The Mission: The Damnation of Michelle Rodriguez, and the Harder Heroes to Create

[Javes001]

I have a question: Ever so often these companies (Marvel and DC) do the right things but it fails, why is that? Take Blue Beetle for example. DC took some real effort and chances with Blue Beetle III, Jamie Reyes, but in the end he couldn’t escape the shadow of Ted Kord, Blue Beetle II. Kord died during a time that DC was bumping off, turning evil, or shelving pretty much all of the JLI. Ted was replaced with Jamie, with a completely new power set, which was diversity character that DC did a real good job pushing in my opinion. He was featured in ‘Batman Brave and the Bold’ cartoon, he joined the Teen Titans, he was accepted as a successor to the name by the remaining JLI, he had a pretty decent line of merchandise for a new character, and of course he had his own book. A book that they even tested the waters with a Spanish edition (or was a complete issue in Spanish? I can’t recall; either way the book didn’t last long). Yet in the end, Jamie seems to have been shelved (or at least I haven’t seen him lately) and Ted seems to be on the way back into the spotlight.
Now maybe it is just people (creators) bowing the altar of Steve Dikto for Ted Kord’s lasting appeal. Or maybe it is because Ted Kord is character that readers can relate to. I am curious to know what anyone else thinks.

[Blind Otto]

I'd say that the Blue Beetle problem isn't one of race.
Ted Kord was liked. His character had been well-developed, there was definite appeal to Spider-Man fans, he'd been shown to have a very human side, etc.
Then, DC felt it was appropriate to put a bullet in his brain.

NOBODY was going to be able to pick up the pieces decently after that.

Jamie's character was fairly well thought-out. The early stories that introduced him didn't do a bad job of things. But, by this time, most of Ted's fan base was in their late twenties or older.
Jamie wasn't aimed at that age group. He was intended to appeal to a younger audience. There's nothing wrong with that. But, there is something wrong with expecting the existing fan base to obediently shuffle themselves over to the new guy's team.
Jamie's fan base did grow - there's no denying that. But, it seems that the older fan base, those with the most loose cash lying around, wanted Ted.

Nothing to do with race. It's to do with realising that you have existing customers, and not writing stories that make them want to pack up and leave.
Now, if they'd made Ted be Jamie's mentor/foster dad/boss/landlord, and built up a relationship, we might have different sales figures on our hands today - even if they had still killed Ted off eventually. After all, look at Wally West. The red-headed one, that is.

[Arundel Armor Hunter]

Or they could just make actual living breathing people white, like the cast of 21. Or for fiction, look at Exodus and The Last Airbender. The later had original characters, but I wonder if Rodriguez even knew about that series.

Wakanda is a fictional country and one built on the premise of how an African country would be like if they had the means to resist colonialism to the present day and develop independently. Their gods don't exist. However, Norse mythology is quite real and yet Thor is a blond haired, blue-eyed white man and a superhero alien while in the original mythology he's described as having a beard and liking to fight and drink. Clearly the creators of Thor weren't concerned about accuracy then.

We already know what that was like. Look at Ethiopia.

[Arundel Armor Hunter]

People who say. "They should make new characters" never have any intention to read about these new characters

Somebody buys Image and Boom and so on.

[Arundel Armor Hunter]

Yeah, it's naive to think that people strongly opposed to colorblind casting will actually come out and support new characters of color with their time and money, which as several posters have pointed out, already exist. It's just a case of "I'm not sharing toys that I feel entitled to no matter what!"

I support it if i find him interesting.

Ding ding ding, and there we have the winner and true culprit of the issue. Most of these folks claiming to create your own characters in no way shape or form support new or minority books unless they are legacy, otherwise Marvel and DC wouldn't need to create so many legacy characters just to get some actual representation within comics. The mighty avengers low sales illustrate this, which is a team of heroes that outside of she hulk, has no legacy characters what's so ever. All of these "MR is right" is nothing more than a cover up to keep these "sacred" characters white while having minority heroes fall at the waste side.

As an aspiring comic book artist creating my own IP, I know first hand if I tried to make a comic aiming at the comic book demographic, it will fail.

1) It's not the big 2, which most of these people don't read to begin with.

2) It's incredibly diverse, which per the current comic book market is almost a death sentence.

