The Minority Displacement Thread

[Havok83]

Storm stands out a bit, as well, I'd say, or at least the way she was drawn back in the day.

No she doesnt. Straight hair and blue eyes dont make her stand out as mutant. Like the O5 and rest of her team (save Nightcrawler), no one would be able to know she's a mutant if she didnt use her powers. She can easily pass as baseline human. Warren would have a harder time blending in than she

[Tycon]

I'd suggest that Marvel is doing a terrible job of empowering literally all their characters, let alone specific sub-groups. Who exactly is being written well by the X-Office at the moment in any X-Title?

Are you seriously making this an "All Lives" thing rn?

It's not just about who's being objectively written well. It's about the overall treatment of their characters. So you really don't see the difference between the way POC are handled? In Gold, everyone has something going on (no matter how badly written) with their story except Storm. Kitty and Colossus with their ongoing relationship subplot, OML trying to fit in as the 'real' Logan, Nightcrawler dealing with immortality, and Rachel fighting against her past. Storm is regretful because of IvX, but has there been any development for her subplot since issue 2?

In X-Men Blue, well actually, Bloodstorm isn't that bad. But she isn't even seen in the team lineup at the beginning of each book's recap page. It's been 9 issues since, 12 counting Gold's crossover.

Generation X. As much as I love this book, it has a starking lack of black ppl. As far as POC and LGBT+ representation go, it's alright with Nature Girl, Hindsight, and Morph but compared to its OG team, kind of sad to see. Speaking of the OG team, how Strain tells Monet's story deprives her of all nuance and agency, making her just another devilish, dastardly villain for Husk, Chamber, and Jubilee.

Astonishing X-Men has Fantomex, Mystique, Psylocke, and gambit (and logan from apparent Claremont interviews) all with LGBT+ rep yet has nothing done with it. In fact, we get Fanto and Raven out of nowhere. But besides that, the interviews that Soule had to talk about Bishop, the most interesring part about using his character isn't even about him, it's about some mutant-apocalypse database A.I. that he carries around.

As for characters that the X-Books are currently treating well: Laura Kinney, Gabby, OML, all the O5, Fantomex, Gambit, Husk, Chamber, Jubilee, Beast, Polaris, Ink, and Iceman. There are more but those are the few that came to my mind first.

There are quite a few minority characters that exist across the X-Men line that haven't made the cut long-term, though. Probably the most diverse team ever created were the New Mutants, but only one of their number truly made it out of the kiddie class and into the Big League, and her hold is tenuous, at best, right now. (Magick)

Lobdell/Bachalo Gen X says hi. KYost New X-Men also has a few words to say.

[Sundowhn]

No she doesnt. Straight hair and blue eyes dont make her stand out as mutant. Like the O5 and rest of her team (save Nightcrawler), no one would be able to know she's a mutant if she didnt use her powers. She can easily pass as baseline human. Warren would have a harder time blending in than she

Cockrum's original design had her with slit pupils, like a cat, set farther apart than normal eyes, as well. No, she didn't stand out as much as Nightcrawler for being a mutant, but she couldn't easily blend into a crowd, either.

[Havok83]

Yay, the NM only had 3 people of color. The rest were all white. Even Warlock's human form was a white guy

Cockrum's original design had her with slit pupils, like a cat, set farther apart than normal eyes, as well. No, she didn't stand out as much as Nightcrawler for being a mutant, but she couldn't easily blend into a crowd, either.

She looked exotic, but nothing non-human. No one is going to look at her and assume she was a mutant based on her outer appearance (and no one did). The way Cockrum drew her was his artistic style but nothing there suggested she was intended to have an implied physical mutation that people would pick up on (other than the colors previously mentioned)

[ButterRum]

No lies here.


True as that may be the minority characters have been treated worse.

Oh yes I agree.

[Sundowhn]

She looked exotic, but nothing non-human. No one is going to look at her and assume she was a mutant based on her outer appearance (and no one did). The way Cockrum drew her was his artistic style but nothing there suggested she was intended to have an implied physical mutation that people would pick up on (other than the colors previously mentioned)

Agreed, as already stated, that she wasn't as obvious as Nightcrawler, but she looked like "other" on inspection. Sure, from a distance, she could pass as a super model. Are there any of the popular X-women who aren't extremely attractive? Kitty, for awhile, when she was an awkward teen, but she's outgrown that, and was never unattractive, even then.

[Nick Miller]

I agree with the OP.

Why is this happening?

The writers and editors are extremely afraid of making a misstep with a POC. That’s basically it. And we don’t get any kind of exploration of them.

The debacle that is Storm, both in Gold and Resurrxtion, is the prime example.

