Why are DC's minority character's lagging behind Marvel's?

[abetterday]

I wonder how different things would be today if distributors didn't allegedly, refused to print the second issue of the first all black comics by journalist Orrin Cromwell Evans? Cromwell was the first black writer to cover assignments for a mainstream white newspaper in the United States in 1947. And ironically Ta-Nehisi Coates is set to write an African American Superman reportedly in the early 20th century. Will Clark Kent also be the first Black writer for the Daily Planet?

[Robotman]

Historically, neither company has done well by their Latino characters. George Perez co-created White Tiger in 1975, but since then you can basically count the Latino/mestizo superheroes who have had relative success on just one hand. I’ll count Miles Morales but he had a sizable advantage getting the mantle of Spider-Man. In recent years Marvel seems to be pushing America Chavez while DC is utilizing Jessica Cruz and now Yara. So that’s good to see.

WB seems to think that Blue Beetle has a chance to be their “Latino Black Panther”, but DC has not done a lot to promote the character or show his importance. If they want to generate any hype for the movie they really need to do a better job of building him up. They can’t rely on Young Justice episodes from 2010 and Batman: BATB episodes from 2008 to sell the movie. The YA books seem to be really popular right now. Would love to see Jaime be the focus of one of those.

[the1&onlyE.]

It gets more complicated with the Al Ghuls since a lot of Arabs are also light enough to 'pass' for white.

Darkening them would lead to articles about how 'dark skinned people are always depicted as villains and why that is problematic'. I'm fine with Ras as a light skinned Arab, Talia is canonically Arab-Chinese descent and Damian is mixed but I can buy him 'passing' for white (like Dean Cain who is quarter Asian but you can't really tell). That said, neither Ras nor Talia should be played by actors of English, Irish or French descent.

Yeah, that's also a complex issue. But Talia specifically has been victim of colorism many times, and often times, when she's villainized, she's portrayed with darker skin and, when she's a hero, she has lighter skin.

Whether people consider Damian a POC or not, they should at least acknowledge how DC almost has no Arabic characters and how pretty much all the ones they have have been through racist portrayals and storylines, including him.

[Samm]

How did you establish that racial diversity gets ignored more than LGBT diversity and is the higher priority? That is ludicrous. Do you want to count how many POCs get solo titles compared to LGBT characters? How about transgender only, whose experience of the world is very different from the gay experience, more misunderstood, and very often do not feel represented under the umbrella of LGBT? The point I am making is that this shouldn't be a competition.



...

And pushing a self-serving argument that characters from other minority groups can be pushed as long as they are pushed as POCs (as if to infer that their identity as POC is more important or needs more attention than their identities as LGBT or women) is pretty offensive to people in those groups. This would be like me saying they can push POCs, but they must also be pushed as LGBT. The logic you are using is not sound. Try to see things other than in terms of how it affects only one group.

Why is this an us vs them thing? This thread was created with the intent of comparing DC and Marvels POC characters, with the question of why were DC’s lagging behind Marvel’s. There was a thread discussing LGBT representation but I don’t know what happened to it. DC is good with LGBT (would like to see more gay/bi males in leading roles though) and Female heroes but Marvel is better with Black, Asian and Native American heroes/ characters, so I made this thread to discuss why DC has a hard time making successful racially diverse heroes catch on.

[J. D. Guy]

The problem with Damian is a color issue, any character darker than a paper bag goes through various skin tones depending on the artist. Kinda like what Sunspot, Monet and even Storm over at Marvel go through.

Damian is different/worse in his own way, in that he started off introduced as a mini-Bruce clone, complete with perfectly matching his dad's fair skin tone, not to mention the ultra-convenient green eyes that really should be some shade of brown. It wasn't until Robin: Son of Batman and his guest stint during Gotham Academy were official book artists began giving him a Brown sheen to his complexion and features. Which, in turn, became inconsistently applied from then on. Before that, creative teams were content with Damian's mini-Bruce clone appearance.

[J. D. Guy]

People also overlook the sad fact that if an existing minority gets a push, a certain loud and obnoxious portion of the fanbase throws a fit and claim a more deserving character(white) deserved the push more.

New minority character gets introduced, they whine about replacement(I'm using a more politically correct term), existing character gets pushed they have all sorts of excuses why that character shouldn't be pushed.

Most reasonable people know what the real reasons behind their complaints is.

This is also compounded by the human element in the retail market - many shopowners won't order a book with a PoC, especially if it's a new character. It's that gate-keeping bs that keeps new readers out of traditional floppy environments. It's why those readers are a lot more likely to go to their Barnes and Noble and pick up the new Raven and Beast Boy or order the new YA graphic novel from Amazon then set foot into the den of people who actively discourage sharing something they supposedly love with others.

That's why I think new minority characters launched outside of the traditional monthly floppie market have the best chance of succeeding. Skip the small, niche gate-keeping audience and market to a much larger and thirsty market through TV, movies and video games and entrench and endear audiences to these characters. It's kinda but not exactly what they tried with Naomi and Wonder Girl.