3) It lacks the nostalgia feeling that's almost essential for many comics to make it.

So I'm surprised that the author still put faith in this industry, it's pretty well established that if success was possible for minority books, it would have happened a long time ago.
Me personally, I'm taking my IP and tackling non comic book markets, primarily the young adult novel market. Putting it inside book clubs for free if need be, advertise towards women in women magazines, and many other unorthodox tactics. There's plenty of possibilities outside of the comic book market if we try and reach these audiences. But if we try to stick with the comic book demographic, we're screwed.

You gotta try and try until you catch lightning in the bottle. How many good tv shows about Latino's are are out there that lasted?

[juggalord]

Let preface this by saying that I am a 40yo American male of Puerto Rican descent. That said, Rodriguez had a valid point and shouldn't be strung up for saying it.

I'm all for color blind casting, but only where appropriate. Comics are different from books or plays. They're a visual medium whose stories are often told over decades. A character like Batman well predates even my own ~70yo parents. Because he's endured for so long, Batman has become iconic. If one were to cast, for example, a 5-ft tall Chinese guy instead of a 6-ft tall white guy as Batman then people would complain.

Because comics are a visual medium... Because these characters have been around for so long... We have a clear and well established idea what he's supposed to look and act like. Batman looks like "x" and anybody cast in the role would have to come as close as realistically possible - within reason.

Suggesting that Batman should only be played by a tall, young, & muscular white guy isn't being racist, ageist, or sexist. It's being faithful to the source material. For the comic companies, that's not such a bad thing. Imagine never having heard of Batman before. Now, suppose that the first time you see him is when he's played in a movie by somebody like Terry Cruz. That in itself could be pretty bad-@$$. However, imagine going to the comic store right after to hunt down every Batman comic you could find. Wait a second?!? Who's this guy? Why is Batman suddenly white? That's not MY Batman. From the publisher's perspective, there's a case to be made for synergy.

Most moviegoers aren't comic readers. I recognize that. Their connection to these characters isn't the same. That said, it's still an issue of source material fidelity.

I get the complaint of, "I'm sick of there being so many white guy superheroes at the box office." I go to the theater and I don't see a Hispanic superhero lighting up the box office. I turn on the TV and it's the same thing. Do I blame the production companies for not color blind casting? No. They're just trying to stick to the material. Do I blame the comic companies? No. They're doing their best.

I blame history.

The characters hitting our screens just so happen to have been created in an age where white guys were only creating white guy characters. It's just what they did back then. Women got screwed too. It's not just a minority issue. Most of the iconic characters, save for the occasional Wonder Woman, are white dudes. Because these are the enduring icons, that's why we see so many white faces during our super hero summers. There are newer, more diverse characters that were created in a more enlightened age, but they are generally not as iconic. Yet.

I go to NYCC every year. Every year, at some panel, I hear the same question. "When are we going to get more minority or female characters?" The answer is generally the same. "We're creating them all of the time. Just open your wallet and open our books."

Companies like DC and Marvel work VERY hard at making their universes more diverse. New characters of all ages, ethnicities, genders, religions, and orientations are created all of the time. Marvel & DC create these characters and rarely do much in the way of "recasting" the old faves just to be PC. (Sometimes they do, but not to any lasting effect.)

There's no need to be PC and recast the icons. We can leave our old timey white dude characters intact. If you want to see more minority superheroes on the big screen then you have to start supporting those characters at the comic book stores. If they see that there's a huge demand for characters like Ms. Marvel or Cyborg then we'll see these characters appear more in mainstream media.

I accept that Superman & Batman are white or that Joker or Wonder Woman will never be gender swapped on the big screen. I'm fine with that. They are the products of their time. I wouldn't have them any other way.

Maybe we should be asking movie studios NOT to gender/race swap characters, but to spotlight the quality female & minority characters already out there. More Ms. Marvel. More Luke Cage. More Black Panther. More She-Hulk. Hell, even more Squirrel Girl.

There ARE quality characters out there who fit the diversity bill. Use them. There are new ones being created all of the time too. Use those too.

Hollywood's afraid to move beyond the safe bet. They're afraid to stray too far away from the established icons. They're afraid to risk it all on newer properties. I get that. It's not solving the problem though.

