Sina Grace talks about Marvel and Iceman - and he's NOT happy

[mogwen]

Seemingly is the operative word, and it is being used based on Grace's admittedly biased perspective on the topic. That doesn't mean Grace is wrong, it simply doesn't mean that Grace is right, either. As human beings, we all like to secretly think we know what others are thinking, what is in their hearts, and what their motives are. Sometimes we are right. We aren't always right, and we all bring our biases into the interpretation we do. Unfortunately, the progressive community tends to assign bigotry as a motivate to those with whom they differ. More often than not, they are wrong to do so. People differ about ideology and methodology all the time without bigotry actually being involved. Stampeding towards bigotry as a motive, especially when it is not in fact a motive, is a useful tool to dehumanize those with whom you disagree, and marginalize them.

My guess would be that the primary motivation of the leading publisher in the print comics industry is fiscal. They need to steward their properties and their customer pool well. Part of that is remembering that comics aren't just for progressives, comics are for everyone. No publisher can hope to remain on top and in business if progressives are the only customer pool upon which they rely. As they leading publisher, what hurts Marvel and their bottom line hurts the print comics industry. Marvel needs to do well to help themselves directly, and to perpetuate the industry. Part of editorials job is to protect the properties to the best of their abilities and judgements, and part of doing that is to shepherd the characters and rein in what they feel might be excess on the part of writers. Writers, I might add, who only write certain characters for a season. Further, writers who only right for a specific publisher for a season or seasons. Grace may feel ownership of Iceman, and the characters he introduced or developed. That is good to a point, but those are not Grace's characters. They are Marvel's characters.

Yes, and they threaten to rape him out of what? Humanism! Oh please!

[PsychoEFrost]

Seemingly is the operative word, and it is being used based on Grace's admittedly biased perspective on the topic. That doesn't mean Grace is wrong, it simply doesn't mean that Grace is right, either. As human beings, we all like to secretly think we know what others are thinking, what is in their hearts, and what their motives are. Sometimes we are right. We aren't always right, and we all bring our biases into the interpretation we do. Unfortunately, the progressive community tends to assign bigotry as a motivate to those with whom they differ. More often than not, they are wrong to do so. People differ about ideology and methodology all the time without bigotry actually being involved. Stampeding towards bigotry as a motive, especially when it is not in fact a motive, is a useful tool to dehumanize those with whom you disagree, and marginalize them.

My guess would be that the primary motivation of the leading publisher in the print comics industry is fiscal. They need to steward their properties and their customer pool well. Part of that is remembering that comics aren't just for progressives, comics are for everyone. No publisher can hope to remain on top and in business if progressives are the only customer pool upon which they rely. As they leading publisher, what hurts Marvel and their bottom line hurts the print comics industry. Marvel needs to do well to help themselves directly, and to perpetuate the industry. Part of editorials job is to protect the properties to the best of their abilities and judgements, and part of doing that is to shepherd the characters and rein in what they feel might be excess on the part of writers. Writers, I might add, who only write certain characters for a season. Further, writers who only right for a specific publisher for a season or seasons. Grace may feel ownership of Iceman, and the characters he introduced or developed. That is good to a point, but those are not Grace's characters. They are Marvel's characters.

Yeah, I'm gonna take a hard pass on this take.

Grace isn't to blame, and neither are the dreaded "SJWs". Iceman's sales were excellent for a run without a premier character like Wolverine. Grace not being permitted to run publicity on his run under the premise of Marvel being worried about it being "too gay" are the exact opposite problem you're saying it is. Grace received many death and rape threats from some "very fine people" as our president would say. The fault lies with the ones making the threats, and Marvel for not taking the issue seriously.

[CoCoBandz]

Yeah, I'm gonna take a hard pass on this take.

Grace isn't to blame, and neither are the dreaded "SJWs". Iceman's sales were excellent for a run without a premier character like Wolverine. Grace not being permitted to run publicity on his run under the premise of Marvel being worried about it being "too gay" are the exact opposite problem you're saying it is. Grace received many death and rape threats from some "very fine people" as our president would say. The fault lies with the ones making the threats, and Marvel for not taking the issue seriously.

Death threats are awful enough already, but rape threats? That's disgusting.

People are strange.

[mogwen]

Death threats are awful enough already, but rape threats? That's disgusting.

People are strange.

And someone replied to me on the article that comicsgaters are saving the industry.
https://www.cbr.com/iceman-sina-grac...89573504475744
And this is where we are, people who harrass, make death and rape threats saving the industry from women, PoC and gays. Utter nonsense!
Thank you US, you've fucked it up!

[Cmbmool]

From a company standpoint I could see Marvel take on this as Bendis did place them in a corner, but because he was so beloved within the company they couldn’t say no to him. So they allowed the Iceman is Gay plot to rub its course and see where they end up with when it’s all over. Yet here we are now...

[Cmbmool]

It's happening right now with the Invisible Woman book and it's pissing me off. Marvel has done literally nothing to promote the book at all.

With the Invisible Woman it’s kind of both long overdue and too little too late given how much time it took for this to even happen at all. So in a way Marvel has themselves to blame on that.

