R.I.P. Marvel's 'progressive' era, 2012-2017

[Daniel22]

If we're talking about people complaining on message boards, yes sentry is still quite unliked. . I know the nerd rage over Ben Reilly taking over as Spider-Man was pretty epic, though I don't know exactly what was being said. Over on the x-boards, the '05' (time displaced original xmen) are quite despised, especially kid cyclops. There was much complaining about how marvel's trying to prove he's so much better by bashing the 'real' cyclops.

Definitely true about young Cyke being hated.. since it's the same character, not a true replacement, not sure what that means, though. And to be fair Marvel has made adult Cyclops a pretty easy target in the past ten years or so. Also, X Men fans hate everything except Claremont and the 92 cartoon (kind of but not really kidding).

People were also pissed about Ben, but he was being sold as a replacement for Peter. Most of the new crop of characters exist alongside the classic characters, and haven't replaced them, yet people still hate them.

[mike2112]

I would like to see just ONCE for a straight white male character to be accused of pandering, or not being introduced/developed the "right way", or lessening an existing character, or ruining a legacy or it being an issue that they are smarter/stronger than an existing character or any of the other tired arguments and complaints that get thrown at every single minority character.

Well the thing is that legacy characters nowadays pretty much means that the character itself is a woman or a minority. Not that is a bad thing or anything. Just that i have a lot of problems to remember any recent legacy character who chech the typical mold.I can understand wanting to move from the typical, on other hand so it,s not like i am complaining about it.

And historical casses like Bucky, Wally West or Dick Grayson are lifetime sideckicks from the original so it,s logical from them to be easy to accepted.

Maybe the son of Ultimate Logan but he doesn,t seem very popular at all. And young cyclops it,s a special case.

[skyvolt2000]

I would like to see just ONCE for a straight white male character to be accused of pandering, or not being introduced/developed the "right way", or lessening an existing character, or ruining a legacy or it being an issue that they are smarter/stronger than an existing character or any of the other tired arguments and complaints that get thrown at every single minority character.

You do see it however there is a difference.

Generally when it's a white straight male character it is done in a book like Avengers, X-Men, Deadpool and Mercs, backups in an annual or Spider-man. It's done in a book that access to the story is easliy gained be it buying it on Wednesday, dollar bins, grab bags, 25 cent sales, trades and Ebay. In other words folks who hate Red Hulk or Sentry or Carnage will have read the stories in question to offer an informed opinion of that guy.

POC-don't get that benefit.

Because for the most part the complainers don't read the books that show this stuff. Ie Mighty Avengers, Moon Girl, All New Inhumans and so on. So you get generalizations of comment with no source. You get the comments we see around here about it's being told to us versus show it "naturally".

Or you have the Duke Thomas situation. Duke is SUPPOSE to be in Batman's book. Yet aside from one page or panel cameos-you don't see him. So when you get that comment of "better than Robin" you see backlash that was already started up by folk refusing to buy the book with him in it or defacing the book when he is seen as one Tim Drake fans has done.

Look at Miles-for the first three years he stayed in his book ONLY. A common theme for many POC-all the development is restricted to that BOOK. Then if they appear in another book-that writer ignores what was done in the character's solo-Cyborg is a good example of this. For the most part Miles barely uses that venom sting-it's more of last resort. Same with him turning invisible.

Take Flint of the Inhumans-he has been shown powerful enough to move a planet (or asteroid) in Royals. Now let him do that to a mountain in Bruce Banner's book-the backlash starts to the left. Because that would be viewed as making Bruce look bad.

Take Static-if you take all his versions-he is Magneto level powerful that can be enhanced by the solar flares. Yet most don't know that because all those stories are NOT in trades and many of those issues are Hard to find as floppies. So if I was to show him giving Magneto the business-you would see more than backlash.

Storm-of all the Mutants-she couldn't get rid of a mutant killing cloud? Storm & Flint & Sunfire? Earth, wind & fire? Go get Ma-Ti and form Captain Plane. Did we even get to see Storm try?

[dkrook]

You do see it however there is a difference.

Generally when it's a white straight male character it is done in a book like Avengers, X-Men, Deadpool and Mercs, backups in an annual or Spider-man. It's done in a book that access to the story is easliy gained be it buying it on Wednesday, dollar bins, grab bags, 25 cent sales, trades and Ebay. In other words folks who hate Red Hulk or Sentry or Carnage will have read the stories in question to offer an informed opinion of that guy.

POC-don't get that benefit.

Because for the most part the complainers don't read the books that show this stuff. Ie Mighty Avengers, Moon Girl, All New Inhumans and so on. So you get generalizations of comment with no source. You get the comments we see around here about it's being told to us versus show it "naturally".