Like I said.... Support those minorty & female characters at the store level. Create a demand for them to get translated elsewhere. The problem's already being solved daily on the creator side. It's our turn to do something. Let's not shift blame or demand outrageous solutions to problems that are already fixed or in the process of being fixed.

[thejka]

Sam Jackson as Fury is literally pulled from the comics, though. It wasn't a racebend, it was a selective adaptation of a previously existing version of the character. Hell, Ultimate Nick Fury was DESIGNED to look like Samuel L Jackson. Anyone else getting that role after how wildly successful the first two Ultimates series were would be ludicrous, especially since the original Fury, the white 616 one, had been absent from the comics for years at that point.

Wrong on the original Nick Fury being absent. I distinctly remember appearances in comics like Secret Warriors and Might Avengers.

As for the other stuff, isnt the initial introduction of Ultimate Nick Fury a racebend? It was well executed so people accepted it. That's my point.

[Goggindowner]

Wrong on the original Nick Fury being absent. I distinctly remember appearances in comics like Secret Warriors and Might Avengers.

As for the other stuff, isnt the initial introduction of Ultimate Nick Fury a racebend? It was well executed so people accepted it. That's my point.

I don't remember him being around, but if he was it wasn't in a very important role. At least not nearly as central as Ultimate Fury at the time.

I like how everyone wants to put the impetus on readers to go out and support minority characters. How about instead, we put the impetus on the publishers and creators to craft stories and characters that are so good the race, gender or orientation of the characters doesn't matter? Most POC characters are legacy characters in some way, which isn't a bad thing, but it carries an inherent problem that Blind Otto already talked about. When popular or well known characters either get pushed to the side, killed off, or shifted to a new role, the usually carry their fan base with them. People for years had already invested in the other guy, and that doesn't mean that they are going to follow step and invest in the new guy. Blue Beetle was a good example, but also look at the new Ms Marvel. I have always been a fan of Carol Danvers. She is the character that I wanted to see when I picked up Ms Marvel. When she shifted roles into the new Captain Marvel, I went with her because I am a fan of that character. Meanwhile, Marvel introduced a replacement Ms Marvel who had a completely different set of powers and a completely different tone of stories, plus a creative team that I wasn't familiar with. None of that is a bad thing, but I was already enjoying what had been being done, that continued somewhere else, and I wasn't really in the market at the time for picking up something different, so I didn't. Flip that around to Ultimate Spiderman when Miles Morales was introduced. The tone of the stories didn't change, the basic concept of the character wasn't all that different, the writer didn't change and the new artist was amazing. I stuck around through that transition and enjoyed it. It's all in the execution, and blaming the readers for not buying in when the execution is off is putting heat in the wrong place.

[Thorionthei]

I agree with Michelle to a point. I am Hispanic and don't care for when a normally white superhero is now not white. Now new superheroes? Original creations? Yeah totally!

It is one of the reasons of I love Static and the Milestone characters. I think the big two do a bad job of creating and marketing brand new characters personally.

I also love Blue Marvel (and Night Thrasher). All original heroes. Darwin, Junta. Give me original minority superheroes!!!

I believe Marvel had two Asian characters coming out a couple of years ago...there was hype surrounding it...I never heard of them again. It was a male and a female.

[Trident]

Let preface this by saying that I am a 40yo American male of Puerto Rican descent. That said, Rodriguez had a valid point and shouldn't be strung up for saying it.

I'm all for color blind casting, but only where appropriate. Comics are different from books or plays. They're a visual medium whose stories are often told over decades. A character like Batman well predates even my own ~70yo parents. Because he's endured for so long, Batman has become iconic. If one were to cast, for example, a 5-ft tall Chinese guy instead of a 6-ft tall white guy as Batman then people would complain.

Because comics are a visual medium... Because these characters have been around for so long... We have a clear and well established idea what he's supposed to look and act like. Batman looks like "x" and anybody cast in the role would have to come as close as realistically possible - within reason.

Suggesting that Batman should only be played by a tall, young, & muscular white guy isn't being racist, ageist, or sexist. It's being faithful to the source material. For the comic companies, that's not such a bad thing. Imagine never having heard of Batman before. Now, suppose that the first time you see him is when he's played in a movie by somebody like Terry Cruz. That in itself could be pretty bad-@$$. However, imagine going to the comic store right after to hunt down every Batman comic you could find. Wait a second?!? Who's this guy? Why is Batman suddenly white? That's not MY Batman. From the publisher's perspective, there's a case to be made for synergy.

