Race in Comics: Let's Talk About It.

[False Profit]

Okay, we all know that 9 times out of 10 when a race other than white is used in comics, it turns out incredibly lame. And even when it doesn't, said character RARELY gets a push and is often left on the backburner for 10+ years or so.

My question is.... why? What would it take to get someone of color over? And no, I don't just mean black. Basically, if you aren't white or Asian, you ain't getting no pushes.

[Requiem]

I agree, I'm East Indian and aside from Thunderbird III I have a hard time remembering any other characters on a major level that is also East Indian.

I think it's because most of the writers in the industry are white, and probably find it easier to write for whites. They may not be confident when using slang from other ethnicities for fear that they will get chastised for it.

What really pisses me off is when get new cosmic beings and they are white or light skinned. Like c'mon you can't even give us some aliens with colour? Or they colour them blue, purple and every other colour except for brown, yellow, or red.

[duckman returns]

Co sign this thread. Look no further than Green Lantern. I'm pissed about how DC been treating John Stewart since JLU stopped production of episodes. Stewart is in many ways more disciplined than Hal Jordan. He actually defines willpower to the fullest extent.


Treating a black man like that and he cannot get attention despite having 3 GL books on the market........SMH

[Dr Doom]

They give Jon a lot of shoutouts in GL Corps. During the war with the Weaponer they emphasized Jon's military strengths and in last issue Kyle had that whole monologue about Jon being the first GL without a mask because he was used to a role like that from the military. I mean, he's still not used like he should be but when he appears the writers tend to give him some credit.

[duckman returns]

yeah, but they passed him along cause Geoff Johns wasn't using him in the main GL cook.

[JxXxR]

Race In Comics? easy The Flash >>>

[Requiem]

Race In Comics? easy The Flash >>>

Yea, how come all of the Flashes are white? Can none of the other people reproduce Berry's experiment?

[JxXxR]

Yea, how come all of the Flashes are white? Can none of the other people reproduce Berry's experiment?

we talking ehtic? oh i thought oyu meant like a race race lol but there's Tanaka Rei who's Japanese flash from a different earth tho

[Dr Doom]

we talking ehtic? oh i thought oyu meant like a race race lol but there's Tanaka Rei who's Japanese flash from a different earth tho


lol, whut? You thought this was about who'd win a race? :rofl3:

[JxXxR]

lol, whut? You thought this was about who'd win a race? :rofl3:

i dont see color my friend lol

[JxXxR]

but

http://www.comicbookresources.com/assets/images/articles/1301683439.jpg


....What say you now??


Image Comics has released the following teaser for "Invincible," the popular superhero series by creator Robert Kirkman and artist Ryan Ottley. Featuring a new character in the familiar blue and yellow costume traditionally worn by Mark Grayson, the picture was accompanied by no information save the vague date of 2012.

[False Profit]

You really want me to post the covers where Frank Castle is black?

[Nate-Buner]

Forreal, i dont mind when they replace an established character with someone of a different ethnicity theres even some characters that i think would work well but i just find it unnecessary a lot of the time. Its obvious people are just going to complain and its all writers will cave in to the pressure, fans can barely tolerate costume changes nevermind the very being of a character. i kinda feel a lot of writers are afraid to move forward and create as well as maintain new characters. i think Daken was a step in the right direction but the whole excuse about writers not wanting to be chastised for getting cultural slang wrong is just silly, i dont expect all my black heroes to be from the hood. oh yeah and I'm still waiting for my A class black super villian non of that obscure luke cage bad guy either, hell id settle for them bringing back Erik killmonger if they had him beat up Steve Rogers

[KTULU]

It's money, you dipshits.

There aren't as many black people willing to pay for comics, so there aren't going to be many black characters. The demand isn't there.

[False Profit]

lmao you think Luke Cage makes money for Marvel?

[False Profit]

Forreal, i dont mind when they replace an established character with someone of a different ethnicity theres even some characters that i think would work well but i just find it unnecessary a lot of the time. Its obvious people are just going to complain and its all writers will cave in to the pressure, fans can barely tolerate costume changes nevermind the very being of a character. i kinda feel a lot of writers are afraid to move forward and create as well as maintain new characters. i think Daken was a step in the right direction but the whole excuse about writers not wanting to be chastised for getting cultural slang wrong is just silly, i dont expect all my black heroes to be from the hood. oh yeah and I'm still waiting for my A class black super villian non of that obscure luke cage bad guy either, hell id settle for them bringing back Erik killmonger if they had him beat up Steve Rogers

shit... they could move Moses Magnum back up to his X-Men levels. He could easily be shown to have a power level somewhere up there with the magnetos and gravitons of the MU. But they started lowballing him....