Or you have the Duke Thomas situation. Duke is SUPPOSE to be in Batman's book. Yet aside from one page or panel cameos-you don't see him. So when you get that comment of "better than Robin" you see backlash that was already started up by folk refusing to buy the book with him in it or defacing the book when he is seen as one Tim Drake fans has done.

Look at Miles-for the first three years he stayed in his book ONLY. A common theme for many POC-all the development is restricted to that BOOK. Then if they appear in another book-that writer ignores what was done in the character's solo-Cyborg is a good example of this. For the most part Miles barely uses that venom sting-it's more of last resort. Same with him turning invisible.

Take Flint of the Inhumans-he has been shown powerful enough to move a planet (or asteroid) in Royals. Now let him do that to a mountain in Bruce Banner's book-the backlash starts to the left. Because that would be viewed as making Bruce look bad.

Take Static-if you take all his versions-he is Magneto level powerful that can be enhanced by the solar flares. Yet most don't know that because all those stories are NOT in trades and many of those issues are Hard to find as floppies. So if I was to show him giving Magneto the business-you would see more than backlash.

Storm-of all the Mutants-she couldn't get rid of a mutant killing cloud? Storm & Flint & Sunfire? Earth, wind & fire? Go get Ma-Ti and form Captain Plane. Did we even get to see Storm try?

Lol, see what happens when you don't read X-Men books. I never even knew that there was an actual cloud that was going around killing mutants and come to find out nobody that to ask Storm if she could just blow it into the ionosphere, or dissipate it. I guess the reason not was she was all booed up with T'challa. See what happens when there are too many black characters written in stories.

[ed2962]

Lol, see what happens when you don't read X-Men books. I never even knew that there was an actual cloud that was going around killing mutants and come to find out nobody that to ask Storm if she could just blow it into the ionosphere, or dissipate it. I guess the reason not was she was all booed up with T'challa. See what happens when there are too many black characters written in stories.

I'm pretty sure the marriage was over at that point.

[Tiamatty]

Yeah but here’s the thing for me it would be different if it was said that she had the potential to be smarter than reed and earned it and grew into however that’s not what we got as a 9year old she already is smarter than reed same as valeria who is six and smarter than reed, it weakens one character to prop up others and for what reason. When Reed comes back dollars to doughnuts you will have him ask Moon Girl for help because why the hell not.

I doubt Reed will be asking Lunella for help. He doesn't need her help. What I do hope to see is that, the next time there's an event where all the genius characters get together to find a solution to whatever the problem is, Lunella gets included, and is treated as an equal. Also, as I said, when Lunella and Valeria are described as being smarter than Reed, what's being discussed is their potential.

But you had several characters tell him he was one of those including Banner so that weakens him. He is admitting that he wasn’t a good Hulk.

The guy who has a long history of hating being the Hulk doesn't think he was a good Hulk? Shocking. And again, Totally Awesome Hulk's entire point is that Amadeus was wrong about who the Hulk was, and how he's gradually losing control.

Ok but here is the thing why, why does she have to be a genius how many characters in the progressive era have been introduced or reintroduced and how many of them are super-smart

Because Marvel's history of super-scientist superheroes is almost exclusively white men. There's a couple black guys who get to be both scientific geniuses and superheroes. But until recently, that role was all but denied to women, who could be either scientists or superheroes, not both. It was long past time to fix that, and hey, what do you know, the girl geniuses are actually finding some pretty strong support, imagine that. Turns out, letting people who aren't white dudes be superheroes who love science works.

How many have been compared to their predecessors and found better
Amadeus Cho Hulk
Jane Foster – Thor
Miles Morales – Spider-Man
Sam Alexander – Nova

Amadeus is not better, I've already explained that. Miles has never been treated as being better than Peter. Sam has never been treated as being better than Rich.

Well truthfully that’s more than likely the political climate than anything else especially on some of these boards, you say anything bad about LG your homophobic, you say anything bad about the B your biphobic, you say anything bad about the T your transphobic, you saying anything about someone with a different skin than you are racist =. We use to talk to about freedom of speech which to my mind we no longer have because you have to be careful what you say because one person does it you have at least 3 others telling you how bad you are.

There have undeniably been hateful undertones to a lot of criticisms of a lot of characters (and creators!).

[Venomous Mask]

This obsession with who's the smartest ignores a key issue people can be smart in some areas and ignorant in others. For example, someone who can speak thirty langues with ease and someone who can assemble their own personal home computer better than anything found in the store are both smart but in very different ways. I think that all too often, Marvel seems to frame intelligence as being a Renaissance man or woman.

[Daniel22]

You do see it however there is a difference.