[BroHomo]

From a company standpoint I could see Marvel take on this as Bendis did place them in a corner, but because he was so beloved within the company they couldn’t say no to him. So they allowed the Iceman is Gay plot to rub its course and see where they end up with when it’s all over. Yet here we are now...

no doubt Better off then if the 'Gay dastardly plot" hadn't been launched

[jwatson]

While overall I really enjoyed Grace's run on Iceman I don't think he is as woke as he think he is. In particular there was one scene that just stood out to me and I could just be sensitive but it was Bobby's reaction to when bishop was sitting on the couch with his legs opened spread and it left a bad taste because I felt he was alluding to the trope of a black dude with a big you know what. I don't know It made me feel like bishop was used just for that *inside joke"

[Omega Alpha]

From a company standpoint I could see Marvel take on this as Bendis did place them in a corner, but because he was so beloved within the company they couldn’t say no to him. So they allowed the Iceman is Gay plot to rub its course and see where they end up with when it’s all over. Yet here we are now...

Why Iceman being gay "puts him in a corner"?

[Mutant X]

I think the case is that social activism is the new "green company".
Enterprises, Hollywood stars and singers are embracing causes not because they believe, but because they will look good doing it.

In the other hand, Grace writing was terrible and he stereotyped gay people.

[magneticmushroom]

I enjoyed Iceman (and Winter's End, albeit, to a lesser degree) and dug what Grace was doing, but none of this shocks me.

I wouldn't put it past Marvel to have some truly homophobic douchenozzles working against gay representation, but Marvel looks to **** over just about all of their talent eventually. This was just the most expedient tactic to get rid of Sina Grace. Shame on them either way.

[MYCMTSC]

Keep in mind that Marvel let themselves get burned by, with apologies to Tropic Thunder, forgetting that one should never go full SJW. For a while there, they allowed pretty much every major character to darned near simultaneously have diversity replacements. Steve with Sam and a progressive bent to the stories. Tony with Riri, and she came out of nowhere but was suddenly 15 years old but the best. Thor with Jane, probably the best done of the three. If they'd done it mostly one at a time with some overlap, it would likely have been better received. That's not what they did, the blowback was predictable, and it wasn't nearly as much about bigotry or opposition to diversity as some would have you believe. The real issue is that it was clumsily done, and it was too much at once. Even your most progressive comics fan doesn't usually want that much change at once. Especially when that change is transparently an attempt to check off some diversity boxes permanently based on a status quo change that only the most naive would believe to be anything but temporary.

On top of that, you have poorly written outing of Iceman that stirred up controversy from multiple camps. That is compounded with the problem that many gay characters, once confirmed to be so, suddenly seem to have few or no stories except those that revolve around being gay. It sounds to me like Marvel editorial may have been trying to avoid that particular pitfall. I would imagine that both for sales, better stories, and better writing, they'd like Iceman to be more like a real person. By this, I mean that being gay is just one facet of who he is as a character.

I didn't really care for Grace's Iceman series, but I disagree with the sentiment here.

Coming out, especially after so many years, is a big life adjustment and since we read about books about our favorite heroes going *pew pew* at bad guys AND their personal lives, his sexuality necessitated being a major plot point. In fact, it's not entirely dissimilar from Peter Parker and his various heterosexual love triangles or Cyclops and Emma/Jean/[insert psychic here]. People don't label these mainstream books as "heterosexual books" because they just are.

[Crimz]

With the Invisible Woman it’s kind of both long overdue and too little too late given how much time it took for this to even happen at all. So in a way Marvel has themselves to blame on that.

I agree with it being long overdue, but it's never too late for almost any book imo.
But I definitely 100% blame Marvel.

[cranger]

The story is the X-Office signing off on solo book #44 with Bobby being out as the hook, Grace wanting more than the average X solo book that runs for a year because of its place in the culture, and then obviously not being happy when its length is determined by the immediate money like all other books, when marketing treats it like another solo X-Book that runs for a year, or when he's left on his own with social media like other creators but with a larger scale of harassment than most. The additional challenges stacked on top of the early freelance experience with the big dawg publisher made it so it and the scope of the project were not suited to him or what he was trying to do. That is the reality of the situation. Now choose your side!

Yeah, I know Grace's feelings are going to resonate with some for various reasons and people can even be sympathetic, but this is how it was before he took the gig, and it will be this way after. I have seen plenty of adequate, and even talented, writers used and tossed out by Marvel. They don't have time to make stars, especially with an endless line of writers trying to push their way in.

People want Marvel to keep publishing 120 books a month, they can't be promoted. They are designed to be canceled. Marvel is already looking for pitches for the next title before each new series hits the shelves.

[Nyssane]

I wonder if the issues Grace faced would have been different had it been a Northstar solo series rather than Iceman. Let's face it, Iceman has a lot of baggage when it comes to his sexuality. Whereas Northstar has been gay from the get-go, so I don't think Marvel would've had an issue with it being "too gay," and the fans probably wouldn't have harassed Grace to the extent that they did either (of course I'm sure there would still have been homophobic trolls).