The Minority Report! Diversity In DC and the Nu52

[JediMindTrick]

I wish DC had just focused on propping up its existing minority characters instead of doing a race change/character reset move in turning Wally West biracial, deaging him, and changing his origin completely. John Stewart and Cyborg are awesome characters. Push them some more. Black Manta is a great villain. Turbine (a new speed type character introduced in Flash) could have been developed to be part of the Flash family. All the race swap of Wally has done is made me bitter because there is absolutely nothing personality or look wise left of the old Wally. The majority of the New 52 characters were still fairly similar to their pre New 52 ones but Wally may as well be a wholly new character. Pre New 52 Wally is pretty much the only reason I read DC today. I didn't read it all until Grant Morrison on JLA and Wally immediately became my favorite character and I started picking up his book at the same time and kept reading it even when I dropped JLA once Morrison left. He was my favorite character and I miss him and I've got no interest in reading about some wholly new character who happens to share a name. This isn't a Superior Spiderman situation where we all knew the real Spidey would be back eventually, this is a case where I think the old Wally is dead all in the name of diversity and that just frustrates and angers me.

[Kid A]

Yeah making Wally biracial just feels like cutting corners compared to actually trying to thrust existing characters like Static into the spotlight.

[JediMindTrick]

Yeah making Wally biracial just feels like cutting corners compared to actually trying to thrust existing characters like Static into the spotlight.

Yep. All it did for this Wally fan was ensure I'll never read another Flash book again until and unless the really Wally comes back somehow.

[Desh]

Yeah, I feel really bad for people who are huge Wally West fans. I mean, I love the character, too, but I mean people for which Wally is their #1 guy. I know these are just comics and fictional characters, but we do grow strong emotional attachments to them, and it's just sad seeing the character get completely mistreated (as in being erased) and then destroyed (as in he's not the character anymore), and knowing that so many people love the character. And it's all for nothing. What DC did really wasn't necessary at all. There are five billion ways DC could have pushed diversity better than what they did. I mean, they could have brought XS to the past and used her. She is bi-racial and a speedster.

[G. Boney]

Some people seem to think Static (& Milestone in general) are dc properties. They aren't. They are or were licensing the characters. Nobody here probably knows the current status of that deal. I personally prefer Milestone as their own entity like they were originally. dc has their own black/Asian/latino/etc. characters that they can and should be using.

[Sutekh]

I think there are three ways to promote the diversity:

1. With new characters: A new concept, without any kind of relationship with any other character. E.g: the Milestone characters; Cyborg, the Original Amazing Man.
2. New characters based on a previous existing characters: the most common used resource, specially with the legacy concept: Mr. Terrific, Ryan Choi, Kate Spencer, JJ Thunder, Jaime Reyes.
3. Promoting old secondary characters to first line: John Stewart in GL; Carol Ferris to heroic Star Sapphire.

Personally I would like to see more new characters and new faces, more than just a recreation of old names in new faces, but that's a editorial problem. They are the ones betting safe.

That's my preference as well. I'd rather see more of original characters like Vixen, Cyborg and Amazing Man, than have a pre-existing character replaced or retconned to make a stab at inclusiveness (like replacement characters for Firestorm or the Atom). Less Bat-femme or Super-femme or Femme Marvel, and more originals like Black Canary or Mera, who may date male heroes, but aren't 'Green Arrow Lass' or 'Aquawoman.'

Even then, there's always exceptions. Kimiyo can totally replace Arthur Light, because to heck with that guy!

And the occasional replacement that's been around so long that nobody really remembers who they replaced, like Zatanna, the She-Zatara, or the 'new' Mr. Terrific ('replacing' a white character nobody had seen for decades anyway).

Then again, Barry Allen somehow crawled back from 25 years of being dead, so I guess all it takes is for a fan of the old Mr. Terrific to take over the reins at DC for the new guy to get sidelined in the next reboot...

[GlennSimpson]

Personally, I place having a more diverse cast over maintaining consistency with past versions of characters. I'd be embarrassed to ever state that I wanted ANY entity, fictional or otherwise, to be a straight white male when they could be something else. And this comes from a straight white male.

I don't consider any funnybook character's past so important that they can't be changed.

I also completely understand that comics readers rarely take to new characters, and so creating new characters with those minority traits tends to be a futile effort. So in order to get them out there, you have to tie them heavily into a popular pre-existing franchise.

I also think it has to be done intelligently, and they have to pick their battles. Sure, they didn't make Barry Allen black, because then (based on what readers seem to want to buy) you've hurt the foundation and have nothing to build on. But by keeping Barry white (Barry White - ha!) you have enough to keep the majority of the grumpy fans happy and then pull in diversity around him.

