Kamala Khan (Ms Marvel), Amadeus Cho (Asian Genius Hulk) and Miles Morales (Black Spider-Teen). The heroes, esp Ms Marvel, are always making speeches about they should use their powers to serve the powerless instead of being guardians of the rich and powerful (like preventing banks from being robbed or corporations from being broken into, etc). This is not a new theme - it was dealt with by Marvel and DC in the '70s post-hippie environment - but it's a lot more preachy here. In Champions #1, Kamala frets about how the Avengers destroyed a bunch of train tracks while battling a villain, and then wonders why they don't rebuild the tracks. Falcon tells her, "because none of us are engineers" and then (as activist millennials tend to impetuously do) she quits the Avengers in a hissyfit and forms her own team, The Champions. Then their first mission is to stop a supervillain named Pagliacci who is a human trafficker.

This one is called Why Did SJW Marvel Remove Romance from Their Superhero Comics? Watch and see if you're not at least a little bit convinced.

[shevek]

The Comic Book Culture War (their version of Gamergate) officially began today with the ending of years of talk (sjw writers talking shit on their fans on Twitter, and spewing unsolicited political opinions in their books...vs the comicbook fans who are tired of hearing the preachiness, stopped buying the issues, and are flocking to Youtube's comicbook critic channles)....replaced by actual salvos fired.

And check it out: it didn't have anything to do with SJW Marvel! (Marvel's only casualty so far was Ardian Syaf who a few months ago published
anti-Semitic and anti-Christian coded messages in X-Men Gold #1).

Here's what happened: this is related to IDW's GI Joe comic (of all things!). GI Joe's current writer, Aubrey Sitterson, is an avowed far-left socialist online. To score a point against Trump, Sitterson tweeted that nobody can mourn 9/11 unless they were in Lower Manhattan that day (never mind that planes went down in DC and PA, buddy). Sitterson was also apparently calling GI Joe readers racists, homophobes and sexists on the GI Joe discussion boards. The main sites that cover G.I. Joe topics were so offended that they informed IDW that they would no longer cover the comics unless Sitterson was fired.

IDW then said that they would "address" the controversy. Then the sjw comicbook sites (like The Mary Sue and Bleeding Cool) struck back by throwing the comicbook fans under the bus, calling the readers right-wing idiots, and claiming that firing Sitterson would set a dangerous precedent. (Diversity & Comics put it well in his channel..they're afraid because if Sitterson gets fired then "the comic book industry goes back to being a business"..if you're a McDonalds employee and you say something rude and insulting to a customer the way Sitterson said to thousands of readers, you get fired!).

This is a full-on culture war for the first time - I told you this was coming. It's only gonna get worse as writers and critics from
both sides weigh in......

Anyone notice anything about the variant cover of G.I. Joe #7? Not exactly subtle, is it?

GIJOE_ONGO2016_07-cvrRI-600x911.jpg (160.85 KiB) Viewed 4928 times

[shevek]

So given the recent occurrences at Marvel Comics....

- endless 'woke' messaging shoehorned into various titles
- Axel Alonso getting fired
- Brian Bendis (creator of Jessica Jones) and Jim Starlin (creator of Thanos) leaving
- CB Cebulski getting hired to clean house
- Many of the 'forced diversity' comic books getting cancelled because of their terrible sales

..it's telling that even a mainstream entertainment site like Hollywood Reporter is willing to do a piece about how Marvel
was an absolute disaster of a dumpster fire this year. It's also interesting how this entire article is about everything that went wrong at Marvel *except* for the fact that the established audience mostly refused to purchase the new SJW books, and how
the new "diverse" target audience the company was trying to go after never materialized (except for librarians).

Again, I must reiterate the stance that Diversity & Comics and Capn Cummings are always mentioning: it is not the diversity or the new characters that are the problem. It is the shallowness of the characters, the terrible writing and art, and the elimination of legacy characters that turns the readers off. Hopefully Marvel will be working to change that in 2018. I know
they won't toss their diversity lineup - they've invested too much in it. But hopefully the writing and art will be better, the characters will have more depth and be easier to identify with as characters (and not just as tick-box tokenism) in the future.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat- ... cs-1070616