Most moviegoers aren't comic readers. I recognize that. Their connection to these characters isn't the same. That said, it's still an issue of source material fidelity.

I get the complaint of, "I'm sick of there being so many white guy superheroes at the box office." I go to the theater and I don't see a Hispanic superhero lighting up the box office. I turn on the TV and it's the same thing. Do I blame the production companies for not color blind casting? No. They're just trying to stick to the material. Do I blame the comic companies? No. They're doing their best.

I blame history.

The characters hitting our screens just so happen to have been created in an age where white guys were only creating white guy characters. It's just what they did back then. Women got screwed too. It's not just a minority issue. Most of the iconic characters, save for the occasional Wonder Woman, are white dudes. Because these are the enduring icons, that's why we see so many white faces during our super hero summers. There are newer, more diverse characters that were created in a more enlightened age, but they are generally not as iconic. Yet.

I go to NYCC every year. Every year, at some panel, I hear the same question. "When are we going to get more minority or female characters?" The answer is generally the same. "We're creating them all of the time. Just open your wallet and open our books."

Companies like DC and Marvel work VERY hard at making their universes more diverse. New characters of all ages, ethnicities, genders, religions, and orientations are created all of the time. Marvel & DC create these characters and rarely do much in the way of "recasting" the old faves just to be PC. (Sometimes they do, but not to any lasting effect.)

There's no need to be PC and recast the icons. We can leave our old timey white dude characters intact. If you want to see more minority superheroes on the big screen then you have to start supporting those characters at the comic book stores. If they see that there's a huge demand for characters like Ms. Marvel or Cyborg then we'll see these characters appear more in mainstream media.

I accept that Superman & Batman are white or that Joker or Wonder Woman will never be gender swapped on the big screen. I'm fine with that. They are the products of their time. I wouldn't have them any other way.

Maybe we should be asking movie studios NOT to gender/race swap characters, but to spotlight the quality female & minority characters already out there. More Ms. Marvel. More Luke Cage. More Black Panther. More She-Hulk. Hell, even more Squirrel Girl.

There ARE quality characters out there who fit the diversity bill. Use them. There are new ones being created all of the time too. Use those too.

Hollywood's afraid to move beyond the safe bet. They're afraid to stray too far away from the established icons. They're afraid to risk it all on newer properties. I get that. It's not solving the problem though.

Like I said.... Support those minorty & female characters at the store level. Create a demand for them to get translated elsewhere. The problem's already being solved daily on the creator side. It's our turn to do something. Let's not shift blame or demand outrageous solutions to problems that are already fixed or in the process of being fixed.

This is the best post on this topic thus far!

Edit: A posed a simliar idea in the Marvel thread not to long ago about Black male heroes. In the last 20 something years Marvel has created over 20 black superheroes and most of them were male with a wide variety of backgrounds and power levels but this far have not received the kind of support that keeps them as reaccurring characters in Marvel titles. But other characters who appered right next to them have.

I realize that the creative teams plays a role in this but if the fan base lobbied for some of these characters as other fans have lobbied for other characters appearing around them Marvel would have more incentive to use them. Marvel would push them more for the simple fact that it would be more money in their pockets.

[Rene Narciso]

I have a question: Ever so often these companies (Marvel and DC) do the right things but it fails, why is that? Take Blue Beetle for example. DC took some real effort and chances with Blue Beetle III, Jamie Reyes, but in the end he couldn’t escape the shadow of Ted Kord, Blue Beetle II. Kord died during a time that DC was bumping off, turning evil, or shelving pretty much all of the JLI. Ted was replaced with Jamie, with a completely new power set, which was diversity character that DC did a real good job pushing in my opinion. He was featured in ‘Batman Brave and the Bold’ cartoon, he joined the Teen Titans, he was accepted as a successor to the name by the remaining JLI, he had a pretty decent line of merchandise for a new character, and of course he had his own book. A book that they even tested the waters with a Spanish edition (or was a complete issue in Spanish? I can’t recall; either way the book didn’t last long). Yet in the end, Jamie seems to have been shelved (or at least I haven’t seen him lately) and Ted seems to be on the way back into the spotlight.
Now maybe it is just people (creators) bowing the altar of Steve Dikto for Ted Kord’s lasting appeal. Or maybe it is because Ted Kord is character that readers can relate to. I am curious to know what anyone else thinks.

