Minorities In Comics and Related Media

[J. D. Guy]

I feel like this is a chicken and the egg argument. Virtually any character would remain obscure if someone didn't believe in said character enough to put them in enough material to make them more known. Synch is no different, yet oddly "that's the brakes" with him? Not buying it. His powerset is unique enough that someone should have used him long before now, post-resurrection at least. Like I said before, Hal's #1 cheerleader understand this, this is why he puts him over John no matter how little it makes sense or immaterial of John's popularity. But like Hal, all any "obscure" character needs is a cheerleader. Right now Synch has none, and frankly there is no cheerleader for any black male mutant in the X-office which is the problem.

Sorry if I gave the impression that I was dissing Synch or something similar. I honestly wasn't. I may not have grew up on the character (didn't get into comics until a point past that era, and what I've read in back-issues of that era can be sporadic), but I have garnered my own share of obscure heroes I love and want to see more of (which is why I loved seeing Kasper Cole, for example; there are many more where he comes from that I haven't see in a while but I feel really should, like almost every non-Kamala NuHuman).

I mostly said what I did as a peace-keeping thing. The heroes (and villains and etc.) we know to have potential and could use the limelight isn't always gonna be the one to get it (regardless of how frustrating it can get when they don't). Basically, I'm just saying to try not to get mad at Storm being the mutant face for BP as opposed to Synch, as I do feel it makes sense for Storm to be "mutant liaison to Wakanda", and I don't think there's a conspiracy not to use Synch specifically (could be, to be fair I suppose, though Storm wouldn't factor regardless even in the worst case, I'd say). From what I know of the character, I do believe he'd be worthy being in BP's world, albeit not in exclusion of Storm. And who knows? Maybe he'll be brought out of limbo for such a role.

Coates has only really used people from BP's history (vibraxas, asha, qdj, okoye, kasper). The only non-mythos person he is using is Eden.

Unfortunately, he has done nothing with those characters characterization wise. Eden has been in the book for over 2 years now and is a glorified uber for instance.

And Coates 100% botched The Crew.


but anyway, it is a crime Miles and T'challa haven't had any interactions. After T'challa saved Miles ass in CWII, it woudl have lead to a perfect tie in between the two. T'challa could have provided some newer tech to Miles instead of Parker hand me downs for instance. You would think T'challa would be a "role model" for young black super heroes... similar to Cage looking up to T'challa in Hudlin's run.

This kinda goes away from my point, and into your disdain for Coates Black Panther stuff. I just wanted to respond to say that I completely disagree with your take on The Crew. I absolutely loved it and feel it's among Marvel's tragically underrated gems. Coates and Harvey really brought it to the fore with that book (which ended too soon), and Eden's focus issue was its own cool and my favorite part of the book tied with Misty and Ororo's togetherness. That's pretty much it.

Well, that, and it would be cool to have Miles interact with Black Panther more, yeah.

I'm pretty sure Synch is far more obscure that Storm is.

Question is can anybody use him??? I can['t] use someone if that office won't let me.

Presuming that's the case. Granted here are stories of such, like how the West Cost Avenger's writer apparently wanted to use Julian Keller/Hellion but was denied doing so and so went with Quentin instead. Still, just as likely, Synch's obscurity may have meant the character may have never came up in the story pitchers' minds, period. (Generally, this isn't something that's talked about candidly.)

There was some backlash to the film, as Tiana spent a majority of the film as a frog, which some felt took away from the importance of having a Black princess. This film will hopefully learn from that mistake and keep Sadé human for a majority of the film.

https://www.themarysue.com/disney-sa...ican-princess/

An aside, but wanted to say that I don't think the quote was a mistake so much as it was simply adhering to the conventions of the fairy tale story being told. It would have become a rather different movie altogether otherwise.

[J. D. Guy]

To be honest, I'm more surprised that Peter hasn't been more of a role model to Miles himself. The only time they seem to interact comic book wise is through the Bendis Spider Men series. You would assume now that he's in the 616 that Peter would play a heavier role to make sure Miles doesn't make the same mistakes that Peter did.

