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

[jwatson]

That's the issue I mentioned in my last post, with Tony's statement. Such a fantastic read. IMHO, it tops anything currently being published, not only in terms of story quality, but also in relevance. Things were discussed with sutlety and with both sides of problems (racial issues, diversity, religious belifs and tolerance, for exemple) being presented and not force-fed or hitting you in the head with obvious points, as it seems to be nowadays. I think another great thing ab out it, that you left out in your comment (a great analysis, by the way), was that Tony then decided to step down as leader in favor of Jan as to not let his percieved bias in not wanting Triathlon to join tarnish the team's already troubled public image. I also found it great that, in the end, Tony was shown to be both, right and wrong (The Triune was up to no good, and Triathlon proved himself as a good and loyal Avenger). And, as a reader, I still think Tony was right. The roster is very maleable and small, it should feature whomever brings more to the story. The All-Star line-up is also boring.

Peace

The absolute irony of a white writer writing there are not more minorities or women because its about who can get the job done and whats right for the story they are writing. Well ok. Lol.

[Tien Long]

Thanks for the shout out Nomad1.

The absolute irony of a white writer writing there are not more minorities or women because its about who can get the job done and whats right for the story they are writing. Well ok. Lol.

To be fair, Tony didn't come out of that unscathed. Here he has issues with Duane Freeman. Tony had issues with the Triune Understanding, of which Duane was a part of. Duane was very blunt in how all this might look:



And Triathlon is understandable angry about Tony's attitude and tells him off:


To be fair again, Iron Man and Triathlon discuss the matter afterwards in later issues. Both realize that acting either way wasn't productive.

Kurt Busiek wrote this issue. If there are posters who've any issues with the story, he's on these boards.

[jwatson]

Thanks for the shout out Nomad1.



To be fair, Tony didn't come out of that unscathed. Here he has issues with Duane Freeman. Tony had issues with the Triune Understanding, of which Duane was a part of. Duane was very blunt in how all this might look:



And Triathlon is understandable angry about Tony's attitude and tells him off:


To be fair again, Iron Man and Triathlon discuss the matter afterwards in later issues. Both realize that acting either way wasn't productive.

Kurt Busiek wrote this issue. If there are posters who've any issues with the story, he's on these boards.

To me that reads like pivoting the conversation like. It doesnt matter if your black because its the "best" people for the job so lets make it about religion instead.

An example i thought about was after watching chappelle latest comedy special. Like for instance why was it immediate cancel to say caitlin jenner is not beautiful when my personal opinion caitlin is not physically beautiful to me but there are thousands of trans out there that are imo like levern cox for example or the girl from supergirl show, dreamer. Or think about things like saying the n word the excuse is that people if black people use it why cant others but on the flip some in the gay community use the f word but there is never a conversation about "well they use it so why cant we" its just an immediate that is wrong or if you dont call someone their pronoun correctly you are a bigot. There is always some form of pointing left to advert from what the black community is trying to say. Not an exact an example but an example of the biases we face as a people that never seems to get the respect it deserves to be address.

Maybe kurt was trying to make a point religion is more important than race or people will accept someone of a different religion before race because by the story itself what makes him being black of a certain religion add more to the story than just being a black hero other than a way to address prejudice without actually addressing it.

[marhawkman]

That's the issue I mentioned in my last post, with Tony's statement. Such a fantastic read. IMHO, it tops anything currently being published, not only in terms of story quality, but also in relevance. Things were discussed with sutlety and with both sides of problems (racial issues, diversity, religious belifs and tolerance, for exemple) being presented and not force-fed or hitting you in the head with obvious points, as it seems to be nowadays. I think another great thing ab out it, that you left out in your comment (a great analysis, by the way), was that Tony then decided to step down as leader in favor of Jan as to not let his percieved bias in not wanting Triathlon to join tarnish the team's already troubled public image. I also found it great that, in the end, Tony was shown to be both, right and wrong (The Triune was up to no good, and Triathlon proved himself as a good and loyal Avenger). And, as a reader, I still think Tony was right. The roster is very maleable and small, it should feature whomever brings more to the story. The All-Star line-up is also boring.
As for the difference between the way Avengers show their female characters, I disagree. Both evolved with time. Jean and Polaris were basically as much wall-flowers in X-Men as as Jan and Wanda in Avengers. The powers of the fremale members were all juiced up with time. Storm was the only female X-Men for quite a while before Phoenix effectively joined (and I don't think she was ever featured in the corner box). Avenger made women as physically impressivbe as men before the X-Men gave us their god-like women. The Black Widow was always a good fighter, Mantis kicked Captain America and Thor's butts, and Ms Marvel was the empowered woman before that was a thing. As for women being the central focus of stories, Claremont was both, a writer ahead of his time and a supporter of strong females, so of course, in 17 years, a lot of the stories he presented gained legendary status, and they had females in key positions, however, over the years, a lot of Avengers stories also featured women in key spots. Jan an Monica as leaders, The Celestial Madonna, Yesterday Quest, Darker than Scarlet, The Gatherers Saga, and many others were all centered around the female Avengers. As I said, I think both evolved well with time. The perceived difference is just because of the X-Men's greater popularity for some time.

