Michelle Rodriguez on Green Lantern Rumors: "Stop Stealing All the White People's Superheroes"

[Kevin Street]

I think she's a hundred-percent right, and expresses a controversial sentiment really well. (In the video.)

[Rocket Rick]

I think Michelle is right and I have felt that way too with all these supposed changes and diversity. I have nothing against change and diversity but why can't new characters be created for them? Say for example in sports, some kids are tagged as "the next Michael Jordan" or "the next Zinedine Zidane." But there aren't any really. So you always hear athletes say, I'm not this person or that because I am myself etc. It's the same with bands. Or most of them. Can you imagine another person taking over from the Edge and U2 still calling themselves U2 after that?

For me, some of the changes in comics seem well-intentioned; some contrived. And some… purely for shock value and these yearly event things that have ruined comics.

[Jason S]

I've been wanting Battlestar to gain some prominence for a long time. Would've been cool to see him as the new Cap, with Falcon as his mentor.

Yeah, now that I would have really been interested in. Though personally I don't feel like he would even need to take the Cap name. Just give him some decent stories and a place of respect in the Marvel universe..

[Blacksquare]

She is right. It's even worst with how Marvel does it. Lets make a black hispanic spiderman and yet ignore racial and background issues. The new Spiderman is basically a brown middle class white guy. He is no Static.

Moreover, if they change a character's anything, it has to be without affecting the character as a whole. Changing dorky Jimmy Olsen from a red head Irish (he is Irish in some iterations) which itself was a minority to a tall dark and handsome black guy makes a completely different person. Might as well of called him something else.

What's next? Once black people are fully accepted we change Black Panther and John Stewart to w/e the next minority ethnic group is?

[mathew101281]

She has a point. As novel as FalconCap and new Wally West seem to be, I think we all know that its only matter of time before the original characters return. We need new minority characters that can start their own legacies.

[Teek]

Rodriguez is correct on paper, but unfortunately the reality is that new characters, even white ones, are incredibly difficult to get off the ground.

In principle, I completely agree that new characters being created and promoted is the best way to increase diversity. However, pragmatically, I also understand that's not a very realistic option. Race bending isn't a good solution, but it is the only realistically viable one.


Of course that doesn't excuse Marvel for pissing away opportunities to do it right when they do come up. I still don't understand how anybody could applaud them stripping away Sam Wilson's long established identity so they could put him in a white guy's clothes and parade him around as their shining example of progressive diversity. They had their shot to do exactly what Rodriguez was talking about and they blew it.

[marvelprince]

Frankly I'm disappointed in some of the responses here. The fact she started off by saying they need to "stop stealing all the white people's superheroes" says a whole lot about how she perceives this whole situation. Apparently Peter Parker, Wally West and all of those other characters that I've identified with over the years are and have always been the white people's heroes and I and any other minorities who's dreamed of seeing themselves reflected in Spider-Man, Captain America or Superman need to understand that's not possible cause they're not ours.

A poor message for her expresses and even poorer that so many people seem content to agree with it.

[Gray Lensman]

Frankly I'm disappointed in some of the responses here. The fact she started off by saying they need to "stop stealing all the white people's superheroes" says a whole lot about how she perceives this whole situation. Apparently Peter Parker, Wally West and all of those other characters that I've identified with over the years are and have always been the white people's heroes and I and any other minorities who's dreamed of seeing themselves reflected in Spider-Man, Captain America or Superman need to understand that's not possible cause they're not ours.

A poor message for her expresses and even poorer that so many people seem content to agree with it.

It's a bit of perspective. I can see how someone might think a gender/race change to an existing character might be a 'hand-me-down' and would rather see a character who was part of their own group from creation become big instead. Static, Fire, Falcon, and many others were minorities from the start and I can understand the desire to see them make it big rather than a recast role (even above legacy characters who have surpassed the originals such as Capt. Marvel and Mr. Terrific).

Did it come out wrong? Judging by reactions, probably, but I can understand the sentiment.

[Kirby Krackle]

Excuse me if I'm mistaken here, but a Power Ring is always, to my knowledge, that which grants any given man, woman, alien etc, the power to become a Green Lantern, a Red Lantern, a Yellow Lantern, Black Lantern etc.

Is Cruz that, a power ring which bonds with a being, and like Captain Marvel, becomes them?

Or, is this something new, introduced since I was last reading, with Brightest Day?

No, you misunderstand. She's A POWER RING from Earth-3. An alternate universe version of Green Lanterns exist and are powered by Volthoom. They've been around since the 1960's as part of the Crime Syndicate, albeit with different interpretations. For her, she received the ring during Forever Evil when the alt Hal Jordan was killed. Her ring does not work off of willpower like Lanterns do. So no, she is not a Green Lantern.

[BertoFlyingFox]

She's completely right. The problem is that most of the entertainment industry would rather change the spots on a cheetah and re-name it instead of working from scratch and creating something fresh and new.

It doesnt help that comics from the BigTwo are always re-treading stories but changing characters around because of some new dimension or another (more recently the Movie-Verse dimension). Swapping sexual preference, or gender, or skin color--isnt really evolving these characters or pushing diversity into any meaningful direction. It's just writers/artists drawing outside the lines simply because they're allowed to. I say leave the current stable of characters how they are and cultivate new mythologies. Some piece of history is changed every time there's a new excavated discovery, that should be enough to spark the imagination. Instead it seems only new villains are created to keep repeating the same old fights against Superman or Thor or whoever else.

Has there ever been an originally female character that was gender-swapped to be a male? Just curious

[Crimson Knight]

No, you misunderstand. She's A POWER RING from Earth-3. An alternate universe version of Green Lanterns exist and are powered by Volthoom. They've been around since the 1960's as part of the Crime Syndicate, albeit with different interpretations. For her, she received the ring during Forever Evil when the alt Hal Jordan was killed. Her ring does not work off of willpower like Lanterns do. So no, she is not a Green Lantern.

Ah, okay, that makes more sense, thank you.

[Kirby Krackle]

wasn't Kyle Rayner hispanic, even if it didn't show up well in 4 color art?

He WAS. His father was a Mexican American secret agent who went into hiding to protect his family. Come the Nu52 and he's now just a white guy mechanic dead beat dad.

[Gray Lensman]

Has there ever been an originally female character that was gender-swapped to be a male? Just curious

In the eXiles run I think there were some visits to worlds where everybody was gender-swapped from the original version, but I don't recall any specific female hero or character that got replaced by a male in a different adaptation.

[The_Greatest_Username]

Michelle Rodriguez would be a great Hawkwoman.

She has a point. As novel as FalconCap and new Wally West seem to be, I think we all know that its only matter of time before the original characters return. We need new minority characters that can start their own legacies.

Eh, I'm not sure I'd consider nuWally to be novel.

[Holt]

I would think hijacking a traditionally white/male hero's identity is a lot more like diversity being forced down their throats (I hate that term but it certainly is more blatant.

Most of the people who think along those lines are gonna complain no matter what. Them announcing Carol Danvers' movie had some people complaining about supposed tokenism because their favorite male hero (like Hulk or Mar-Vell) wasn't getting a movie, and that's without having gender or race swapped anyone.

Some folks are just as likely to complain about an existing POC hero getting a shot over someone else who happens to be white than they currently do about white characters being made into POC.