Or Monica Rambeau, who... while Ellis did her justice in Nextwave, he also made her the disgrace of The Avengers.

And no, black characters don't have to be "from the hood" or look like they came off UPN to work. Hell, look at DC's Michael Holt (Mr. Terrific). Leader of the JSA, one of the De Facto smartest men on that planet, former White King of Checkmate (no that's not a racial smear. Checkmate's Black pieces dealt with dark and shady spy shit). He may not get the props from the media, but they made the character work.

And speaking of shady ass people, look at Amanda Waller. She's been like the official Crime Lord of Law Enforcement in the DCU since 1986. Nobody fucks with her. She virtually RULES the spy/black ops world. Like a short, fat, angry, non-field work Nick Fury.

What does Marvel do? Gives us..... The Blue Marvel.

And I'm not saying they need to take someone who's not white or an alien and make them the next Superman, but show non-white characters some damn respect. sheesh.

[False Profit]

And no, I'm not on some anti-marvel rant, either.

It's just that other races/cultures get horribly misrepresented in BOTH companies. A character shouldn't have to be created or written by McDuffie or Christopher Priest just to be respected in the game. They don't have to create a white character and just color him differently. Just.... write the character as a normal character. Not a caricature of a character.

How hard would it be to make American Eagle show up more? Would it really be that hard? And not give him some damn feathers on his head?

[KTULU]

lmao you think Luke Cage makes money for Marvel?

no, that's my point

[1angryblack]

I still think it boils down to white writers writing a black, asian, latino or indian character...if you don't fully understand the culture then how can you write that persons life or lifestyle? So when a minority writes said characters do they give them a real feel or do they also sterotype them?

[Nate-Buner]

I still think it boils down to white writers writing a black, asian, latino or indian character...if you don't fully understand the culture then how can you write that persons life or lifestyle? So when a minority writes said characters do they give them a real feel or do they also sterotype them?
see but my point is that you dont have to worry that deeply into it, its a lame excuse. I could easily imagine certain characters being from a different background.
I could easily imagine Bishop being white or the Black panther as the Crimson Tiger (I figured yellow tiger sounded a lil racist) the leader of an unknown nation somewhere in oriental Asia. its not that hard they've clearly done it already i just wanna see it a little more

[sirded]

dont forget nick fury 616 and ultmate U.

but i dont disagree with angry. mabey not that they wouldnt be able to wright them. they are just les familiar with it. So if your white the first thing your going to think of is a white character. just becaus its like the default setting and if there is a good reason to make ik black or asian or allien ( are there more alliens in comics than black ppl?) they wil probably make it that way. but like you said for a lot of characters it wouldnt mater much fore the story if they were black or white. so if there are more white writers there wil be more white characters and vise versa.

[KTULU]

( are there more alliens in comics than black ppl?)

There are more aliens in the real universe than black people.

[1angryblack]

see but my point is that you dont have to worry that deeply into it, its a lame excuse. I could easily imagine certain characters being from a different background.
I could easily imagine Bishop being white or the Black panther as the Crimson Tiger (I figured yellow tiger sounded a lil racist) the leader of an unknown nation somewhere in oriental Asia. its not that hard they've clearly done it already i just wanna see it a little more

I see where you're coming from Nate I just cringe when I'm reading a comic and the minority character comes in. For example, Broddie can't stand Luke Cage...the Luke Cage we have now is far greater and written better than the way he was in the past. Reading the old issues and seeing the quote "Sweet Christmas" just screamed "Ghetto Ass *****", but that was the way a lot of blacks were depicted at that time so I can't be mad. It's like the Cage series that was out a while ago, we all laughed at the page of Luke and Jessica when you clearly know Luke was killing the booty...now have we ever seen a white character written like this? Can you imagine a flashback of Namor tapping Sue's ass?

[Dr Doom]

Speaking of...

http://cdn.the-gutters.com/comics/63686bab655dbb08032e80b6f1ed7b1de724c8f7.jpg
:rofl

[JxXxR]

read that yesterday i was ROLLING!

[1angryblack]

Classic...

[Broddie]

A main reason I don't like the Luke Cage of today is because he's Bendis' Mary Sue and it's extremely aggravating to read. However yes the depictions from my childhood and before are definitely a big reason I always loathed that fucking clown so they definitely don't do him any favors.

