Marvel can't seem to do right by black characters

[Celgress]

Perch makes some valid points.

[Hypestyle]

what are the highlights?

[Spiderfan001]

Marvel hasn't done right by POC characters(not just one minority) for a long time.Haven't watched the whole thing yet but this isn't a new thing.But the problem is they write POC characters as "representation" instead of just characters.Legacy POC characters don't do anything for me, because it's just riding coattails of Straight white Males.Luke cage/Black Panther, etc. need more attention and well written OC POC characters that aren't just representation.

EDIT:-He's wrong about Storm IMO, best black character in MU.She's not the best she's ever been but she's great in Krakoa

And Miles Morales is succesful even though his solo isn't very special but it's decent, although that is also because of the Spider-man mantle he uses.

Synch is another black character that's been given attention

These comments get it IMO:-

"Marvel doesn't care about black readers enough to make good black characters. They just use them like they use us black people on Twitter: black characters in Marvel today are just treated as their "good deed for the day". "See, we made Iron Man a black girl! See how supportive of black people we are?" "Look, Black Spider-Man! Black Lives Matter, right guys?!"

Stop pretending you care about us, Marvel. Because of you did, you'd just make well written characters who just happen to be black. Write black characters with actual nuance and depth, instead of using them as your racial political soapbox. Black comics book fans, he'll ALL comics book fans, deserve great stories. Treat black characters with actual respect."

"First rule of writing black characters in present day: black characters cannot simply have fun or thrilling adventures; everything involving a black character MUST center around race and racism."

I said this on another thread a while back but I prefer reading Straight white characters because they are usually allowed to be written as just characters, as a POC it hurts when they say we're being represented in comics when it's so baseline and just for twitter brownie points.

[Celgress]

Marvel hasn't done right by POC characters(not just one minority) for a long time.Haven't watched the whole thing yet but this isn't a new thing.But the problem is they write POC characters as "representation" instead of just characters.Legacy POC characters don't do anything for me, because it's just riding coattails of Straight white Males.Luke cage/Black Panther, etc. need more attention and well written OC POC characters that aren't just representation.

EDIT:-He's wrong about Storm IMO, best black character in MU.She's not the best she's ever been but she's great in Krakoa

And Miles Morales is succesful even though his solo isn't very special but it's decent, although that is also because of the Spider-man mantle he uses.

Synch is another black character that's been given attention

These comments get it IMO:-

"Marvel doesn't care about black readers enough to make good black characters. They just use them like they use us black people on Twitter: black characters in Marvel today are just treated as their "good deed for the day". "See, we made Iron Man a black girl! See how supportive of black people we are?" "Look, Black Spider-Man! Black Lives Matter, right guys?!"

Stop pretending you care about us, Marvel. Because of you did, you'd just make well written characters who just happen to be black. Write black characters with actual nuance and depth, instead of using them as your racial political soapbox. Black comics book fans, he'll ALL comics book fans, deserve great stories. Treat black characters with actual respect."

"First rule of writing black characters in present day: black characters cannot simply have fun or thrilling adventures; everything involving a black character MUST center around race and racism."

I said this on another thread a while back but I prefer reading Straight white characters because they are usually allowed to be written as just characters, as a POC it hurts when they say we're being represented in comics when it's so baseline and just for twitter brownie points.

Great post (although Perch never said Storm is a bad character rather he complained about how she has been treated, at least this is how I heard it), Spiderfan001.

I think, honestly, what it boils down to is that Marvel (and most companies) are afraid of the potential backlash involved with creating nuanced minority characters. They don't want the Twitter Mob coming after them so they play it safe not taking narrative chances, unlike with straight white characters. IMO, it is sad that we live in such a polarized climate of fear for both creatives and companies.

[mugiwara]

It's too bad Marvel didn't make more efforts to save Mosaic.
His solo series was quit good and the concept could make a nice MCU tv series.

[Golden Guardian of Good]

As a Black person they really DON'T... And they have good Black characters. Not to sound like those whining anti-diversity types but making Iron-Man, Captain America, Thor, etc, etc Black ain't cutting it. Where's my Blue Marvel, Monica Rambeau, Doctor Vooodoo, or Blade? And the STREETS %$*^ with Blade. Don't even get me started on how they treat Storm.

[ARkadelphia]

It's too bad Marvel didn't make more efforts to save Mosaic.
His solo series was quit good and the concept could make a nice MCU tv series.

I’ll support a new book with this guy all day long

[9th.]