Peace

I think part of the problem was the magic reset button. New characters would leave when the creative team shifted and maybe never come back. :/

[Nomads1]

I think part of the problem was the magic reset button. New characters would leave when the creative team shifted and maybe never come back. :/

True. The Avengers have suffered more from that then the X-Men (or the FF).

Peace

[Tien Long]

To me that reads like pivoting the conversation like. It doesnt matter if your black because its the "best" people for the job so lets make it about religion instead.

An example i thought about was after watching chappelle latest comedy special. Like for instance why was it immediate cancel to say caitlin jenner is not beautiful when my personal opinion caitlin is not physically beautiful to me but there are thousands of trans out there that are imo like levern cox for example or the girl from supergirl show, dreamer. Or think about things like saying the n word the excuse is that people if black people use it why cant others but on the flip some in the gay community use the f word but there is never a conversation about "well they use it so why cant we" its just an immediate that is wrong or if you dont call someone their pronoun correctly you are a bigot. There is always some form of pointing left to advert from what the black community is trying to say. Not an exact an example but an example of the biases we face as a people that never seems to get the respect it deserves to be address.

Maybe kurt was trying to make a point religion is more important than race or people will accept someone of a different religion before race because by the story itself what makes him being black of a certain religion add more to the story than just being a black hero other than a way to address prejudice without actually addressing it.

Understandable. Was the situation pivoting from one about race to one about belief? I feel there was an intersectionality here when it came to Triathlon. Throughout the issue, the Avengers were trying to find a member who would appease the calls for more Black members, so race was there. It was also compounded with the fact that Triathlon came from the Triune Understanding, who were the enemies of the Avengers at that time. When I read Triathlon stating, "I'm going to prove you wrong - wrong about me, wrong about the Triunes...", when I read that "wrong about me," there's a bit of coding for Black. Race would certainly come up in later issues involving Triathlon and the rest of the Avengers.

As an aside, it sucks that we don't see more of Triathlon in the Avengers. He's since become the new 3-D Man and is a part of the Agents of Atlas. At the time when he appeared in the Avengers, fans showed dislike because of the attitude. But reading it now, there's legitimacy in what he said.

I stand by what I said before though. The Avengers have made strives with diversity. Still they can do more. Not being constantly hounded and hated like the X-Men didn't give them that sense of being outcasts. Also, the female representation with the X-Men was much stronger. Adding even more to the argument, I feel the X-Men had better artists and writers. Plus, the style always skewed more towards the young. There were the New Mutants and subsequently X-Force. Aesthetics play a role as well. The look of the X-Men was very techno and cyber punk. Maybe Iron Man had that aesthetic, but Thor couldn't compete with that. Captain America definitely couldn't. (Maybe that's why I always appreciated Cap. He may have been old fashioned, but not out of date).

Because of these reasons, I think the Avengers were not as popular as the X-Men.

[Kurt Busiek]

That is just an example, see the latest avengers cover from solicits to. I mean i don't think it's that hard to understand. If you have a product and it only seems like it's for certain people, only certain people will buy it.

Is this a cover? It was originally a commission done by John Byrne, and I wouldn't have thought John would have let Marvel publish it.

But this is a piece featuring (I think) all the Avengers (and many of their villains) up until around 1978, which is probably what whoever commissioned it asked for.

So that was before most of the Avengers of color existed -- the Panther is there, as are Mantis and Red Wolf, but that period was not exactly a good one for characters of color in general -- hey, the (ugh) Man-Ape is there, too!

The eternal problem of AVENGERS is that Marvel wants the team to be diverse, because they want to reflect the way the world looks today, and there are a lot of readers who want the book to be diverse -- but there are also a lot of readers (sometimes the same readers) who want to see the most popular Avengers, and the vast majority of "classic" Avengers are white because they were created prior to 1970, when positive characters of color were rare.

And since they don't age, they don't get off the stage to make room for new characters, and so the new characters don't get much chance at the spotlight, and tend to get shoved aside in favor of the classics. So a new writer comes along and creates or brings in other characters of color and they don't get much of the spotlight and get shoved aside by the next guy to bring back a classic line-up, and...well, that pattern repeats a lot.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Understandable. Was the situation pivoting from one about race to one about belief? I feel there was an intersectionality here when it came to Triathlon. Throughout the issue, the Avengers were trying to find a member who would appease the calls for more Black members, so race was there. It was also compounded with the fact that Triathlon came from the Triune Understanding, who were the enemies of the Avengers at that time. When I read Triathlon stating, "I'm going to prove you wrong - wrong about me, wrong about the Triunes...", when I read that "wrong about me," there's a bit of coding for Black. Race would certainly come up in later issues involving Triathlon and the rest of the Avengers.