Generally when it's a white straight male character it is done in a book like Avengers, X-Men, Deadpool and Mercs, backups in an annual or Spider-man. It's done in a book that access to the story is easliy gained be it buying it on Wednesday, dollar bins, grab bags, 25 cent sales, trades and Ebay. In other words folks who hate Red Hulk or Sentry or Carnage will have read the stories in question to offer an informed opinion of that guy.

POC-don't get that benefit.

Because for the most part the complainers don't read the books that show this stuff. Ie Mighty Avengers, Moon Girl, All New Inhumans and so on. So you get generalizations of comment with no source. You get the comments we see around here about it's being told to us versus show it "naturally".

Or you have the Duke Thomas situation. Duke is SUPPOSE to be in Batman's book. Yet aside from one page or panel cameos-you don't see him. So when you get that comment of "better than Robin" you see backlash that was already started up by folk refusing to buy the book with him in it or defacing the book when he is seen as one Tim Drake fans has done.

Look at Miles-for the first three years he stayed in his book ONLY. A common theme for many POC-all the development is restricted to that BOOK. Then if they appear in another book-that writer ignores what was done in the character's solo-Cyborg is a good example of this. For the most part Miles barely uses that venom sting-it's more of last resort. Same with him turning invisible.

Take Flint of the Inhumans-he has been shown powerful enough to move a planet (or asteroid) in Royals. Now let him do that to a mountain in Bruce Banner's book-the backlash starts to the left. Because that would be viewed as making Bruce look bad.

Take Static-if you take all his versions-he is Magneto level powerful that can be enhanced by the solar flares. Yet most don't know that because all those stories are NOT in trades and many of those issues are Hard to find as floppies. So if I was to show him giving Magneto the business-you would see more than backlash.

Storm-of all the Mutants-she couldn't get rid of a mutant killing cloud? Storm & Flint & Sunfire? Earth, wind & fire? Go get Ma-Ti and form Captain Plane. Did we even get to see Storm try?

That's a really good point. Not only do minority characters get loads of hate, it's uninformed hate and not based on direct experience but word of mouth and assumptions. They don't even know the details of the thing they are hating and complaining about. Things get exaggerated (Miles uses venom blast as an instant win, Thor just constantly makes Odinson look bad, etc) or just flatly made up, and since the haters haven't actually, you know, READ the thing they are experts in tearing apart, those lies just get perpetuated and parroted.

It's one thing to not like a character, that's fine, but when the person has clearly had zero actual interaction with that character it's hard to read their disdain as anything other than an inherent bias and prejudice against a surface trait of said character.

[VolcanikTiger86]

I doubt Reed will be asking Lunella for help. He doesn't need her help. What I do hope to see is that, the next time there's an event where all the genius characters get together to find a solution to whatever the problem is, Lunella gets included, and is treated as an equal. Also, as I said, when Lunella and Valeria are described as being smarter than Reed, what's being discussed is their potential.

Sorry but you are wrong, Lunella is described as the smartest person in the marvel universe now not potentially being the smartest person she already is which is part of the problem for me. She has no history, you want to establish her and the only way you can do that is to make her smarter than a whole load of favourite characters which will make it harder to be as popular as those many think she is replacing.
As for Valeria she is 6 years old and she says and I quote “Dad I’ll have to teach you better security”
That to me is not she has the potential to be smarter than Reed, she already is.

The guy who has a long history of hating being the Hulk doesn't think he was a good Hulk? Shocking. And again, Totally Awesome Hulk's entire point is that Amadeus was wrong about who the Hulk was, and how he's gradually losing control.

Then again that avoids the issue that at least three times in so many years he has come to terms with it only to go back to hating it for reasons. Like he learned how to control his transformations only to lose control. Amadeus can control it from the start. The Hulk it seems to be inside a vicious cycle for reasons.

Because Marvel's history of super-scientist superheroes is almost exclusively white men. There's a couple black guys who get to be both scientific geniuses and superheroes. But until recently, that role was all but denied to women, who could be either scientists or superheroes, not both. It was long past time to fix that, and hey, what do you know, the girl geniuses are actually finding some pretty strong support, imagine that. Turns out, letting people who aren't white dudes be superheroes who love science works.

Thanks for making my point but here is the thing so we go form a few super genius to having to many not because it’s a creative choice but because its long past time women were able to do this. For me if that’s what you want to do then fine write the story with that purpose and if its good I’ll buy it otherwise what’s the point. All you doing is sending a message that girls can do it to hello I have know that for 20 years its not news to me and I don’t find it creative.

Amadeus is not better, I've already explained that. Miles has never been treated as being better than Peter. Sam has never been treated as being better than Rich.