It's too bad Marvel didn't make more efforts to save Mosaic.
His solo series was quit good and the concept could make a nice MCU tv series.

I miss that book, 8 issues is nowhere near enough for new characters.

[skyvolt2000]

A few things

I said this on another thread a while back but I prefer reading Straight white characters because they are usually allowed to be written as just characters, as a POC it hurts when they say we're being represented in comics when it's so baseline and just for twitter brownie points.

Because that is what they ARE.

See with white characters-the market allows variety with them.

Look at your store shelves. How many straight white male books are there? How many get greenlighted a month?
Tim Drake can have a book and fail. It won't stop Conner Kent or Bart Allen or others like them from getting a book.

Now lets look at our POC-

When Milestone was around for the first time 1993-1997. Not counting already out books-Steel and Green Lantern Mosaic. How many black lead books did we see? Black Lightning.

And when writers TRY to write POC as people-guess who throws a FIT? POC. Milestone got ripped by black folks and Wizard The Guide to Comics for Milestone characters being white characters in black face. Another black company tore into Milestone (while NONE of their books made it past issue 1).

Lionforge's Noble bought up Noble's Granny being killed by black thugs. Folks (including the previous writer) took SHOTS at the current writer Kevin Grevioux.

The reason why a lot of those writers keep saying (and yes I HATE hearing it too) "we're being represented in comics" mainly at the Big Two is because way too many times THEY are the only ones using those characters or using them significantly. In some case those writers view it as the ONLY shot they will get with that character.

"First rule of writing black characters in present day: black characters cannot simply have fun or thrilling adventures; everything involving a black character MUST center around race and racism."

Now part of this is due to how they are used in certain books, one shots and backups. Most of the time it's a racism or hood story or a lecture story and at times marks the ONLY time a black person shows up or takes the lead. Superman is ULTRA guilty of this.

Monica Rambeau 1993 one shot by McDuffie-racism story.
The first 25 issues of Steel-Some of yall would need a TON of aspirin after reading that. Yes I do own that entire run.
Batman Seduction of the Gun-MERCY.
AVOID Black Lightning volume 2. TRUST ME....

Write black characters with actual nuance and depth, instead of using them as your racial political soapbox.

Here is the thing what books NOT named Cap America Sam Wilson or Patriot Eli Bradley are doing that?

The majority of Marvel books are NOT doing that.

"Marvel doesn't care about black readers enough to make good black characters. They just use them like they use us black people on Twitter: black characters in Marvel today are just treated as their "good deed for the day". "See, we made Iron Man a black girl! See how supportive of black people we are?" "Look, Black Spider-Man! Black Lives Matter, right guys?!"

If one has an issue with Riri-who NEVER called her self Iron Man like Doom did-should they have an issue with Natasha Irons? What name is she going by?
If one has an issue with MILES-where is that rage with Miguel O'Hara? Who was doing FIRST.
If one has an issue with Falcon as Cap America-where is the rage for US Agent, Winter Solider, Danielle Cage and everyone else?

And to those folks I want to ask this....

Where were they when Mosaic, Blue Marvel, Blade, Prowler, Moon Girl, Nightwatch, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Falcon (under his own name) and Storm had books?

In fact where were they when black lead books at other companies like Creature Features, Relay, Reyn, Abbott, Bankshot, Noble, Static, Icon, Hardware, Bitter Root, Bone Parish, Concrete Park, Curse, The Deep (also a Netflix show), Kick Azz, Prodigy, Eve, Excellence, Farmhands, Fierce, The Fuse, Gasolina, Going to the Chapel, House of Slaughter, Dark Ages, Kiladelphia, Spawn, Savage Dragon, Livewire, The Mall, Mall, The Man who Effed Up Time, Number 13, Resonant, Rivers of London, S Factor, Sabre, Shadow Doctor (based on a true story), Shaft, Shadow Man, Source, Stronghold, Nita's Night Blog, Nobody's Child & Watson & Holmes.

MAYBE if these books (many are still active now) got support-Marvel MIGHT get the hint and change.

[Kingdom X]

If one has an issue with Riri-who NEVER called her self Iron Man like Doom did-should they have an issue with Natasha Irons? What name is she going by?
If one has an issue with MILES-where is that rage with Miguel O'Hara? Who was doing FIRST.
If one has an issue with Falcon as Cap America-where is the rage for US Agent, Winter Solider, Danielle Cage and everyone else?

