Why "The Avengers" is not the same popular ties with FF, Spidey and X-Mens

[Kurt Busiek]

No the original picture was not the solicit but i see how it can read that way. I was saying if you look at the make up of their upcoming solicits the lack of diversity overall is glaring but the actual avengers covers for december are these.

One of those is the final page of AVENGERS FOREVER 11, by Pacheco and Merino, which I wrote in the 90s.

And out of the solicitis there are only 5 characters of color with a book. Black panther book, Echo Phoenix Song Mini, Blade Oneshot, Shang Chi, Miles Spiderman, and the most diverse group team book is The Marvels and New Mutants and that's out of over 60 books not including star wars. So 5 books with a diverse lead out of almost 60. And 2 with an diverse cast.

edit: lets say 2 because Strange Academy is pretty diverse team. I don't know what world out of who window that is. That also does not account for their unlimited comics. I think that comes to about 8% of their books or rounding up 9%.

Yep. Part of that ongoing struggle I described earlier. Much of the audience wants the classic characters and the classic characters are mostly white men. And enough of the audience wants more characters who aren't straight white men that there's support for launching them, but then the "crowded stage/gimme the classics" aspect kicks in.

Characters of color don't get the same support, so when they get books at all their books get canceled sooner. And around we go again.

It's an ongoing struggle, and it creates exactly the feedback loop you (or someone) mentioned earlier: If the books look like they're all for white men, fewer non-white/non-male readers are likely to pick them up. Not none of them, but fewer. So when the characters of color show up, fewer non-white readers notice, and the books often sell worse, and get canceled, and then the line-up looks like it's for white guys again and the loop continues.

And new white characters generally don't get much traction either, because of that same crowded stage, but that doesn't stand out as much because there's so many white faces on that stage already.

It's something no one at the big publishers wants to surrender to, but it's also not easy to break out of that loop. If they do, it likely comes through team books, where non-white characters can get the chance to become popular because they're in a book with characters who can attract readers who wouldn't buy that character of color in a solo book, and movies and TV, where there's plenty of audience for BLACK PANTHER and CAPTAIN MARVEL (because the movie world doesn't have that crowded-stage problem, though they do have others), and if that leads to TV shows for the Falcon or Spectrum, that may help build an audience that'd support them in solo books.

But I'm glad THE MARVELS stands out as a diverse book. We're able to pull characters from all over the Marvel Universe, so there's no one set of "classics" readers repeatedly demand to see.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

And how much of this can be attributed to the taste of the shop owners rather than the actual fanbase itself as they have so much control over what is ordered and what survives.

I think most shop owners, if they were selling out of a book with characters of color, would order more. They like to make money.

On the flip side, if they don't order enough of that book for it to get much of a foothold, that's a problem too.

There are speed bumps (pr potential speed bumps) at every single stage.

The audience for digital comics isn't the same audience as the store audience (there's overlap, but only partly), and those audiences may simply be less devoted to classic characters and series than the shopgoers. Or something else -- I'm not privy to the data publishers get on this sort of thing.

kdb

[Tien Long]

Tony is also swimming in all kind of privilege -- he's white, he's male, he's been rich since the day he was born, he's straight, he's good-looking, he's even got literal "founders' privileges" on this team -- so he's going to miss things that other people are far more affected by than he is. And he's defensive, because he helped for the team and he funds it, and doesn't like the idea that he's wrong about anything.

There are people who like to say that Iron Man is expressing my views here, without noticing that I wrote everyone in the issue, including the characters who disagree with him.

Iron Man's a creature of privilege. Wanda's a mutant, so she bristles at the idea that mutants leaving is something to be happy about. Duane is a Triune member and a black man, so he's got a different viewpoint. Thor's from a hugely-white culture and he's thousands of years old, so he doesn't have much patience with the nuances of modern life. Cap is more attuned to things than either Tony or Thor, because he grew up poor on the Lower East Side and he believes in the American Dream for everyone -- but he's still a guy who grew up in the 20s and 30s and missed most of the rest of the 20th century.

Everybody gets to react in ways that reflect who they are. That's what makes it interesting, at least to me.

And even on this page, when Duane asks Iron Man if the Avengers have been unconsciously selecting for white members, Tony can't say no, he's smart enough to know that they might have been.

[Though in reality, it's the publisher and creators who were doing the selecting, and many of them were doing it in the 1960s, building foundations for the series that never reached retirement age. In that first panel, five of those seven characters were created when MY THREE SONS and THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW were on the air, and the other two are newcomers. But in telling the stories, the characters don't know that, so it's on them for the purposes of fiction.]

kdb

Thank you for responding to my post! Your response gives much insight into the dynamics of the team in that issue. I like how everyone has a point of view that is very unique to them which ultimately causes the drama. I'll just add that I appreciate this drama because though passionate, the characters aren't coming off as being disrespectful.

Also, thank you for pointing out other aspects. It must be remembered that these are characters of their time. Furthermore, there is difficulty in establishing new, more diverse characters when readers want the established. Still, I think that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, maybe the race could go faster and more obstacles need to be removed, but there were seeds planted in the past that could really come to fruition now with the Avengers. Firebird, Silverclaw, Living Lightning, Rage, 3-D Man, Falcon, Monica Rambeau, these were characters who appeared before and established a foothold. They can come back and grow more popular now.

Finally, wanted to give a shout out to the Marvels series. Really digging it.

And how much of this can be attributed to the taste of the shop owners rather than the actual fanbase itself as they have so much control over what is ordered and what survives. There seems to be a bigger trend of diversity in digital comics than what is displayed in shops. Or is it taken into account where these shops are as well because it is also a problem of access as well when it comes to it but it seems all that pertinent information is being neglected. I have been in shops where people were looking at me like i don't belong.

That sucks bro. Definitely didn't deserve that.

[Kurt Busiek]

Still, I think that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, maybe the race could go faster and more obstacles need to be removed, but there were seeds planted in the past that could really come to fruition now with the Avengers. Firebird, Silverclaw, Living Lightning, Rage, 3-D Man, Falcon, Monica Rambeau, these were characters who appeared before and established a foothold. They can come back and grow more popular now.

Yep. The Falcon was seen as an intrusion the first time he was on the team, and as a welcome return during the Geoff Johns era, and now after his being in movies and on TV, he could be a star character on the team.

Finally, wanted to give a shout out to the Marvels series. Really digging it.

Glad you're enjoying it.

kdb

[marhawkman]

Yeah, some of the Avengers were resistant to Triathlon because of the Triune connection, and he felt there was some racial animus there. Plus, he had no idea the Triune leadership were corrupt; to him they were an organization that had turned his life around.

Honestly? I equated Triune with the Cult of Trigon before I even got far enough in the story to find out they actually WERE bad.

You can give people super-powers? How.... exactly? O_O!!!!!!

The fact that (in-universe) some people didn't trust Triune simply made sense to me. Not sure if it was supposed to throw red flags like that, but it did for me. Seemingly not everyone though, since I remember talking to people who were surprised by the reveal.

[LAWtoyoto 432]

Yep. The Falcon was seen as an intrusion the first time he was on the team, and as a welcome return during the Geoff Johns era, and now after his being in movies and on TV, he could be a star character on the team.

kdb

Yes, it's true. He once leads the Avengers back during the ANAL Marvel era.