My Marvel All-Black Team

[Anthony Shaw]

We still have all-white casts in various forms of fiction, and the hard core viewers never bats an eye. Let's not even mention the outrage when a POC is added to a traditionally all-white cast, or when race-bending is involved. Yet, here in a fantasy thread about an all-black cast, where folks are just throwing ideals about (woefully under-utilized characters), others want to raise their eyebrows, and think segregation.

So much funny stuff.

[Midnight_v]

To be fair... the Mighty Avengers is a fantastically written comic.
It is however wonky to be be like all *insert race here* team. There's this conversation
between Luke Cage and Blue Marvel and its just... its just so deep I don't know if you've seen it
they're talking about why they've never worked together... (and jessica's there in the other room wanting
to hear whats being said) to me... there was a lot of universal appeal. There's no reason that conversation
couldn't have taken place in a team book with Cap, and Ironman (time travel circumstances notwithstanding)
so the eyebrow raising is about why do you have to have a POC book to get moments like that instead of
just awesome writing like that throughout the MU integrating those characters into existing popular books?
Maybe this way is better, I can't say.
That being said... Its me that's propelling that portion of the conversation along, and I've spoken my peace,
I'm done with it. I even gave my team of black heroes. So you know Derail end.

Team composition is important to me Powers~attitude~role~relationship.
I love that avengers teams are usually "Scientist~Soilder~God" I love the epithets that hickman (and really Warren Ellis)
uses on his characters I'd like to see that for some of these guys. I had to double take and look back
to see why T'Challa was "King of the Dead", while Reed Richards "Universal Builder" was obvious. I'd like to see that
for some of these heroes we've assembled.

[Imraith Nimphais]

Storm...Leader
Spectrum
Dr. Voodoo
Misty Knight
Eden Fesi
Black Panther (Shuri)...Co-Leader
Synch
Nightshade
Blue Marvel
Onome

[VJ.]

Yeah I edited it to "Can be found offensive", but then offense is in the eye of the beholder.
The fact that you missed that it was the ethnic avengers... I'm really shocked V.J, after reading your
posts in the Captain Marvel thread I figured you'd be quick to catch that,

As I said, I caught it once it was pointed out here (long ago), but when I first saw the roster my first thought wasn't about the colour of the heroes skin, just as when I think about Captain Marvel, I don't think "Woman" or when I think about Ms. Marvel I don't think "Muslim" - in fact, if you read all my posts in that thread, it was only with the last time I posted there that I realised how well represented female leads are in my pull list. You know, when I actually had to type them out, so I don't know what I typed there that caused you to think I care about character's race\gender\creed except when it feels out of context.

but yeah its not
just a collection of "Cool Characters" its essentially a "black team".
Also, much like all the female/lgbt/threads saying "That's not offensive" is better stated "Thats not offensive: To ME". See I got a post deleted yesterday causing me to go look over the rules here again...
I find it offensive cause it seems wrong to have the unifying factor of a team be race, but hey I went and researched and it is a POPULAR BOOK! The first issue was number 1 when it debuted, and its been right around 8 of the marvel sales for a while now, so... maybe that's a thing now people want. I can't wrap my head around it cause its so much segregation to me but, I'm not worried about it because I see them doing better in the OTHER avengers titles. Funny thing I had no idea that people had this thing against Greg Land till I came to this forum, but he's doing the art here and people keep buying, *shrug*. Color me confused.

Do you find the large number of all white teams equally offensive? How about the all female X-Men or the ill-fated all female Fearless Defenders? That last title was the only "This has to be women only", and even that had a good in-story reason (Valkyrie searching for shield-maidens to resurrect the Valkyrior). The others just fell together naturally to me - neither felt forced to me.

On lands art, ironically, I found out about him by googling him after buying Mighty Avengers #1 - I only started buying floppy comics in 2012 (marvel NOW), and that was the first book I had knowingly brought with him on & I had just started researching creative teams as well as characters. It was also the last so far (I'm actually going to buy Spider-woman #1 to see if he's bothered not to trace or to see if the story is compelling enough to ignore the art).

I always thought the new run of Mighty Avengers was just giving some under used heroes some well deserved exposure.

^^This - Quoted for agreement.

[Sutekh]

I feel like segregation is the opposite of diversity.

Tell it to the X-Men, who've been segregating themselves apart from humans for decades, in the name of Xavier's dream of, I don't even know, apparently making them a shadowy group of scary boogeymen that humanity will hate and fear? If so, great job, Charles. You knocked it out of the park.

[Ying Ko]

aren't Mighty Avengers basically the all-black team?

well, almost anyway.

read Mighty Avengers, Multiethnic Avengers team without harping on the race card.

yeah, this.

[Anthony Shaw]

Tell it to the X-Men, who've been segregating themselves apart from humans for decades, in the name of Xavier's dream of, I don't even know, apparently making them a shadowy group of scary boogeymen that humanity will hate and fear? If so, great job, Charles. You knocked it out of the park.

The writers really destroyed the concept in favor of soap-opera drama.

I actually miss the Bob Harris era in terms of keeping true to the mantra of being unsung heroes sworn to protect a world that hates & fears them while having ethnically diverse teams.

Now, they shoot themselves in the foot, give humans a reason to fear them while blaming Captain America for it.