Ok THIS. I was watching a youtube video about the new Beyond Spider-Man comics, and was reading all these comments talking bout,"I'm so glad Ben is taking up the mantle and not Miles [insert nonsense about forced diversity]." Like WHAT?!? What happened to all the people only wanting the original, Peter Parker, in the mantle? The arguments against legacy characters seem to conveniently only pop up when the legacy character doesn't look like the original.

[Spiderfan001]

Ok THIS. I was watching a youtube video about the new Beyond Spider-Man comics, and was reading all these comments talking bout,"I'm so glad Ben is taking up the mantle and not Miles [insert nonsense about forced diversity]." Like WHAT?!? What happened to all the people only wanting the original, Peter Parker, in the mantle? The arguments against legacy characters seem to conveniently only pop up when the legacy character doesn't look like the original.

What video lol? All the comments(on every platform from twitter to insta to youtube) have been overwhelmingly "Why isn't Miles doing this"(this and "stop w/ the replacements").I know because I counted ones in favor of Ben and ones tired of replacement arcs, etc. because we were talking about this on CBR and youtube is a bigger audience.This was w/in the first 2-3 hours of the announcement vid on youtube.

The answer is because he's already Spider-man, A conversation they had in an arc called Last Remains in ASM had Peter telling Miles he's glad that someone is there to step up as Spidey if/when he's gone to which he says "I've already stepped up".He's already Spider-man, "blessed by the original" in his own words.

I'm against Peter replacement arcs from now on anyway, they are horribly executed and always for the sake of the replacement arc themselves instead of being an organic part of the story as in Peter is "killed/in a coma/lost powers/etc." for the sake of being replaced unlike Wolvie, Cap, Tony, etc.

Not saying you're lying, there are some disgusting mf'ers(specially for Sam as Cap, some people were PISSED off and exposing themselves) out there but I haven't seen any for this.

Also Ben is kind of a corporate shill in this one and it's only lasting for 6 months, so Miles doing this wouldn't work and would be character assasination.We are getting him fighting Beyond(the bad guys) because they sued him for working under the Spider-man alias.So Miles is on the good side of this arc.

Also Miguel as Spider-man didn't replace Peter, he was from the far future.Even Miles was introduced in the fallout book from Peter's death and then in 616 right alongside Peter.Not saying hating him is justified(it's not), but it's a faulty comparison.Not to mention Miguel's execution in both uniqueness and quality was better(Just for the start w/ Bendis who Miles was stuck w/ for the longest time, Ahmed is doing great for the most part).And Miguel is also a POC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kynMBbmFV_U

One day old video w/ 22k views.They are all either excited for Beyond or want Peter back.No one is happy Miles is not in this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz8ZZmF5Kro

Marvel beyond trailer w/ 166 K views

They are all either excited for Beyond and Ben's return, want Peter back or "Miles is more deserving of this" w/ an unhealthy dose of NWH comments

I've read 4 comments in the scrolling I did saying Miles deserves this more w/ likes some even in double digits and 1 saying Ben deserves this spotlight more than Miles.No comments about diversity, most of them are excited or disappointed w/ another arc screwing Peter up.

[Username taken]

Ok THIS. I was watching a youtube video about the new Beyond Spider-Man comics, and was reading all these comments talking bout,"I'm so glad Ben is taking up the mantle and not Miles [insert nonsense about forced diversity]." Like WHAT?!? What happened to all the people only wanting the original, Peter Parker, in the mantle? The arguments against legacy characters seem to conveniently only pop up when the legacy character doesn't look like the original.

It mostly comes up when the character is a POC or female or both. Even when it’s clearly temporary (like Sam Wilson as Captain America or Jane Foster as Thor).

Bucky was Captain America and was largely accepted because he was white…never mind that was previously a brain washed assassin that had murdered a lot of people. Falcon became Captain America and the usual crowd totally railed against it. Or worse still look at Riri Williams who was Iron Heart in the books and not Iron Man, folks are still making videos about Riri to this day, conveniently ignoring the fact that Victor Von Doom was parading himself as Iron Man. It was so bad with Riri that there was even a petition against her D+ series a while back.

Parts of the comic book audience only accept replacements when they’re white, straight and male. It’s pretty awful but it is what it is.

[Habis]

Marvel hasn't done right by POC characters(not just one minority) for a long time.Haven't watched the whole thing yet but this isn't a new thing.But the problem is they write POC characters as "representation" instead of just characters.Legacy POC characters don't do anything for me, because it's just riding coattails of Straight white Males.Luke cage/Black Panther, etc. need more attention and well written OC POC characters that aren't just representation.

