Marvel can't seem to do right by black characters

[Username taken]

Exactly.

I've read almost all Marvel and DC comics that featured black superhero in the last decade and outside of Sam as Captain America, I cannot think of one where race and racism was the predominant feature.

Exactly.

Apart from Captain America, I don’t even remember any Marvel or DC comics explicitly dealing with racism.

I mean, let’s look at a few

Moon Girl- no
Miles Morales- no
Black Panther- no
Cyborg- no
Iron Heart- no
Static- no
Firestorm- no
Batman (Jace)- no

So where exactly are these complaints coming from?? Sure there are a few exceptions like Icon but those are the exceptions and clearly not the rule.

The people that say that minority led titles only focus on their race are the same crowd that label books about Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr as “Critical Race Theory” and want them out of schools. They just create labels for these things to get them trashed.

It’s pathetic.

[Spiderfan001]

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.

All this, worse is the mob doesn't even buy the comics.They pirate them, so it's for nothing.

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.

All this, Monica is in ASM so there's that Ig.

But Blue Marvel being done wrong

[Digifiend]

All this, Monica is in ASM so there's that Ig.

But Blue Marvel being done wrong

And Voodoo is in Strange Academy. Blade was in Avengers until recently.

[Spiderfan001]

And Voodoo is in Strange Academy. Blade was in Avengers until recently.

Yeah, Blue Marvel is def. getting the worst of it currently.

Even cage gets some apperances and will be featured heavily in Devil's Reign and has a mini as well

[Triniking1234]

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.

Even when they get creators the same race as the character, they still manage to f*ck it up.

[9th.]

Decent video, he had some valid points although I don't necessarily think everything they're doing now is godawful. I just think more can/should be done. With that said I think Marvels doing an ok job with their newer black characters. Marvel did absolutely drop the ball with Cage, Sam, Monica, and Blue Marvel though. Cage had a bunch of hype that just kinda....dissolved and it's like they stopped caring about Sam after he stopped being Cap (I thought he should've kept the mantle). I'm super behind on the X-titles so I can't speak on Storms situation but I wouldn't be surprised. I also think it's a crime Blade hasn't a solo title since that awful 2000s one, he at least deserves as many chances as Moon Knight, Iron Fist and Hawkeye get but he mostly gets stuck on team titles for whatever reason.

[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.

[CosmiComic]

Exactly.

Apart from Captain America, I don’t even remember any Marvel or DC comics explicitly dealing with racism.

I mean, let’s look at a few

Moon Girl- no
Miles Morales- no
Black Panther- no
Cyborg- no
Iron Heart- no
Static- no
Firestorm- no
Batman (Jace)- no

So where exactly are these complaints coming from?? Sure there are a few exceptions like Icon but those are the exceptions and clearly not the rule.

The people that say that minority led titles only focus on their race are the same crowd that label books about Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr as “Critical Race Theory” and want them out of schools. They just create labels for these things to get them trashed.

It’s pathetic.

It is pathetic. Racism as a topic (not as a force) has always been a minor plot thread in Marvel & DC comics, like sexism or any other prejudice. People whining about some 'woke Twitter mob' make no sense to me. Especially if someone is blaming the poor way Marvel has handled its Black heroes on 'wokeism' or whatever. Not the obvious decades of societal anti-Black racism

[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.

[skyvolt2000]

Exactly.

Apart from Captain America, I don’t even remember any Marvel or DC comics explicitly dealing with racism.

I mean, let’s look at a few

Moon Girl- no
Miles Morales- no
Black Panther- no
Cyborg- no
Iron Heart- no
Static- no
Firestorm- no
Batman (Jace)- no

So where exactly are these complaints coming from??

The racism claims are from CHERRY PICKING certain scenes..

Examples-
Miles in the last Bendis run said "he did NOT want to be known as the black Spider-Man" That is one of two time race has come up with Miles. The other time was someone in the FIRST Bendis run saying "see Spider-man is black!"

Cyborg-his last run in the issue that introduce Exxy-Cyborg scanned the cops chasing him. One cop had various charges against him for police brutality.

Static-has dealt with racism and race 3 times. One in the cartoon, one in his first run dealing with a black bomber blowing up Jewish churches and in Static in Africa-Static feeling COMFRTABLE around Africans. In the current run the RED flag is Static getting his powers at a BLM rally versus a gang fight. That irks a lot of folks. More on the side of why are you taking out "black" folks fighting in gang fight for BLM? FYI-that gang fight was not only black folks as MANY forget how diverse Milestone was.

Firestorm-Jason never really did it unless you want to count him as Firestorm telling off a cop who bullied him and Nick years ago.

War Machine's funeral in Sam Wilson-the scene with all the black heroes. FITS galore were throw about that despite it being explained why Tony was NOT there.

Shilo Norman's book-he made a comment about wearing a mask because he's a black man in America. Yes VERY CRINGE.

The majority of the books do NOT go all racism and race stories.

Those folks just don't like those books existing. However what do they expect Marvel or DC to do? Look at the list of books with black leads alone I posted. There are about 20 more I did NOT list.

Marvel is suppose to NOT do black lead (POC lead) books?

[Huntsman Spider]

A few things



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.




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....




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.




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.

The racism claims are from CHERRY PICKING certain scenes..

Examples-
Miles in the last Bendis run said "he did NOT want to be known as the black Spider-Man" That is one of two time race has come up with Miles. The other time was someone in the FIRST Bendis run saying "see Spider-man is black!"