I wish DC would put more popular creators on less popular characters (minority or otherwise) but that doesn't seem to be something they are willing to do. I would speculate that their perception is that a particular creator may add some percentage of readers relative to the base number. In other words, if 10,000 people want to read Static at all, then putting Scott Snyder on Static would probably only raise it to like 15,000. But if 40,000 people want to read Batman, then putting Snyder on Batman raises it to 55,000. So they sell more books by putting name creators on books that are more popular to begin with. I guess.

[wisesonAC]

The Ray is part of the New 52 universe.

where is he then? where is his book? the new ray had a mini in 2011 before the relaunch.

Books get cancelled when they don't sell. All those characters besides Static have been kept alive in the DCU. Vibe and Katana were given high-profile launches and didn't catch on.

[/QUOTE]

they all arent.

Mr. Terrific is background fodder in earth 2. he barely has speaking parts. hopefully futures end changes that.
blue beetle isnt being used currently.
i think omac was recently used in suicide squad.
other characters like Voodoo havent been touched as well.
vibe yes but katanna no. people just couldnt get over the fact the Ann norcenti was writing it.

[Den]

Sometimes it is hard to figure out whether DC is fumbling the ball or if the fans just refuse to join in the game. I loved OMAC, so did many others who read it, but not enough read it in the first place and the series died. I really liked Vibe version Nu52. Cisco was great, and Gates wrote him well. Unfortunately, some folks couldn't get past the 80s version and refused to even look at it, so again...unfair series cancellation. On the other hand, as much as I liked Bunker (Seriously fun guy), I just couldn't continue to support Teen Titans as the storylines were too garbled for my tastes. Mr. Terrific and Static Shock both deserved better treatment than they got, and it's unfair to expect fans to buy books for ANY character when the creative efforts are just not that good.

So I'm not sure there's just one group (creators, readers, editorial) we can point at and say "Your fault this didn't work" .

However, I will applaud DC for their effort. Whatever I may think of their execution, they are TRYING to increase diversity.

[Kid A]

Some people seem to think Static (& Milestone in general) are dc properties. They aren't. They are or were licensing the characters. Nobody here probably knows the current status of that deal. I personally prefer Milestone as their own entity like they were originally. dc has their own black/Asian/latino/etc. characters that they can and should be using.

As long as Miletone partners with DC, they're never going to be their own imprint for the same reason Wildstorm isn't. It won't sell.

I've wondered why they haven't licensed to IDW or Dynamite though.

[Punisher007]

Steel also isn't being used nearly as much as he could be, and Cassandra Cain is still nowhere to be seen.

[Thor-Ul]

Steel is coming back, slowy but is coming back.

But I don't think Cassandra could coexist with Stephanie.

[Spy Smasher]

Is "diversity" the same thing as "turning established white characters black?"

I have some issues with that equivalence.

[GlennSimpson]

Is "diversity" the same thing as "turning established white characters black?"

I have some issues with that equivalence.

The end result of turning "established" white characters black is a more racially diverse group of characters.

[GlennSimpson]

I wish DC had just focused on propping up its existing minority characters instead of doing an affirmative action / repartation type move in turning Wally West biracial, deaging him, and changing his origin completely. John Stewart and Cyborg are awesome characters. Push them some more. Black Manta is a great villain. Turbine (a new speed type character introduced in Flash) could have been developed to be part of the Flash family. All the race swap of Wally has done is made me bitter because there is absolutely nothing personality or look wise left of the old Wally. The majority of the New 52 characters were still fairly similar to their pre New 52 ones but Wally may as well be a wholly new character. Pre New 52 Wally is pretty much the only reason I read DC today. I didn't read it all until Grant Morrison on JLA and Wally immediately became my favorite character and I started picking up his book at the same time and kept reading it even when I dropped JLA once Morrison left. He was my favorite character and I miss him and I've got no interest in reading about some wholly new character who happens to share a name. This isn't a Superior Spiderman situation where we all knew the real Spidey would be back eventually, this is a case where I think the old Wally is dead all in the name of diversity and that just frustrates and angers me.

I would highly suggest retracting the bolded statements, statements such as this was exactly the problem the admin was talking about when he did a wipe, otherwise I'm going to have to report this post to the mods.

I don't necessarily agree with him, but I don't think there's anything offensive about that statement. Having editorial make a conscious effort to get writers to use minority characters or change them into minority characters (rather than just letting it "happen") is quite like Affirmative Action, and both were necessary to accomplish the goal.