At the same time though no offense to some but you show lack of history when it comes to this medium with some of these comments about lots of minorities being disrespected in these books. I mean things are cyclical and even though yes I feel that today a lot of minority characters get shafted by the mainstream 2 I still give credit where it's due. The fact of the matter is many times during comic book publications minorities have been given importance in the DC or Marvel universes.

Thunderbird as mentioned but also Aztek the Ultimate Man's role in the JLA book by Morrison. Let alone the fact that he and the 3rd Firebrand (a mexican) were both new and untested characters who were still given solo series' that only failed at sales cause well, hello!!! whites are the majority of comic book fans. I'm from the hood and guess what I was like 1 of 11 kids who even read comic books where I'm from. I grew up in a community full of hispanics and if it wasn't them it was blacks and never did I see any of these kids really care about comics like that.

But it's not like the companies didn't try giving minority characters big roles in books it's just that most audiences didn't care to see said characters in their own books. Then alot of the kids that would possibly identify with these characters didn't even read comic books anyway for the most part. It's a business and money talks. Shit Bea's (Fire) prominent role in JLI and Cyborg's in New Teen Titans conversely connected a lot with many people and were instrumental in the success of those titles. So clearly they had no problem with them in supporting roles.

In the end it's a dictation of the audience moreso than anything else but it's not like these companies never tried.

For one thing in a time where it was still controversial for a FEMALE let alone one who is also a minority to have a powerful role in comic books (early to mid 80's) Marvel had Monica Rambeau and Storm in pretty damn prominent positions in franchise books. Shit Englehart's GL run is legendary because of not only drastically expanding the mythos between his main stories and Alan Moore's back up tales, but because of what he did with John Stewart (a character pushed forward by editorial at the time btw and who Englehart chose to keep instead of bringing back Hal).

Once more this was during a time (mid 80's) where most comic book readers where suburban white kids who didn't really know any minorities in real life. John went well into the mid 90's as an important character in the DCU.

Speaking of GL then DC had a half mexican kid (Kyle Rayner) as the main GL for close to a decade. I won't even talk about how awesome and popular Bronze Tiger became in the 80's cause of his appearances in Richard Dragon's book and the Suicide Squad. Black Lightning was huge for a period of time after his creation to his timein the 80's Outsiders book. Let's not forget about the latino protagonist Spider-Man 2099 and how at the time most Spidey fans myself included liked his title better than the mainstream Spidey book.

The many appearances of Gangbuster all throughout the DCU for over 2 decades, Jason Rusch, Jaime Reyes and his use by DC in ALL media considering he's not even a 10 year old character because of the faith they have in him. Lorena and her role in the Aquaman book before Orin eventually passed before being brought back recently. Likewise with Static when it comes to bringing him back to comics and giving such an obscure character his own cartoon at one point. Shit they kept a book starring a dominican lesbian detective & her black partner alive for years despite the fact that it didn't sell much. Cause they had faith in it and gave the artists artistic freedom on it to boot. Then when that story ended they pushed the **** latina to filling the role of an icon by making her The Question.

Let's not even get into Steel and Mr Terrific II and how since their conception they've been regarded as 2 of the most brilliant minds and 2 of the greatest leaders in the entire DCU. TBH I think the issue of race all things considered (like the fact that the majority of readers are NOT minorities) has been handled pretty well by the big 2. You have The Falconer a hero with as much importance as Captain America on one side and then you have Rhodey with as much importance as Stark on another in Earth-616.

Sure they killed off Ryan Choi but shit man Vixen of all characters was brought back to the JLA. Again a fucking character from the least popular incarnation (Justice League Detroit), Granted it's the same incarnation that admittedly also contained one of the most embarrassing minority characters (Vibe) but you can't win them all. The point is sh was pushed into a bigger role eventually when it wasn't even being called for. So again all things considered at least a lot of people still try in the big 2 to showacase minorities as important figures.

Now the whole Geoff Johns and John Stewart thing is a whole other topic. Hell one of the things that's been grinding my gears about Johns' role in this title since '05 is not just his omission of John who is a very vital part of the mythos. But how bland he's been making Hal. A character who back when I was a kid was one of the richest in the DCU. Under the likes of Owsley (now Christpher Priest), Jones and Marz. A character who he himself also handled with more gravitas before bringing him back to the GL role ironically.