I agree with this and definitely don't think it's some kind of wrong for Miles to interact with Peter and vise versa. Like you say, if anything, this should happen more often than it does. And none of the various Peter Parker writers ever really gives Miles the time of day in any of the story lines they write for Peter. (Maybe Peter's just a sucky mentor? Especially considering he straight up forgot poor Alpha. )

I've noticed that Miles writers tend to be better at giving even a passing amount of reference to Peter compared to Peter writers who go about it like Miles doesn't exist and isn't just as much part of Peter's lives as his revolving door of villains.

I thought Noble was pretty decent. It features a powerful black hero and a diverse cast. I'm a little surprised more people don't talk about it.

While ones mileage may vary towards where one might lean, I feel the entire Catalyst Prime side of Lion Forge books is solid. It really is unfortunate that more aren't talking about the line.

Nobel's first Season was great, though I did wish the couple's son had more of concrete role in the story. It did go on a longer-than-the-rest-of-the-line's hiatus, but it's finally coming out of it today. My current favorite is Superb, and I highly recommend it. I've also heard positive favor for Summit.

[Agent Z]

Legendary Writer Nalo Hopkinson Talks About Entering the Sandman Universe


https://io9.gizmodo.com/legendary-wr...-th-1827931275

[Raijin]

Legendary Writer Nalo Hopkinson Talks About Entering the Sandman Universe


https://io9.gizmodo.com/legendary-wr...-th-1827931275

This looks/sounds beautiful. Too bad fans won't support it. They'll wait until it gets cancelled and then cry about how there aren't any minority-led books. I'm sick of being right, tbh.

[MindofShadow]

This kinda goes away from my point, and into your disdain for Coates Black Panther stuff. I just wanted to respond to say that I completely disagree with your take on The Crew. I absolutely loved it and feel it's among Marvel's tragically underrated gems. Coates and Harvey really brought it to the fore with that book (which ended too soon), and Eden's focus issue was its own cool and my favorite part of the book tied with Misty and Ororo's togetherness. That's pretty much it.

Eh, not really. I didn't mention how I hated it. He really hasn't done anything with any of the supporting characters he brought into the book that you raved about. Eden has literally been in the book for double digit issues and I don't think we learned one new thing about him. These supporting peeps just show up and then disappear again without being anything more than powers.

The Kasper Cole issues of World of Wakanda was pretty dope though (Coates didn't write that)

And yeah, we don't agree with the crew at all but we are so far apart on that there is not even a point of talking about it lol. Although Eden's action scene was cool (so was lukes) at the expense of... well let's just stop there lol

[Vic Vega]

I'm not surprised nobody's used Synch.

Peeps online didn't care about Synch until he died.

Prior to that it was a case of "Why can't the brother have his OWN powers?" within the Blerd fanbase and onto the next topic. There are a whole horde of X-People that got added in the 90's to only end up in limbo.

Synch is one of those clean cut, upright teen Black Male characters that Marvel actually has a bunch of (Synch, Ageis, Night Thrasher, Bandit, Patriot 1, Patriot 2, Prodigy and Goliath) but none caught on.

One might make the "why can't we have both" argument with these characters and team books but 90% of these characters might as well be the same dude.
Prodigy is Bi and Bandit is kind of an anti hero but other than that, it is what it is.

And the books where these characters can get the most play have been commercial failures since the 90's ( Young Avengers, Young XMen and New Warriors) so that's no help either.

Young Avengers is all set to fail again even as we speak (IMO).

[Vic Vega]

(double post)

[Surf]

"Despite Diversity Push, Women and Minorities Aren’t Getting Better Movie Roles (Study)"

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/w...dy-1202890199/

I feel Variety, as an outlet a trade and legacy media, might could have some vested interests in keeping some things the same. 1- I've always disagreed that lumping everyone not a white man into some default catch-all is disingenuous. I personally cape for black folks. Representation is one issue, under-representation is yet another and far too often we can find ourselves having issue, along with the two previous, with civility. 2018 is barley half over and all these instances of people trying to drag black folks over mowing grass and sitting in a Starbucks and cooking at a park happened this year. This is all in the hopes that the wrong police officer shows up and kills someone. When you finally hear from black folks about some issue more often than not it's something that has gone on far, far too long. It takes time for attitudes to change and to keep the change, reminders need to be made consistently.