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.

I wanted to bring him in in a way that explored the tension between the fact that the Avengers have a classically white roster and the idea that maybe they should be better reflecting the audience. Iron Man, from within the story, is right when he says the Avengers are too small a group for equal-opportunity laws to apply, and wrong when he assumes that if the Triunes are bad, Triathlon must be too. I thought that created a dramatic situation that wouldn't be solved easily, which makes for drama and drama is interesting. A lot of the readers simply didn't want Iron Man to be wrong about anything, so it just made them dislike Triathlon, and, well, live and learn.

But for all that Iron Man is right about the reach of equal-opportunity laws, he's a character in the story, and Marvel's editors, writers, artists and audience are all outside the story, and making the book better reflect the world outside it is not a matter of law, but commerce and promotion and making good, effective stories that will appeal to the audience out there.

X-MEN had the advantage that the original members weren't all that popular, and popularity came with the introduction of a diverse-by-1975-standards team with one black character, a varied menu of white folks from around the world, and don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-them characters like Sunfire and Thunderbird. That set a new foundation that was easier to build on, and Chris and other did.

kdb

[Marvell2100]

Hey Kurt, I remember you had a line from Black Panther when Iron Man suggested he return to the team.

He said something about Tony wanting T'Challa on the team for diversity's sake and it being more of a PR move than something of merit.

[Kurt Busiek]

Tony makes it very clear that Avengers membership is about getting the job done. It's open to anyone who can get that job done.

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

[Kurt Busiek]

Hey Kurt, I remember you had a line from Black Panther when Iron Man suggested he return to the team.

He said something about Tony wanting T'Challa on the team for diversity's sake and it being more of a PR move than something of merit.

Something like that. T'Challa is happy to help out the Avengers when it comes to fighting the good fight. But he doesn't want to do it to make them look less biased. If they're biased, they should deal with that, not paper it over.

The Falcon said something similar (though less polite) when he joined. He didn't want to be the token black Avenger, and only agreed because Cap asked him as a favor.

The Panther was also tied up in a zillion Priest-written matters at the time, but it was more in character for him to say "I'm an Avenger, but I'm not your PR opportunity."

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Being a family is an excuse? The team was created during a time when in most states it was literally against the law to marry someone of a different race.

If the FF had been created in 1975 rather than 1961, Ben would almost certainly have been black.

If they were created ten years ago, he wouldn't, because "make the black guy a monster" would be seen as problematic. But I doubt they'd all be white.

And if they were created today, they wouldn't be all straight, either. Because in any era, the creators would have been reacting to the times.

kdb

[jwatson]

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.

avengersdecembersolicit2.jpg
avengersdecembersolicit.jpg

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%.

[Nomads1]

And since they don't age, they don't get off the stage to make room for new characters, and so the new characters don't get much chance at the spotlight, and tend to get shoved aside in favor of the classics. So a new writer comes along and creates or brings in other characters of color and they don't get much of the spotlight and get shoved aside by the next guy to bring back a classic line-up, and...well, that pattern repeats a lot.

kdb

DC seems to be trying to solve that with the new Future State characters. Im not reading much new material nowadays (don't care much for the stories, the storytelling nor the art), but from what I've been able to gather, they are not having much success.

Peace

[jwatson]

Is this a cover? It was originally a commission done by John Byrne, and I wouldn't have thought John would have let Marvel publish it.

But this is a piece featuring (I think) all the Avengers (and many of their villains) up until around 1978, which is probably what whoever commissioned it asked for.

So that was before most of the Avengers of color existed -- the Panther is there, as are Mantis and Red Wolf, but that period was not exactly a good one for characters of color in general -- hey, the (ugh) Man-Ape is there, too!

The eternal problem of AVENGERS is that Marvel wants the team to be diverse, because they want to reflect the way the world looks today, and there are a lot of readers who want the book to be diverse -- but there are also a lot of readers (sometimes the same readers) who want to see the most popular Avengers, and the vast majority of "classic" Avengers are white because they were created prior to 1970, when positive characters of color were rare.

And since they don't age, they don't get off the stage to make room for new characters, and so the new characters don't get much chance at the spotlight, and tend to get shoved aside in favor of the classics. So a new writer comes along and creates or brings in other characters of color and they don't get much of the spotlight and get shoved aside by the next guy to bring back a classic line-up, and...well, that pattern repeats a lot.

kdb

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.