EDIT:-He's wrong about Storm IMO, best black character in MU.She's not the best she's ever been but she's great in Krakoa

And Miles Morales is succesful even though his solo isn't very special but it's decent, although that is also because of the Spider-man mantle he uses.

Synch is another black character that's been given attention

These comments get it IMO:-

"Marvel doesn't care about black readers enough to make good black characters. They just use them like they use us black people on Twitter: black characters in Marvel today are just treated as their "good deed for the day". "See, we made Iron Man a black girl! See how supportive of black people we are?" "Look, Black Spider-Man! Black Lives Matter, right guys?!"

Stop pretending you care about us, Marvel. Because of you did, you'd just make well written characters who just happen to be black. Write black characters with actual nuance and depth, instead of using them as your racial political soapbox. Black comics book fans, he'll ALL comics book fans, deserve great stories. Treat black characters with actual respect."

"First rule of writing black characters in present day: black characters cannot simply have fun or thrilling adventures; everything involving a black character MUST center around race and racism."

I said this on another thread a while back but I prefer reading Straight white characters because they are usually allowed to be written as just characters, as a POC it hurts when they say we're being represented in comics when it's so baseline and just for twitter brownie points.

This. I totally agree.

And not just Marvel. This is a very generalized issue...

Just look at Game of Thones... They wipe a whole cool culture of sailor-archers, the Summer Islands, they erase a whole host of black characters (the prince Xalabar Xho, the sailors who brought Sam to Oldtown...etc.), and in exchange, they make two slaves (Grey Worm and Misandei) into black people... because two slaves make up for a whole culture, don't they?.

If they were to make changes to the original story, and they wanted to make black people more visible... why not using Xalabar Xho? He was there, in the middle of everything, give him more screen time... make him take part in the war on whatever side.

Or the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy... John Boyega said it better than I could...

Ex-Stormtrooper Finn has SUCH a great potential... he could have been a tragic, epic hero, but he was wasted...

[Spiderfan001]

If he exists in the MCU, then he can't brought in via the Multiverse anymore is my point.

Marvel might not even make the Miles Morales movie.

Just like Venom and others, Sony might decide to do it themselves.

Why not, aside from only light teasing at best even if we even saw baby Miles be could still be brought in from the multiverse

There are rumors of that IIRC

This. I totally agree.

And not just Marvel. This is a very generalized issue...

Just look at Game of Thones... They wipe a whole cool culture of sailor-archers, the Summer Islands, they erase a whole host of black characters (the prince Xalabar Xho, the sailors who brought Sam to Oldtown...etc.), and in exchange, they make two slaves (Grey Worm and Misandei) into black people... because two slaves make up for a whole culture, don't they?.

If they were to make changes to the original story, and they wanted to make black people more visible... why not using Xalabar Xho? He was there, in the middle of everything, give him more screen time... make him take part in the war on whatever side.

Or the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy... John Boyega said it better than I could...

Ex-Stormtrooper Finn has SUCH a great potential... he could have been a tragic, epic hero, but he was wasted...

Absolutely, they misuse so many good POC/black characters then give us a couple token ones as if it balances out in any way

[dkrook]

This. I totally agree.

And not just Marvel. This is a very generalized issue...

Just look at Game of Thones... They wipe a whole cool culture of sailor-archers, the Summer Islands, they erase a whole host of black characters (the prince Xalabar Xho, the sailors who brought Sam to Oldtown...etc.), and in exchange, they make two slaves (Grey Worm and Misandei) into black people... because two slaves make up for a whole culture, don't they?.

If they were to make changes to the original story, and they wanted to make black people more visible... why not using Xalabar Xho? He was there, in the middle of everything, give him more screen time... make him take part in the war on whatever side.

Or the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy... John Boyega said it better than I could...

Ex-Stormtrooper Finn has SUCH a great potential... he could have been a tragic, epic hero, but he was wasted...

This is just amazing to hear about GOT, my wife watched and tried to get me hooked. I saw the slave siblings and with prejudice gave this whole thing a thumbs down. To hear that the books have more diversity than what Hollywood wanted to include its just insane to see these people continue to do the same shenanigans. BTW, Star Wars is dead to me...forever over what was done to Finn. I was one of the sheep that believed we were getting a possible young black jedi story.