Cyborg-his last run in the issue that introduce Exxy-Cyborg scanned the cops chasing him. One cop had various charges against him for police brutality.

Static-has dealt with racism and race 3 times. One in the cartoon, one in his first run dealing with a black bomber blowing up Jewish churches and in Static in Africa-Static feeling COMFRTABLE around Africans. In the current run the RED flag is Static getting his powers at a BLM rally versus a gang fight. That irks a lot of folks. More on the side of why are you taking out "black" folks fighting in gang fight for BLM? FYI-that gang fight was not only black folks as MANY forget how diverse Milestone was.

Firestorm-Jason never really did it unless you want to count him as Firestorm telling off a cop who bullied him and Nick years ago.

War Machine's funeral in Sam Wilson-the scene with all the black heroes. FITS galore were throw about that despite it being explained why Tony was NOT there.

Shilo Norman's book-he made a comment about wearing a mask because he's a black man in America. Yes VERY CRINGE.

The majority of the books do NOT go all racism and race stories.

Those folks just don't like those books existing. However what do they expect Marvel or DC to do? Look at the list of books with black leads alone I posted. There are about 20 more I did NOT list.

Marvel is suppose to NOT do black lead (POC lead) books?

Points. Spawn is currently standing at over 300 issues, after all. As for your last question, some people would answer that, if they had the courage of their convictions, with an honest and straightforward, "Yes."

[Tofali]

Either this is advocating for black characters ignoring their race and only concentrating in stories the readership is comfortable with or the scarcity of compelling stories for black characters has ppl grasping at straws to explain why this person feels like that.

[Spiderfan001]

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....

Cool cool

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.

Didn't the recent Black Panther's finale have only Black heroes?

Also Luke Cage's new mini's issue 1 solicit

"AN ALL-TOO-RELEVANT STORY ROCKS THE MARVEL U!

When a Black man is murdered by a police officer in New York City, Luke Cage is called to action. But what does a good man do when protecting the streets puts him at odds with his own people? A cadre of crooked cops named the Regulators are out to terrorize ordinary citizens, and with Daredevil determined to bring them down no matter the cost and Mayor Fisk equally determined to use them to tighten his grip on the city, it's up to Cage to keep the city from completely going up in flames. "

You telling me this isn't a politically charged story?

It's not about every story being about racism, because most of them aren't.I'm saying they don't take risk w/ POC/black characters at the risk of them looking bad to the twitter mob.It limits the characters in behavior and stories.

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?

I don't remember Natasha Irons, sorry.

For Miles it's because he was promoted as a Black Spider-man and what a big achievement that was, we have a Spider-man that looks like us.Miguel was never promoted that way.Also the issue is also that he's now in current era 616 and using the name, not 1610.Miguel has been and still in the future for the most part.Spider-man has always been "anyone can wear the mask", when the make a POC Spider-man and say that's our Spider-man it goes against that.Being POC like Miguel isn't the problem, being POC as a selling point is.(There's a post I'll link to ASAP where it's explained better)

Falcon being Cap made sense, it's the opposite of Spider-man and whose behind the mask very much makes a diff.No issues atleast for me, Sam being Cap is amazing representation.

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?

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

I and any other readers aren't obligated to buy a book because it stars POC characters, unless the book is good and I want to read it I won't buy it.I loved Ultimates which starred many POC characters in main roles and bought all of it.Usually pick up Panther but the last run was horrible so I didn't.

Having a POC character doesn't mean we need to support it, write a good book w/ POC characters.That's kind of the mindset Marvel and some fans have that I don't get, just because you have diversity doesn't mean the book is good and that we should buy it.If you write good books people will and do buy them , regardless of the color of the characters in it.

[Ichijinijisanji]

Also Luke Cage's new mini's issue 1 solicit

"AN ALL-TOO-RELEVANT STORY ROCKS THE MARVEL U!

Luke cage has always been a political hero from the ground up, dealing with issues of systemic racism and the carceral prison system from his origin. Thematically, his story his perfectly fine because he is ultimately a character like captain america with politics heavily emphasized within the story

[Spiderfan001]

Luke cage has always been a political hero from the ground up, dealing with issues of systemic racism and the carceral prison system from his origin. Thematically, his story his perfectly fine because he is ultimately a character like captain america with politics heavily emphasized within the story

I never said it was a problem

People said that aside from Captain America no black character deals w/ the race aspect of character which I showed is untrue.

W/ Luke Cage, the Black Panther recent finale and pages like this

https://pics.alphacoders.com/pictures/view/383173

"Hey, Nadia, Why did you tell me Spider-man sucks.His mom's from Puerto Rico " .Because being from a particular region means you're a specific type of person....
This is the same Nadia who hates Spider-man( and Peter) for no reason and was a real B to him in their Avengers run.(I wonder why I don't support her comics lol.)

All this to say while I agree a most of comics lead by Black characters aren't dealing w/ racism there are certainly some who do so.Not saying it's a good or bad thing, that's almost always dependent on the execution.

Also Priya Aggarwal is from country and hence my representation and it's not one I'd be proud of....

And remember Trinary from X-men red, another cliche filled half baked Indian representation.

The last 2 to say that just because you have diverse characters doesn't mean they(or their comics) are good.I note Indian characters because they are my nationality and scarce in comics, but I'd rather read other comics than ones starring them.Doesn't mean I don't want/support POC characters being included more in comics, just that that diversity is not an excuse for bad quality.