Why doesn’t DC have any successful minority superheroes?

[Ascended]

It's curious how your description of him as disabled or sub-human is synonymous with the experience many black men are already subject to. Can you see how that is problematic? That's not cool. We should be raving about him the same way we have about T'Challa being a wish fulfilment.

Did I say sub-human? Doesn't sound like something I would've said?

But yes it is problematic. And yes, Vic should be treated as the wish fulfillment character he so obviously could be. I think we've talked about that in his thread at length (though I might be thinking of another poster?) But Vic being judged by how he looks.....doesn't that parallel what a lot of black people have to deal with? Isn't there a narrative "in" for Vic to rise above that callous, shallow judgement? If Vic Stone can take on those critics head first and emerge a better, stronger person for it (and maybe even change some minds on the way) isn't that a positive story worth telling? If Vic shows the world he's just as badass and awesome as the perfect white people, isn't that a win?

With Cyborg being the only showcased black hero thus far, he should be something black people are proud of in the midst of these "great whites". That's the point. In a world of amazing people, the single black hero you show people is one who doubts his own being. His own humanity. His own worth. And then is made to look inferior by design.

As I've said, the way they've handled the situation has been beyond piss poor. No doubt. I just believe that it wouldn't be a problem (or at least not as much of one) if Vic himself were written and treated better. I dont believe that his being a cyborg makes him less human any more than Barry being a metahuman makes him less human. Honestly, considering how much Barry's DNA must be altered, I'd argue that Vic is actually more human, despite missing a few limbs and the occasional organ.

[skyvolt2000]

This reminds me of the Vibe vs Sideways debate a few weeks back and another user getting upset because minority heroes aren't getting focus in DC Zoom and Ink. Part of the problem is writers wanna create their own characters and that can come at a cost at the old favorites. I'm a writer myself so i don't think it's wrong that they do but it can be problematic in Marvel or DC.

Honestly mother panic or the new asian gl would have been better off at Valiant or one of the other comic companies.

Why would I create a new guy that I have no ownership over? Or if I get some ownership I end up with a guy NOT getting used or every excuse on the planet is tossed out to defend not using him-see Static & even Black Lightning.


What IRKS fans of minority characters is-these guys who have been SUPPORTED for years get tossed away and we see new ones and a NEVER ENDING flood of guys who can write Hal Jordan and that lot.

Dc can FIND a writer for Hal, Barry, Superman and other a certain demo but IGNORE all these folks who WANT to use Cassandra & John.

[Aahz]

So this is the second series of Captain America, Sam Wilson, which came around the same time that Captain America White appeared, a mini series dedicated to classic steve rodgers.

Captain America Sam Wilson 1 $3.99 Marvel 62,535

Captain America Sam Wilson 2 $3.99 Marvel 40,224

Captain America Sam Wilson 3 $3.99 Marvel 33,984

Captain America Sam Wilson 4 $3.99 Marvel 29,512


Comparison to Falcon:

Falcon 1 $3.99 Marvel 54,281

Falcon 2 $3.99 Marvel 16,848

Falcon 3 $3.99 Marvel 14,475

Falcon 4 $3.99 Marvel 11,296

Wow thats a 70% drop from issue #1 to issue #2. Thats really unusual huge. And remember that numbers are orders by stores not sales to readers.

The numbers speak for themselves. And this is with Falcon, who among the legacy characters (and arguably biggest hype) had among the lowest sales within the legacy crew. This also isn't including Captain America first series that sold way better than his second run. Even with that, he still sold leagues better under his captain america mantle vs his falcon mantle. And that's why I keep saying Marvel needs to actually listen to those who support these books, not those that pretend to support these books but they only want them out of the mantle so their white characters can hog all the spotlights.

As to where all the Falcon readers went? Most likely left the series. I explained it like this in another thread, Falcon is to Colin Kaepernick as Captain America is to President Obama. Colin Kapernick is important, don't get me wrong. But we already have multiple heroes that fits that void, primarily Luke Cage. Having Sam Wilson be Captain America was a completely new position that never was presented before (similar to president obama). So with Falcon going back to his older ways, many of the new readers who joined his initial run bounce.

And that's why I keep trying to tell marvel to STOP listening to classic readers when it comes to legacy heroes. They don't care about the new heroes, it's the new readers that allowed these books to be successful. If you want to maintain the momentum that you built from ANAD, make sure the legacy characters is being addressed by the new readers that support them and not the classic readers that only wants to kick them to the curve.

That looks to me more like there were either hardly any new readers and his book was mainly sold to longtime Cap fans, who were reading it till Steve returned or like the new readers care more about the mantle than about the character.

