Chanigng characters race or sexuality for DC characters

[Mutant 77]

How do you guys feel about this.

I don't think I'm allowed to express my thoughts about this.

[scary harpy]

All that is true.

and...what good does that do for Tim Drake?

Grayson is the icon; Jason is the punisher, Damian is the Son Of the Batman; Tim is....the black-haired, blue-eyed Third Robin.

DC has Zer0 idea what to do with him. There is abundant evidence that TPTB are clueless concerning this character.

If being biracial would help distinguish Tim from other Robins, then I would not object.

Insisting Tim remain Caucasian because of 30 years and over 200 solo issues may just condemn him to remain the Third Robin.

I am not against racebending depending on how it is done, but changing Tim's race is not automatically going to make him popular again.

True.

It won't make him automatically popular again.

It may make DC want to use this character again. I cannot promise this.

I know if we don't try something new, DC will repeat old mistakes.

And what would being biracial exactly do for the character?

I mean over the last 20 years we had 6 attempts to add black male character to the Bat franchise, the first 5 were not terrible successfull sofar, with number 6 it is a little to early to make the call.

The two big reason why Tim struggles as a character are imo that the new 52 reboot completely erased all of his history, which alienated a lot of his long-term fans, and that the books with him as lead that were put out since than were really bad.
Making him biracial would basically repeat the first mistake and and not really help with the second.

All history is restored somewhere in the Mega-Multi-Omni-verse. Where? Your guess is as good as mine.

Tim being biracial shouldn't affect his history. DC probably should have made Tim biracial to begin with instead of just a replacement for Jason.

I agree the books with Tim have been bad...but we cannot do much about this other than not buying a bad book. This why I buy a only 2 comics now...one is with Batman and Scooby Doo.

And what does not buying a book get us?

A cancelled book and no book with Tim.

I think this creates a repeating of cycle of unhappiness for us readers.

I'm hoping with this small change...maybe...DC will revitalize this character. I hope.

[Aahz]

All history is restored somewhere in the Mega-Multi-Omni-verse. Where? Your guess is as good as mine.

But by the time the damage was done, and they have still not really clarified what his current status quo is (are his parents alive or not?), or really used much of his long history.

I'm hoping with this small change...maybe...DC will revitalize this character. I hope.

What he needs is a decent solo series (and if it is just a mini), I don't see how race bending him will do anything to revitalize the character. And I can't really think of any character where that worked.

[Dred]

Again, I'm not saying that people don't love ginger Wally but the Flash in Justice League and JLU is just the Flash to people. They don't know the difference between Wally and Barry or any of the other Flash's, and would be inclined to think that it's Barry in that show.



No one is saying people will forget ginger Wally. In fact, I say in the same post you quoted that he's not likely to be racebent in comics.



Did you miss the part where the West family in the DCEU is already established as being black and where outside of cartoons Wally's family is seen as black and Wally himself is probably seen as black? China has already seen a black Iris West as well as Wally West because surely the Flash show has reached it, and they were presumably more than okay with that. I don't think DC could afford the potential backlash that would come from making the West's white in any future film or cartoon now - especially not Wally when Wally is likely going to be representing two separate characters, one of whom is black in the comics.

They just use Wallace. It's a pretty easy delineation at this point that any white "Wally" is Wally and any black "Wally" is a Wallace adaptation at this point. It's not like either in the comics are any more Iris' "brother" or not and they handed Wallace the car obsession that they used for CW Wallace.

CW Wally is pretty much nothing like Wally, at least in like the first three seasons he was in that I saw. Not sure where you're getting "faithful adaptation" on that one because, frankly, there's no faithful adaptation with Wally in a world with no Titans and him never being The Flash.

[scary harpy]

But by the time the damage was done, and they have still not really clarified what his current status quo is (are his parents alive or not?), or really used much of his long history.

What he needs is a decent solo series (and if it is just a mini), I don't see how race bending him will do anything to revitalize the character. And I can't really think of any character where that worked.

You're probably right.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

I feel like we are treading water with Tim's character right now.

I cannot foresee this changing.

[Vakanai]

I'm against racebending entirely, but have nothing against legacy characters being POC. Sexual orientation is a...tricky matter. Depends how it's done, but mostly I don't like changing characters like that.

The best option is just creating new characters, and better pushing those who already exist.

[Nite-Wing]

I think raceswapping is the future for the movies and tv shows
Sexual fluidity is going to be a lot easier to ease into comics imo than tv shows or movies
Nobody is seriously whining about alan scott being gay vs say someone complaining that deadshot is being played by will smith
Marvel for a time tried to say Peter could be any race under his mask and then they created miles and sort of lost that message



They have sort of learned that these characters skin color mean very little and was mostly locked in during a time where American comics had absolutely no media featuring minorities as heroes until basically star trek debuted
I think fans especially the hardcore comic fans latch onto the comic books as the bastion of the lore and utter adherence to it is paramount even in spite of the sometimes ludicrous nature of the medium

I mean nowadays TV shows and movies are prioritizing diversity
The comics landscape is never going to catch up to that because the fanbase is too old and too set on reading the same things all the time

[DrNewGod]

...Typically the characters who are permanently changed are the C-Listers. Take Hawkman: With the reincarnation angle I could easily see Carter being black across the board going forward if Black Adam is a success. He’s got a small fanbase but the mainstream audience doesn’t know him at all really...