2- Their sampling size of 2007-2017 is flawed because the same movements Variety makes reference too in the first two words of the article didn't even happen until the last 2 years. So no shit Variety, you piece of shit. Also this old trade publication doesn't take into account that ALL PEOPLE are consuming entertainment in different ways now. TV is arguably better than it has every been. 2018 has been a boon as far as black led entertainment. I know because I've watched nearly all of it. If you really want to find a starter I feel the Straight Out of Compton movie was a real watershed, Girls Trip followed and maybe in terms of movies in general NOT named Black Panther things have kind of slowed but again TV and internet media has really grown. Issa Rae is starting the third season of Insecure, ATLANTA is one of the best shows on television and got a third season coming. Charlamagne got an HBO deal. Bodega Boys went from Complex to the most watched show on VICE and now they are going to Showtime (which sucks because I guess I have to add on Showtime just for them fools). Black Lightning season 2. There will be a Black Panther 2 which was only the biggest thing in the world for almost a month. That's just the hype that interests me off the top and there is more coming from Ava Duvernay and Rick Famuyiwa. Jay-Z is doing documentaries, Steph Curry is getting into entertainment just like Lebron has done. Fuck Variety, excuse my language and excuse me aja_chris none of this is against you bruh, right on for that link.

So sorry not sorry for that one trans actor who worked. Sucks for him, bet if he was black he wouldn't have had that one gig. Black people open doors for everybody. I saw a commercial for Crazy Rich Asians during the CBS news this morning. I thought that looks like it might be kind of entertaining, not the Rich part because I can see that shit getting annoying real fast but a story with two Asian principles is not something I would rule out if me and the wife got free for an evening. Provided no cape movies is playing, or something with The Predator... just sayin. Major outlets play to a base JUST like the President does and those are the one who see the change last and are the most ill-equipped to deal with it. Long way to go but best believe, there isn't another time in American history where I can adept most any message from a black point of view alone and have it not just be Hip-hop and R&B videos and sitcoms.

[Nate Grey]

Sorry if I gave the impression that I was dissing Synch or something similar. I honestly wasn't. I may not have grew up on the character (didn't get into comics until a point past that era, and what I've read in back-issues of that era can be sporadic), but I have garnered my own share of obscure heroes I love and want to see more of (which is why I loved seeing Kasper Cole, for example; there are many more where he comes from that I haven't see in a while but I feel really should, like almost every non-Kamala NuHuman).

I mostly said what I did as a peace-keeping thing. The heroes (and villains and etc.) we know to have potential and could use the limelight isn't always gonna be the one to get it (regardless of how frustrating it can get when they don't). Basically, I'm just saying to try not to get mad at Storm being the mutant face for BP as opposed to Synch, as I do feel it makes sense for Storm to be "mutant liaison to Wakanda", and I don't think there's a conspiracy not to use Synch specifically (could be, to be fair I suppose, though Storm wouldn't factor regardless even in the worst case, I'd say). From what I know of the character, I do believe he'd be worthy being in BP's world, albeit not in exclusion of Storm. And who knows? Maybe he'll be brought out of limbo for such a role.

1) I'm not mad at Storm, I'm mad at the symptom
2) The symptom, again, is no cheerleader for black male characters especially black male MUTANT characters, which is what the entirety of my post was about yet you didn't address ONCE in your late reply. All ANY character news is a flesh and blood WRITER to campaign for them. That's it. Why there's a lack of said writers at Marvel is puzzling and, the symptom. I can't put it any clearer than that, and frankly other posters have said the same thing but better than I have.

[aja_christopher]

I feel Variety, as an outlet a trade and legacy media, might could have some vested interests in keeping some things the same.

To be fair to Variety, this is something that many other outlets are also reporting since it's based on a study done at USC (Annenberg).

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/...-progress-2017
https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/ho...on-1201989496/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/...ade/868377002/

UCLA has a similar department but I don't know what their numbers say -- but if there's solid data in both, they shouldn't be much different.

https://bunchecenter.ucla.edu/2018/0...y-report-2018/

Mainly just posted it to keep things in perspective -- I don't expect things to change unless we make them change.

I always thought Strider Hiryu was on to something when he said: "Who can see the future? Those who create it."