[Paleo_Rage]

I agree with the OP.

Why is this happening?

The writers and editors are extremely afraid of making a misstep with a POC. That’s basically it. And we don’t get any kind of exploration of them.

The debacle that is Storm, both in Gold and Resurrxtion, is the prime example.

Well maybe the writers should not be all white men. I mean, that's one of the real issues that no one is addressing. A diverse staff will write diverse stories. If I am unsure about something, I ask and do research about it. A diverse staff makes for compelling nuanced portrayals of a variety of characters.

[Chaos Reigns]

Well maybe the writers should not be all white men. I mean, that's one of the real issues that no one is addressing. A diverse staff will write diverse stories. If I am unsure about something, I ask and do research about it. A diverse staff makes for compelling nuanced portrayals of a variety of characters.

In order to attract good multi ethnic talent you need money, if the x office is broke and the environment not supportive, then what's the point?

[wano]

In order to attract good multi ethnic talent you need money, if the x office is broke and the environment not supportive, then what's the point?

They can bring gabby Rivera!

[Sutekh]

Yay, the NM only had 3 people of color. The rest were all white. Even Warlock's human form was a white guy.

It's possible they were referring to the original New Mutants, of which three out of five were non-white. (Dani, Shan, 'Berto, Sam and Rahne.) A year or more later, after Ilyanna and Amara and Doug joined up, yeah, it got blonder and bluer-eyed, but the team started out in a really diverse place, and one of very few teams that had more girls than boys. I mean, your picture there is so far in the team's future that Magneto is in it, so it's hardly representative of where they started out (or where they are now, for that matter, since Magneto as their headmaster is like a blip in their history that I'd honestly forgotten, although my hat's off to the artist for managing to obscure the brain-scorchingly bad costume he was wearing back then, which I totally blame for my forgetting that era of his history).

[Havok83]

It's possible they were referring to the original New Mutants, of which three out of five were non-white. (Dani, Shan, 'Berto, Sam and Rahne.) A year or more later, after Ilyanna and Amara and Doug joined up, yeah, it got blonder and bluer-eyed, but the team started out in a really diverse place, and one of very few teams that had more girls than boys. I mean, your picture there is so far in the team's future that Magneto is in it, so it's hardly representative of where they started out (or where they are now, for that matter, since Magneto as their headmaster is like a blip in their history that I'd honestly forgotten, although my hat's off to the artist for managing to obscure the brain-scorchingly bad costume he was wearing back then, which I totally blame for my forgetting that era of his history).

Not that far. This core lineup was established quite some time before Magneto was added. I'll concede that the original was more diverse proportion wise, but each new addition was the same white look. Still the original comment was about them possibly being the most diverse group and as mentioned, Gen X and the New X-men's lineups rival that to a much more consistent degree

[Paleo_Rage]

In order to attract good multi ethnic talent you need money, if the x office is broke and the environment not supportive, then what's the point?

How do you jump to it being a money issue? Is x office broke or is that conjecture? And if they are paying all of those men, I am sure they can pay poc writers.. And as far as supportive environments, women and poc live with that daily. It wont be anything new for them. We know how to cope. And the point is, better representation, better writing, and more compelling portrayals of the total human experience, not just one narrow perspective.

[Sutekh]

Not that far. This core lineup was established quite some time before Magneto was added. I'll concede that the original was more diverse proportion wise, but each new addition was the same white look.

I do agree that they kept adding blue-eyed blondes for no particular reason, and it did get old. (In Amara's case, it was downright odd that someone who was, IIRC, of Italian descent, originally, but raised in South America, would be quite so blonde. I know that there are blonde blue-eyed Italians, but really, would have killed them to have Amara to look less like Ilyanna with curlier hair?)

The sidelining of Shan/Karma also didn't do the team's original ethnic balance any favors. But Dani kicked all the butt and made up for a lot.

Still the original comment was about them possibly being the most diverse group and as mentioned, Gen X and the New X-men's lineups rival that to a much more consistent degree

True. Particularly when Synch and Skin were still alive and Monet was drawn appropriately dark, Gen X was doing pretty well (Monet, like Sunspot, kept getting mysteriously lighter under different artists, which somewhat annoyed me). The New X-Men had Dust, Surge and Prodigy, on the 'main team' and lots of background characters like Gentle, Indra, Loa and Bling! to round things out.

[Dementia5]

Particularly when Synch and Skin were still alive and Monet was drawn appropriately dark, Gen X was doing pretty well

Pretty well is right. The team was 4 out of 7 POC (5 if you assume Penny was some iteration of St. Croix). And it went on for 75 issues - that’s pretty solid.