I wonder if it's that Hawkman's base is teensy, or that it's hopelessly splintered? But...I digress.

[The Cool Thatguy]

The comics landscape is never going to catch up to that because the fanbase is too old and too set on reading the same things all the time

Lets blame the writers, please

Dan D et all were the ones who advocated turning back the clock to their childhood, not us

[Vakanai]

I think raceswapping is the future for the movies and tv shows
Sexual fluidity is going to be a lot easier to ease into comics imo than tv shows or movies
Nobody is seriously whining about alan scott being gay vs say someone complaining that deadshot is being played by will smith
Marvel for a time tried to say Peter could be any race under his mask and then they created miles and sort of lost that message



They have sort of learned that these characters skin color mean very little and was mostly locked in during a time where American comics had absolutely no media featuring minorities as heroes until basically star trek debuted
I think fans especially the hardcore comic fans latch onto the comic books as the bastion of the lore and utter adherence to it is paramount even in spite of the sometimes ludicrous nature of the medium

I mean nowadays TV shows and movies are prioritizing diversity
The comics landscape is never going to catch up to that because the fanbase is too old and too set on reading the same things all the time

There's actual POC characters to use though without raceswapping, and the MCU has proven you don't need to use the "big" characters to make a killing. Why raceswap when you can just use those POC characters? Just give Vixen a movie. Get Steel a streaming series. DC has great POC characters already, they should just push those. Meanwhile, the comics need to shift out of the direct market model and over to the wider book model where these POC characters and LGBTQ characters actually have a chance finding a wider audience. The current model is outdated and dwindling year by year.

[The Darknight Detective]

Lets blame the writers, please

Dan D et all were the ones who advocated turning back the clock to their childhood, not us

Except what was being published wasn't really like the Silver/Bronze age characters and concepts, though.

[Veni]

I think raceswapping is the future for the movies and tv shows
Sexual fluidity is going to be a lot easier to ease into comics imo than tv shows or movies
Nobody is seriously whining about alan scott being gay vs say someone complaining that deadshot is being played by will smith
Marvel for a time tried to say Peter could be any race under his mask and then they created miles and sort of lost that message



They have sort of learned that these characters skin color mean very little and was mostly locked in during a time where American comics had absolutely no media featuring minorities as heroes until basically star trek debuted
I think fans especially the hardcore comic fans latch onto the comic books as the bastion of the lore and utter adherence to it is paramount even in spite of the sometimes ludicrous nature of the medium

I mean nowadays TV shows and movies are prioritizing diversity
The comics landscape is never going to catch up to that because the fanbase is too old and too set on reading the same things all the time

I am also against racebending. DC has many amazing POC to choose from. They could make movies/tv-shows about Katana, Vixen, Doctor Light ( Kimiyo Hoshi ), Bronze Tiger, Mister Terrific, etc. Marvel is making movies and tv shows about superheroes from various ethnicities/races without resorting to racebending. Even tho I like DC more than Marvel, one of the reasons I hate about DC is their constant reboots ( not only the comics but the movies and TV shows as well) while Marvel has never done that and the only characters who are getting rebooted in the MCU are the X-Men and Fantastic Four ( and will be the permanent versions moving on) as a result of the MCU which is the biggest media franchise of all time.

[John Venus]

There's actual POC characters to use though without raceswapping, and the MCU has proven you don't need to use the "big" characters to make a killing. Why raceswap when you can just use those POC characters? Just give Vixen a movie. Get Steel a streaming series. DC has great POC characters already, they should just push those. Meanwhile, the comics need to shift out of the direct market model and over to the wider book model where these POC characters and LGBTQ characters actually have a chance finding a wider audience. The current model is outdated and dwindling year by year.

But then again, if you are adapting, say, the Flash without race bending then nearly every body in the main cast would be white.

I'm all for pushing existing minority characters but race bending is a necessary tool if you want to maintain the longevity of these characters.

[DrNewGod]

But then again, if you are adapting, say, the Flash without race bending then nearly every body in the main cast would be white.

I'm all for pushing existing minority characters but race bending is a necessary tool if you want to maintain the longevity of these characters.

Again, it depends. As long as Euro-Americans dominate the socio-economic elite of the US, I doubt that it works for Batman or Green Arrow. Superman may now be in play because his story has him being raised among humble farmers, any ethnicity that can be attached to US agriculture would work, although a racially ambiguous figure might be for the best. Dr. Fate can be almost anything you like.

[Dred]

But then again, if you are adapting, say, the Flash without race bending then nearly every body in the main cast would be white.

I'm all for pushing existing minority characters but race bending is a necessary tool if you want to maintain the longevity of these characters.

Flash was the first Big 2 solo comic with an interracial family and gay supporting character. This is just not the case and is only the case if you force the comic to live in the 1960s. Racebending is hardly a necessary tool.

The diversity message might actually make a lick of sense if Barry as the main character was being race swapped since he's, you know, the main character and the one being inserted into movies. Racebending supporting characters and pretending you added diversity is silly. Iris West isn't on any movie posters and if you wanted a Flash with a minority love interest then Wally is right there.