[leo619]

Wow thats a 70% drop from issue #1 to issue #2. Thats really unusual huge. And remember that numbers are orders by stores not sales to readers.

That looks to me more like there were either hardly any new readers and his book was mainly sold to longtime Cap fans, who were reading it till Steve returned or like the new readers care more about the mantle than about the character.

Eh, not true. Captain America White, a mini series staring Steve was running at the same time that Sam was, and they both sold very well. So it definitely wasn't just old steve readers waiting until steve returned, otherwise sam wilson wouldn't have sold better than steve when the mini series came out. But I do agree that there's more interest in the combination of character and mantle than just character alone. Mantles are very important because they are similar to symbols. A symbol can mean a lot to many people. The same with mantles.

[Aahz]

Eh, not true. Captain America White, a mini series staring Steve was running at the same time that Sam was, and they both sold very well. So it definitely wasn't just old steve readers waiting until steve returned, otherwise sam wilson wouldn't have sold better than steve when the mini series came out. But I do agree that there's more interest in the combination of character and mantle than just character alone. Mantles are very important because they are similar to symbols. A symbol can mean a lot to many people. The same with mantles.

But was "Captain America White" set in the main continuity? And was the Sam Willson book still the main Captain America book at the time? Some just like to keep up with what is going on or just collecting a specific series.

Just as comparison a while ago James Gordon took over as Batman for a year and that didn't really impact the sales of the Batman books much. But that doesn't mean that there were suddenly lots of fan of the James Gordon Batman, it were just the usual fans who allways read Batman. I'm don't remember if they published any Batman minis at that time but I don't think tat it would have impacted the sales of the main book.
And I doubt that Gordon would have had similar good sales if they had given him a new "Robo-Batman" spin-of-series and had given the main book back to Bruce.

[leo619]

But was "Captain America White" set in the main continuity? And was the Sam Willson book still the main Captain America book at the time? Some just like to keep up with what is going on or just collecting a specific series.

Just as comparison a while ago James Gordon took over as Batman for a year and that didn't really impact the sales of the Batman books much. But that doesn't mean that there were suddenly lots of fan of the James Gordon Batman, it were just the usual fans who allways read Batman. I'm don't remember if they published any Batman minis at that time but I don't think tat it would have impacted the sales of the main book.
And I doubt that Gordon would have had similar good sales if they had given him a new "Robo-Batman" spin-of-series and had given the main book back to Bruce.

While Captain America White was set in main continuity, it was a past piece dealing with his time during world war 2. Captain America Sam Wilson was also it's own series, hence why it had it's own numbering instead of following the standard Captain America numbering after Steve loss the serum.

This was further illustrated when Steve eventually came back as Captain America, (though hydra cap.) Captain America Sam Wilson did not restart in numbering to gain a boost but instead continue to follow it's standard numeric pattern. And yet when Steve came back, there wasn't a huge drop in readership at all, just your standard loss subscribers that regularly happens in comics. If it was really about Steve being back, you would see a huge drop the minute his first issue came out but that never came.
It just steadily loss readers over time.

[skyvolt2000]

But was "Captain America White" set in the main continuity? And was the Sam Willson book still the main Captain America book at the time? Some just like to keep up with what is going on or just collecting a specific series.

Just as comparison a while ago James Gordon took over as Batman for a year and that didn't really impact the sales of the Batman books much. But that doesn't mean that there were suddenly lots of fan of the James Gordon Batman, it were just the usual fans who allways read Batman. I'm don't remember if they published any Batman minis at that time but I don't think tat it would have impacted the sales of the main book.
And I doubt that Gordon would have had similar good sales if they had given him a new "Robo-Batman" spin-of-series and had given the main book back to Bruce.

Batman fans UNDERSTAND Bruce being out of that suit was not permanent and you saw Bruce running around while James was Robo Bats.

They understood what STORIES and STORYLINES are about. Something a lot of "classic" Marvel fans forgot or didn't care to remember.

Also despite what certain fans think-Batman could do ANYTHING in that book and stores would have ZERO issue ordering copies. As many folks boycotted Batman over Duke-those order numbers did not change.

And another obvious factor-James Gordon is not a PERSON OF COLOR. Funny that allows one to get a free pass unlike others including Duke-who took over for no one.

[Futbol]

Never expected to get so many replies! That's awesome. Glad I'm not the only one who has noticed the gap. I just hope Marvel's recent success with their minority heroes, pushes DC to build up theirs.