The same thing that happened to Kyle Rayner, basically.

1) The original was removed in a extremely offensive and obnoxious manner.

2) The superhero comic book industry will always return characters to their 1960s configurations. That is the start of organized fandom, more or less. There are a few exceptions (X-Men, that has introduced many successful characters in the 1970s and later). It's not exactly racism, just nostalgia for a period that incidentally had few minority characters.

[Double 0]

Man, once again, this article is more than just a reaction to Michelle Rodriguez's rant. There's a thread for that.

Did anyone even read this article?

[rdman]

After playing roles in Lost and Avatar she retreats to some ghetto tirade. Is it far from teh realm of possibility that a black person, a hispanic, or an asian person can play a fictional role?

Or people who aren't white enslaved by their skin only to play roles that assumed by societal prejudice.

Michelle Rodriguez is wrong. She should stick to portraying a criminal like in Fast & The Furious.

[Tazpocalapse]

I take issue with what Michelle said because she immediately assumed a character was being "race swapped or gender swapped". She immediately assumed that they were i don't know making Hal a Woman of a different ethnicity. My question to Rodriguez and those that claim she is correct? What the fawk do people think they were doing when they decided to cast a female Green Lantern. They were either going to use a female Green Lantern or perhaps was going TO MAKE THIER OWN. So it comes across as GREEN LANTERN can only be a white male, which is complete bull schitt. I hope they go forward with thier plans to expand the GL cinemaverse. I'm sure there are plenty of female actors that would like to be considered for the role. I hope they consider other options instead of her.

On another note did the writer really try to compare Night Thrasher to Batman. No just no they have 3 things in common. They both were orphaned, they both use their wealth to fight crime, and they both appear in comics that is it. Night Thrasher was not above using weapons to kill people. To call Night Thrasher a sort of black Batman is off the mark, because other than those 3 similarities, Night Thrasher is more along the lines of The Punisher.

[Jeff Brady]

I'm going to copy & paste a response I had to people freaking out over Tulip from Preacher having her race changed from white to black in the AMC TV development. It seems appropriate.

Man, white people are completely under-represented in media. White folks are always put in such stereotypical roles like "stripper", "convict", "janitor", "drug addict", and rarely in positions of authority, let alone in roles in which we can empathize.

People of color and women have had so much power over the media for so long. For decades we've been portrayed as inhuman caricatures. Eventually they created some token white characters, but they were still written & drawn by people of color, so they weren't authentic to the white experience of systemic oppression.

"I mean do you go and make a Malcom X movie and make Louis Farrakhan a white guy because you're worried that it has too many black folks in it?"

I guess that would work because X & LF are totally fictional characters, and not real people taking part in the struggle to make sure white people were treated equally under the law following centuries of slavery, and dehumanizing brutal treatment from people of color.

"If they really want to diversify it, they need to throw a couple of new characters into the mix or something."

And we all know how much people are quick to support new characters to an established environment. The Milestone & WildStorm characters certainly found their footing after being merged into the DCU with great success. The Static series is still going strong, almost outselling two of the three Batman titles, and a second series is in the works. And the cartoon has been on the air non-stop since the 90s, almost as long as the Simpsons.

"Nothing wrong with making the TV adaptation a little different, as long as you aren't changing characters that were already created and loved by the fans."

Yeah, Tulip's whiteness, and only her whiteness, completely defines her character of being a tough-as-nails, take-no-shit feminist. You'll never find a black woman who has that personality. Black women don't have to deal with misogyny AND racism. They almost never have to have their guard up against harassment from random guys on the street, or the police. And they never, ever stick by their man. They don't support their boyfriends or husbands. You'll never see them standing outside, on the front lines of protests, risking their safety or lives seeking justice like all those white women at the Ferguson protests across the nation.

Don't forget, folks: when you're done setting those crosses on fire, you have to nail yourselves to them.