This, unfortunately.

I still haven't forgotten what the Nova Fandom did to poor Sam Alexander.

[BlueRuggo]

Why is this an us vs them thing? This thread was created with the intent of comparing DC and Marvels POC characters, with the question of why were DC’s lagging behind Marvel’s. There was a thread discussing LGBT representation but I don’t know what happened to it. DC is good with LGBT (would like to see more gay/bi males in leading roles though) and Female heroes but Marvel is better with Black, Asian and Native American heroes/ characters, so I made this thread to discuss why DC has a hard time making successful racially diverse heroes catch on.

Did you read the post you are quoting in its entirety? I feel that you may not have understood it. Specifically the part about "it shouldn't be a competition." Also may want to check the quotation by the user inferring that publishers should be pushing POCs before any other groups that need representation.

As to DC having a hard time making racially diverse heroes catch on: I'm not sure that they do have a hard time. The sales figures you cited earlier may not be causally linked to the way in which DC characterizes or promotes POCs in any way. It might just be that there isn't an extraordinary demand for POC heroes over what we already have. Or it could just be that DC has had some questionable writing in general, lately.

[phantom1592]

Damian is different/worse in his own way, in that he started off introduced as a mini-Bruce clone, complete with perfectly matching his dad's fair skin tone, not to mention the ultra-convenient green eyes that really should be some shade of brown. It wasn't until Robin: Son of Batman and his guest stint during Gotham Academy were official book artists began giving him a Brown sheen to his complexion and features. Which, in turn, became inconsistently applied from then on. Before that, creative teams were content with Damian's mini-Bruce clone appearance.

Well, it's not like they've been very consistent with Talia either. She's usually shown as no darker then Bruce is... why would Damian?

[BlueRuggo]

Damian is different/worse in his own way, in that he started off introduced as a mini-Bruce clone, complete with perfectly matching his dad's fair skin tone, not to mention the ultra-convenient green eyes that really should be some shade of brown.

Err... why? That famous National Geographic girl has green eyes, and she's from the Middle East.



Was she being ultra convenient?

[J. D. Guy]

Well, it's not like they've been very consistent with Talia either. She's usually shown as no darker then Bruce is... why would Damian?

I believe that was also called out to attention by a couple of other posts, yes. Including one where Talia's colorist depictions would even fluctuate based on how villainously-aligned a given story's supposed to portray her at the given time.

Doesn't make it any more comfortable for Talia, or justifiable for Damian.

[the1&onlyE.]

Well, it's not like they've been very consistent with Talia either. She's usually shown as no darker then Bruce is... why would Damian?

Correction: she's usually shown with darker skin when she's a villain. See the problem?

I'm going to drop one panel of Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin as an example:

[skyvolt2000]

I believe that was also called out to attention by a couple of other posts, yes. Including one where Talia's colorist depictions would even fluctuate based on how villainously-aligned a given story's supposed to portray her at the given time.

Doesn't make it any more comfortable for Talia, or justifiable for Damian.

This is when you need an editor to do their job and decide on what Damian and his mother are going to look like.

[BlueRuggo]

I believe that was also called out to attention by a couple of other posts, yes. Including one where Talia's colorist depictions would even fluctuate based on how villainously-aligned a given story's supposed to portray her at the given time.

Doesn't make it any more comfortable for Talia, or justifiable for Damian.

Even Talia has green eyes there... so in what way are Damian's eyes so contrived?

[phantom1592]

This is when you need an editor to do their job and decide on what Damian and his mother are going to look like.

100% agree. There used to be straight up 'style guides' for characters that stopped artists doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted with established characters.

[Captain Nostalgia]

As was done with Kaldur and Artemis in the Young Justice cartoon? Seems like a decent tactic to introduce them elsewhere, since the comic medium is harder to break into, due to limited market penetration or whatever. (Kind of weird for me, a comic fan from the seventies, to think of *comic books* as being a small segment of the market for superheroes, but here we are, in the future, where movies are the big draw, and comics are practically a vanity shop and cross-market advertising venue for the movie/toy IP...)

It's strange for me to, we grew up in a time when the comic industry was robust, and Saturday morning cartoons aside, the multimedia end was secondary, but I think the switch was inevitable once comics went digital. It was only a matter of time before people started illegally streaming comics like they do with music.

As with Kaldur, yes I think so, I became a big fan of that character through the cartoon, which led to the development of Jackson Hyde, who I now identify as Aqualad. Movies and tv shows to. I think the challenge for DC is to figure out how to get the multimedia to trickle down to comic sales for that character.

I think we'll see them try to put out some minority lead comics now that COVID is coming to the end, but DC doesn't have the luxury to create new characters and titles like they use to. When I first started collecting comics the industry was in a boom and both new and obscure heroes were getting titles, mini series, or at least a special.

Thus it's a shame that the call for more diversity comes at a time when the industry and titles are in decline, so I think multimedia is the way to go. Vibe actually became popular through the Flash tv show, DC just has to figure out how to harness that popularity into their comics.