[kurenai24]

http://digitalpriest.com/legacy/comics/chips3.html

Christopher priest talked about why black comics didn't sell back in the day (2003)

Ah, Priest, I love his bluntness.

Never expected to get so many replies! That's awesome. Glad I'm not the only one who has noticed the gap. I just hope Marvel's recent success with their minority heroes, pushes DC to build up theirs.

It won't, Dan Didio basically confirmed them wanting to do something with diverse characters was to create new characters instead of using the ones that already exist that they have neglected.

[Aahz]

And another obvious factor-James Gordon is not a PERSON OF COLOR. Funny that allows one to get a free pass unlike others including Duke-who took over for no one.

Not sure what the Person of color has to do with my argument, that just starring the main book of a franchise will mean that many long term fans will read that book.

If you would for example retire Peter for a while and give the main Spiderman book to Miles (or another Spiderman character) for a year or two, the sales would proably also stay stable and a lot of long term fans would keep buying it.

On the other hand I'm not sure if the Captain America brand is actually strong enough to support several ongoing books like Spiderman.

[Frontier]

Batman fans UNDERSTAND Bruce being out of that suit was not permanent and you saw Bruce running around while James was Robo Bats.

They understood what STORIES and STORYLINES are about. Something a lot of "classic" Marvel fans forgot or didn't care to remember.

Also despite what certain fans think-Batman could do ANYTHING in that book and stores would have ZERO issue ordering copies. As many folks boycotted Batman over Duke-those order numbers did not change.

And another obvious factor-James Gordon is not a PERSON OF COLOR. Funny that allows one to get a free pass unlike others including Duke-who took over for no one.

I think the difference with Superheavy and some of the current Marvel replacement storylines is that Snyder had no allusions that the change would be permanent and was open about that in interviews.

Conversely with Marvel they seemed to want to get more mileage out of their replacement storylines and tend to drag the classics under the mud as it goes along, so people who are fans of Steve Rogers are stuck with a Nazi Captain America until the very end of Spencer's run or Thor fans are stuck with an Unworthy Thor who is very much a supporting or small player to Jane Fosters story and probably will be until the very end of Aaron's run.

By comparison I would say Snyder handled amnesiac Bruce Wayne very differently.

[Assam]

So there's a lot of things I wanted to respond to as I read through this thread. Some because I had thoughts to share and others because I wanted to correct mistakes people made (Shout out to El_Gato, Skyvolt and others for correcting some of the more glaring ones), but I don't want to make a post so long no one will bother reading it*, so instead, since a lot of my thoughts have been stated by others already, I'm gonna reply to mostly just one post and try to get as many of my general thoughts about this topic across through my response to that as I can.

*Though I think I may have ended up doing that anyway.

Cass Cain has played a major role in Detective for example. Its not another solo series for her, but she's here, and aside from her first series, her other solo books haven't done too well so who could blame DC for easing back on her (for now)?

You've expressed this sentiment before. I specifically remember because I remember how the conversation went: You said this, I corrected you, you called me out on being overly aggressive but thanked me for the info, and I apologized. But, now in the context of this thread, I'll repeat myself.

Unless one counts the likes of Kyle and Dick (both of whom are white passing and only one of whom is generally even acknowledged as a POC but still wasn't revealed to be one until late into his solo tenure), Cass IS DC's most successful solo POC character. Her issue count is actually higher than the one on the first page if you count her book's annual and some other things, but just looking at that '79', that is entirely from two volumes: Her highly successful 73 issue ongoing (which was cancelled because of sexism and dislike for the character from a couple editors, not low sales) and a 6 issue mini. So saying that her other “solo bookS” haven't done too well is automatically an inaccurate statement, as she's only ever had one other solo. Now yes, that single mini did rather terrible in sales. Just like DC wanted it to. It's fairly obvious what was going on there. DC knew fans HATED Beechen. DC also still hated Cass. So they put Beechen on the mini, knowing it would cause the series to flop, so they'd have their excuse to shunt her off and say “Well there just wasn't any interest in her,” which they did. So just to respond to the OP and how they brought up DC not having any POC characters with over 100 issues? If DC didn't treat Cass like garbage, she would have been the one to make it MANY years ago.

About to start going into a more general point regarding this thread, but just as an aside, you also said that she has played “a major role in Detective”. This is false. Now if you'd said she's been the highlight of the book, that would be correct; she and Clayface have been unquestionably the most generally well received parts of the book. However, she has not been a major character. In 41 issues, she has been absent from 8 and has only been the primary focus of 4 issues, not even being the main focus in every issue of her focus arc. And what's more, outside of those few issues where she had the spotlight, her role in the book has been entirely defined by her friendship with Clayface. And while it was a well written dynamic, it was neither prominent nor beneficial for Cass's character in the long run. I'll give you that she's had more focus than Batwing and Azrael, but considering those two may as well be wallpaper (I love JPV but that's what they are there), that's not saying much.