One no you have told me Amadeus isn’t better you haven’t given me any explanation other than you think the point of Totally Awesome Hulk was that Amadues was wrong having read half the run. I certainly didn’t pick up on it.
Two)Miles has been treated better than Peter, The Ulimates complained that Peter was too young however suddenly Miles who was younger than peter could join the ultimate’s and shield. He gets ported over to the Prime universe one of the first things we know he is on the avengers out of the bat, he beats Blackheart on his own. Three I was under the impression that the black novas were the special ops of the novas and as such were more powerful might be wrong on that one. 4) I noted how you left out Jane Foster thor

There have undeniably been hateful undertones to a lot of criticisms of a lot of characters (and creators!).

To various characters and creators but you insult a white character that’s fine but anything else you have various people calling you every name under the sun. It seems to me you can have an opinion about white male characters but everything else you have to love it or don’t mention any negative at all. As I said before to me that isn’t progression.

You know what it is sorry what I think it is, you say one bad thing about a minority and people think you don’t like them for that reason. Example I don’t like Moon Girl for various reasons and yes the push that she is the smartest person in the marvel universe is one of them. I don’t mind Blue Marvel, T’Challa being in the top ten smartest people heck you could add Toni Ho in there as well, (I think she is L either that or B but regardless not straight white or male) Amadeus is in there as well. I need to double check but pretty sure I could add a few others as well who aren’t straight or white or male. However I don’t like Moon Girl’s push its because she is black except for the fact to me it isn’t logical that a 9 year old or 6 year old is smarter that a 30 year old woman or a 30 year old man. To me its disrespect to Adam and Toni among others but it boils down to I don’t like Moon Girl so I’m a racist, I don’t agree with how Iceman was outted not that I care about Iceman I’m homophic, and its boiling it down to a politic issue when really I don’t agree with the creative choice.
[QUOTE=Daniel22;3606780]That's a really good point.
In some instances the point has merit.

Not only do minority characters get loads of hate, it's uninformed hate and not based on direct experience but word of mouth and assumptions.

Well assumptions might be too strong at times, however my problem with Lunella and Valeria is stuff I have been told Word of God or experience myself doesn’t mean that I’m right to not like the character or give her book a chance I just don’t have any interest in doing it.

Things get exaggerated (Miles uses venom blast as an instant win,

Correct me if I’m wrong but he has used the venom blast as an instant win, the exaggeration might be how often it happens.

Thor just constantly makes Odinson look bad

Once again correct me if I’m wrong but how often has Thor Odinson went toe to toe with Odin without getting a beat down, I’m pretty sure that the answer is never but there is a lot of Thor Books and I haven’t read them all.

It's one thing to not like a character, that's fine, but when the person has clearly had zero actual interaction with that character it's hard to read their disdain as anything other than an inherent bias and prejudice against a surface trait of said character.

Yeah but is it always about race, for example it could be logistics I mean I don’t agree with how Lunella and Valeria writing due to similar ages and how they are written nothing to do with skin color but I mention I don’t like a African American character then my points are worth anything because I’m racist even though I’m not.

[Triniking1234]

The only problems with Lunafella being declared the smartest person in the Marvel Universe are that it's at a time where most of the competition (Reed, Hank, Tony, Blue Marvel and Bruce) are absent and they don't really compare her well with leftovers (like Doom and Cho). All I've gotten is that she's smarter than Forge because she made his anti-Terrigen Cloud machine better in IvX. At least with Cho we know he's high up on the list because he under-studied with Banner and Pym and got into the Illuminati and Nadia's on-par with Pym, Peter Parker and Doom however I doubt we'll get stories like that since it'll be outside her book's theme as a kid adventure book.

[Mike_Murdock]

Why was Blue Marvel or Tony absent? Didn't "Smartest there is" come out before Civil War II?

[Tony Stark]

Why was Blue Marvel or Tony absent? Didn't "Smartest there is" come out before Civil War II?

The wanted Tony, but he was in a coma.

[ENTRYS]

Marvel has an already established list of the smartest people on Earth:

1. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic)
2. Victor Von Doom (Doctor Doom)
3. Bruce Banner (The Hulk)
4. Hank Pym (Ant-Man)
5. Tony Stark (Iron Man)
6. Hank McCoy (Beast)
7. Amadeus Cho
8. T'Challa (Black Panther)

You're welcome.

[Mike_Murdock]

The wanted Tony, but he was in a coma.

I don't think that's right. I thought Luna was declared smartest there is before that point.

[Tony Stark]

Marvel has an already established list of the smartest people on Earth:

1. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic)
2. Victor Von Doom (Doctor Doom)
3. Bruce Banner (The Hulk)
4. Hank Pym (Ant-Man)
5. Tony Stark (Iron Man)
6. Hank McCoy (Beast)
7. Amadeus Cho
8. T'Challa (Black Panther)

You're welcome.

Were did you get that list?