[aja_christopher]

"“BLACK PANTHER’ SUCCESS AMPLIFIES FINDINGS OF UCLA’S HOLLYWOOD DIVERSITY REPORT”"

Still, overall progress toward parity remains slow for women and people of color.

With its glowing reviews and box office success, “Black Panther” is a revelatory moment for the entertainment industry.

The Marvel Studios film, with a script by African-American writers Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler, directed by Coogler and featuring a gender-balanced cast of predominantly black actors, earned more than $260 million in the U.S. alone by five days after its release — and by then had earned more than $260 million more overseas.

Those results underscore what UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report has been telling us about the appetites of film audiences in the U.S. and overseas, and suggests that the industry at large should invest in hiring that is reflective of the U.S. population, which is nearly 40 percent minority and at least 50 percent female. The fifth annual report was published today.

“We’re committed to examining diversity and gender disparity in Hollywood films and television shows and relating these findings to the bottom line of box office and ratings,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of Division of Social Sciences in the UCLA College and co-lead author of the report. “In part, we hope this serves as tool for artists, producers, writers, directors and actors who are seeking funding and support for future projects that appropriately and creatively reflect the gender and ethnic diversity of the United States….”



https://illuminamagazine.wordpress.c...ersity-report/
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ho...port-2018-ucla

[Holt]

I'm not surprised nobody's used Synch.

Peeps online didn't care about Synch until he died.

Prior to that it was a case of "Why can't the brother have his OWN powers?" within the Blerd fanbase and onto the next topic. There are a whole horde of X-People that got added in the 90's to only end up in limbo.

Synch is one of those clean cut, upright teen Black Male characters that Marvel actually has a bunch of (Synch, Ageis, Night Thrasher, Bandit, Patriot 1, Patriot 2, Prodigy and Goliath) but none caught on.

One might make the "why can't we have both" argument with these characters and team books but 90% of these characters might as well be the same dude.
Prodigy is Bi and Bandit is kind of an anti hero but other than that, it is what it is.

And the books where these characters can get the most play have been commercial failures since the 90's ( Young Avengers, Young XMen and New Warriors) so that's no help either.

Young Avengers is all set to fail again even as we speak (IMO).

It's a symptom of a problem Marvel, and comics in general, have when it comes to not being able to sustain teen characters. The only members of Generation X who see any use anymore are Jubilee and to a lesser extent, M. And Jubilee was already a popular, existing character before Gen X was even a thing. Same goes for a lot of the New Warriors and certainly the New X-Men. Even in the modern era, for every hit like Kamala Khan or Miles Morales, you have 5 or 6 Power Mans, Gravitys, Cloud-9s or any of the Avengers Academy kids.

The Teen Titans are no better. You can count the number of Teen Titans created after the late 80s who have actually successfully caught on and stuck around on both hands.

[aja_christopher]

It's a symptom of a problem Marvel, and comics in general, have when it comes to not being able to sustain teen characters.

Illyana, Roberto and Sam are still around (from the New Mutants) and though I'd like to see Dani and Amara still in action they still do decent cameos from time to time... not to mention the fact that they all have a movie coming out soon.

It probably helps when they put them in the animated series as well -- while some of us know X-23 from Queseda and Middleton's NYX, most people probably know her (and a lot of other characters) from the cartoons and the movies.

[aja_christopher]

Double post.

[El_Gato]

It's a symptom of a problem Marvel, and comics in general, have when it comes to not being able to sustain teen characters. The only members of Generation X who see any use anymore are Jubileem and to a lesser extent, M. And Jubilee was already a popular, existing character before Gen X was even a thing. Same goes for a lot of the New Warriors and certainly the New X-Men. Even in the modern era, for every hit like Kamala Khan or Miles Morales, you have 5 or 6 Power Mans, Gravitys, Cloud-9s or any of the Avengers Academy kids.

The Teen Titans are no better. You can count the number of Teen Titans created after the late 80s who have actually successfully caught on and stuck around on both hands.

To add to your point, the only Titans that have caught on after the 1980's, are the ones that were introduced outside the franchise (ie Damian, Blue Beetle, Aqualad...etc). Kind of funny actually lol That's why I feel, outside of Emiko and Kid Flash, none of Damian's new team will stick around long.