[Anthony Shaw]

aren't Mighty Avengers basically the all-black team?

well, almost anyway.




yeah, this.

No....it's a nice mixture of black, brown, and green (with occasional ivory when Iron Fist guest stars). Once Spidey joins, they will add ivory full time.

[Midnight_v]

Do you find the large number of all white teams equally offensive?

No at all. Here's the anecdote.
Where I'm from, and growing up when I did, being black and into comics set me on a path I was exploring pretty much alone.
When I saw superman as a kid, the "RACE" of a guy from krypton never even occurred to me. Reading the X-men, wolverine was cool, and the avengers were a bit "stuffy" but I really identified with what Captain America was all about. I really liked him in that he wasn't really super in the way of his team, he wasn't a god like thor, and yet here he is leading all these incredible Supermen. He was the bravest character I knew at the time, he really was all about doing the right thing and believing in the USA. He could actually get hurt so its not the same things as say superman. The point is: I identified with him as a character.
Race never mattered. You get a dose of that racism from other kids and family, and TV but when it comes to comics mostly from people who lack the ability see traits in themselves in character beyond the way that character looks.
So I'm African-american and my favorite Characters were Captain America for his goodness and devotion, Wolverine for his Toughness, and Captain Mar-vell (and honestly when I first started reading him thinking he and Shazam were somehow the same guy)..
The more I became aware of race the more I realized it was something that was being used to define the expectations of me more than any other factor, relating to comics, however I had already learned heroes that exemplified traits I either admired or possessed.
Nightthrasher, if you're familiar with him was my one slip, by then I was inundated with all this racist crap. So i was like, OMG! They PUT ME IN A COMIC! Skateboard! Small-fro! It was stupid of me, because that character was very much NOT me, because the scope of what the new warriors were about then. That momentary "PING" and enough harassment received at the hands of my own culture just for being interested in things different, really let you know that VALUES are what matter, way more than skin color or representation.
In short no that doesn't' bother me, when I pick up a comic with a white team on it, I'm of a mind to think that no one sat down and said "All white avengers: GO!" it was the status quo, cause thats what stan lee was making when he started yet and still the avengers have been really very good about putting various races on the team regardless.

How about the all female X-Men

I seriously never picked it up, because i stopped reading x-men some years back when I said "If they bring magneto back ....again... I'm done" yep. Though to be fair, when you remove the people from the X-team I grew up with, I wasn't really interested in those characters. I didn't give it a thought that it was all girl, I thought there was a guy on there as well. Gambit or Northstar whoever.

or the ill-fated all female Fearless Defenders? That last title was the only "This has to be women only", and even that had a good in-story reason (Valkyrie searching for shield-maidens to resurrect the Valkyrior). The others just fell together naturally to me - neither felt forced to me.

The defenders... ugh. I wasn't reading it anyway so I didn't even notice when that book was all females. There's literally almost never a defenders book I cared about and it'd have to get rave reviews for me go there. Strange,Hulk,Namor, Surfer, didn't do much for me together so it has a huge hurdle in my mind to cross, like how people seem to feel about alpha flight.
Those comics aren't inherently offensive either, it only decries shennanigans when it looksl ike totally unrealated people brought under the same banner not to save the world but basically because they're all 1 ethnicity. That said, world needs more Moses Magnum: a hero with a future and a past.

[Anthony Shaw]

I really loved this comic, although I don't know how I'd react to this I were black; but here's 2 scans from Milligan's X-Force, later continued as X-Static.

Attachment 9016

Attachment 9016

Sadly for the Anarchist, life expectancy for everyone in this comic was awful. (Not just for the 2nd black man on the team)

That's hilarious! I forgot all about that.

[Anthony Shaw]

I always thought the new run of Mighty Avengers was just giving some under used heroes some well deserved exposure.

You broke it down in a nutshell.

[Midnight_v]

Tell it to the X-Men, who've been segregating themselves apart from humans for decades, in the name of Xavier's dream of, I don't even know, apparently making them a shadowy group of scary boogeymen that humanity will hate and fear? If so, great job, Charles. You knocked it out of the park.

Yeah... that plans gone somewhat awry.
Caps Uncanny Avengers is the better way to go, mutants and non-mutants co-existing and working together saving people exploring and setting aside differences to deal with important thing like stopping red skull.

[Captain Wessex]

The defenders... ugh. I wasn't reading it anyway so I didn't even notice when that book was all females. There's literally almost never a defenders book I cared about and it'd have to get rave reviews for me go there.

then you totally should read it because it was given rave reviews.

[Midnight_v]

then you totally should read it because it was given rave reviews.

Heard it was cancelled, due to low sales... Still that's neither here nor there.
I'll leave these people to their black supers.

[Tofali]

I'm African and this team would bore me to death lol! Their lifestyle is too American for me to connect or maybe i have just categorized all AA comic characters as either heroes or sidekicks to heroes. I'm morre into villains, powers, stories than comics about heroes. Well Stormis the exception thou lol!. The only American black characters that I have felt had the weight to be called "characters" and that I have immediately loved at first sight were Nick Fury and DC's Amanda Waller. I wouldn't want my Storm associated with this team. I like Blank Panther and love Shuri and even Blade because their world is totally different but the rest of the team!!!.... just no.
Although I wouldn't mind a story of a vampire Storm being hunted by Blade and her ex and SIL coming to her rescue.