Back on topic, and I swear this is leading to some larger points, I'd like to run with the logic Ascended used here. Now based on their wording, they weren't aware that Cass had only had one solo, and a mini at that, outside of her ongoing. But for the moment, lets ignore all the context I addressed regarding Cass's failed mini and just say what Ascended was saying, unintentionally or not, “A successful ongoing followed by a failed series warrants a character not getting another chance for a decade+” and then look at where some things stand following Rebirth. Birds of Prey? One successful ongoing and two failures. Batwoman? One fairly successful ongoing followed by a failure. Deathstroke? 1 successful ongoing, one failed ongoing and two middle of the road ongoings. Kara Zor-El? One successful ongoing followed by a middle of the road selling series and then a book that flopped so hard so fast, Artgerm variants had to be brought in to save it. Cyborg? 2 failed ongoings. Jaime Reyes? 3 failed ongoings. And of course, the current Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, who has, wouldn't you know, a successful ongoing (mostly thanks to multiple factors inflating sales) followed by a failed book, which incidentally is also by far the lowest selling Batgirl ongoing ever.

Should these characters all automatically have to wait a decade, or in some cases given a complete lack of success, significantly longer, before they get another chance?

No. Obviously they all shouldn't. And these books in particular most certainly won't have to wait that long. Because these are properties DC WANTS to succeed.

As others pointed out, part of the reason Marvel looks so much better here is because they stand by their POC characters. They give them multiple chances and if they can't carry a solo, they're generally at least kept in a prominent role elsewhere. Something I find interesting to look at is the character appearances count kept on comicvine. With DC, very few characters have really high issue appearance counts. With Marvel though, a TON of their characters have incredibly high appearance counts. Why? Because, while obviously not the case 100% of the time, Marvel tends to keep its characters around. With DC, unless you're one of their chosen few, if you don't have a long-term writer backing you up, you're kind of screwed and relegated to cameo duty in group shots, if you're lucky. These chosen characters get chance after chance, low selling book after low selling book (Marvel is guilty of that part at times too), but other characters, especially POC characters, who aren't? Not a chance.

And that brings me to my last point here: The misconception that DC is good at business. All the time I hear as a defense that DC is a business, not some boogyman out to get our favorite characters and only promote their favorites. But DC is not a well run business at all. A well run business would have known that a reboot with zero planning and many alienating factors would only produce short term gains and long term losses. A well run business wouldn't declare pitches about a couple of their most popular characters to be “toxic”, despite multiple writers wanting to use them, while producing books like Men of War and O.M.A.C. A well run business, when deciding they want to push more PoC characters, would use popular characters they already have, not spend god knows how much money on commercials and ad space to try and make a bunch of new characters succeed (and so far they aren't succeeding). A well run business, when confronted about their lack of female creators, wouldn't have one of its top employees say that they couldn't find any and that fans should tell them who they should be hiring. A well run business wouldn't chase off some its top talent (Mark Waid, Peter David, etc.) by creating a hostile work environment. And a well run business wouldn't have protected a known sexual harasser for years upon years.

And its a shame too. Not only is Vic one of DC's biggest PoC, he's also one of the industry's biggest disabled heroes.

This is true about Cass. She's one of the only, and certainly the most prominent, mentally disabled superhero to be portrayed in a positive light. It's part of why her fanbase cares so damn much. Certainly many of her fans just love her for being an incredibly complex and likable character, but for a lot of us, she's also all we've got in terms of representation. The only character we can really see ourselves in fully. Even if, like Cyborg, the disability is based in comic book science, many of the things about it translate to real life.

[Ascended]

You've expressed this sentiment before. I specifically remember because I remember how the conversation went: You said this, I corrected you, you called me out on being overly aggressive but thanked me for the info, and I apologized. But, now in the context of this thread, I'll repeat myself.

Oh snap! We did have that conversation before! My apologies for forgetting it, as well as the detailed run-down on Cass' history (hopefully I'll remember this time).

And that brings me to my last point here: The misconception that DC is good at business.

Does anyone actually believe that?

I mean, sometimes I forget the fact and assume they're using a basic level of business acumen any sophomore business student should be able to equal. But then I think about it for a second and remember that no, they're not good at this at all.

Makes me wonder why I'm spending all this money on college.