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As a queer woman I find it inspiring that a cishet white man may someday find it in him to share his brand with me.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:01
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JoshTheStampede posted:It's hyperbole, but am I misunderstanding you that Miles and Sam don't matter unless Peter and Steve are dead or otherwise out of the universe? I am saying that as long as Peter and Steve are around and active that Miles is not Spider-Man and Sam is not Captain America. They are, at best, "A Spider-Man" and "A Captain America" and at the end of the day the mere existence of Peter and Steve means there is an unspoken (or, because this is the internet, a very often spoken) "real" or "true" Spider-Man and Captain America. I like Peter and I like Steve and I will gladly read books about them when one is not a Nazi (not because it's bad, just because I'm honestly not interested in the plotline) and the other isn't being written by Dan Slott. This doesn't make them bad characters, it doesn't make the stories bad, and it doesn't mean I don't want to read them, but it does mean that the argument of "they're diversifying the main cast" always includes an * which reads (but the 'real' ones are still around and will be back eventually.)
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Jun 30, 2016 01:01
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Mr Hootington posted:Ghostbusters is an IP that has laid dormant for close to 20 years and was reinvented once already. It is a revitalization of a brand. No company is going to take a cash cow IP that is currently pumping out merchandise and movies and radically change it mid stride. They will play it safe until it quits making tons of money. Let it cool and try to rebrand it. Luckily comic IPs have this great petri dish that they can experiment and try new things with to see what sticks. That's your solution? "If you don't like things just as they are and want change, well too bad, better wait until comics are totally dead and then maybe we can consider doing a big reboot"
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Jun 30, 2016 01:03
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In all honesty, I think introducing legacy characters and giving them front and center roles like Miles and Sam have is better than making up new people who may or may not catch on. Would people care as much about Miles if he was Captain Whatever instead of Spider-Man, even if he is A Spider-Man? Is Sam being A Cap worse than when he was Falcon, already a second-stringer to Cap?
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Jun 30, 2016 01:07
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TwoPair posted:That's your solution? "If you don't like things just as they are and want change, well too bad, better wait until comics are totally dead and then maybe we can consider doing a big reboot" I mean, if it's major change that you really want, that's your only useful option. Complaining on a message board, as entertaining and cathartic as it may be, isn't going to change much. I suppose you could mount a major public campaign or attempt to align your career into the cause of changing comic books, but that sounds like a lot of work.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:08
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TwoPair posted:That's your solution? "If you don't like things just as they are and want change, well too bad, better wait until comics are totally dead and then maybe we can consider doing a big reboot" Yep vote with your wallet because they are a business. I gave that advice because I live like that. I do not shop at Hobby Lobby, eat Chick-fil-a, eat, Papa Johns, or use Uber. You do not like something a business is doing, do not buy the product or service. Man it is hard to stand by your principles and not reward poor behavior or stances you disagree with.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:09
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Sam is still a second stringer to Steve and him being Cap only adds Marvel getting to pimp their progressive status because look, Cap is black, kind of sort of technically. Miles is kind of a special case, since he was intended to be the only Spider-Man(in his universe) but caught on so well he got imported.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:10
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As long as the character stays the same, it's hard to imagine anything less important than their sexual orientation or their race. Why do I give two shits who they're loving? It's the character that is important.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:14
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ashpanash posted:As long as the character stays the same, it's hard to imagine anything less important than their sexual orientation or their race. Why do I give two shits who they're loving? It's the character that is important. I hate to say it, but sexual orientation and race are important. A gay woman, latino man, black woman, and white man will all live completely different lives and have different experiences and the characters would be shaped differently.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:16
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Also while who someone is loving probably shouldn't matter, who they love certainly can matter to a story.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:19
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Gay Steve Rogers would not have a fundamentally different personality or outlook on life.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:20
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WickedHate posted:Gay Steve Rogers would not have a fundamentally different personality or outlook on life. Not if he were magically transformed into a gay man with no history, no. If he was a gay man his whole life in the 1930s and was suddenly transported to modern day then he definitely would have a different outlook in some ways.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:22
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Sounds like a lot of good avenues for storytelling.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:25
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Did you feel that Michael B. Jordan's Human Torch didn't complain enough about discrimination from cops to reflect his new ethnicity?
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Jun 30, 2016 01:25
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Mr Hootington posted:Yep vote with your wallet because they are a business. I gave that advice because I live like that. I do not shop at Hobby Lobby, eat Chick-fil-a, eat, Papa Johns, or use Uber. You do not like something a business is doing, do not buy the product or service. Man it is hard to stand by your principles and not reward poor behavior or stances you disagree with. It is possible to hold a stance between "they are completely wrong" and "they are completely right" whereupon choosing not to buy isn't very sensible unless you really are doing the energy of the perfect is the good thing.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:27
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WickedHate posted:Did you feel that Michael B. Jordan's Human Torch didn't complain enough about discrimination from cops to reflect his new ethnicity? No, because we only had two hours to meet that character and it didn't come up, plus it was a bad movie anyway. But if Johnny were a black man in the comic books for years his life would be different in some ways and that would be reflected in the book. You can't just palette swap white straight characters and claim that's diversity, because it doesn't at all reflect or address what actual people of that race/orientation experience.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:29
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This feels like a really dumb thing to get hung up on and insist upon, but even if you were doing stories about that sort of stuff the character would still be, effectively, the same person with some added experiences.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:32
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WickedHate posted:Did you feel that Michael B. Jordan's Human Torch didn't complain enough about discrimination from cops to reflect his new ethnicity? I didn't see the movie because it look awful. I was also very much for Michael B. Jordan being the Torch because he is a good actor.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:34
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Yeah I mean, I've been reading Ms. Marvel's last few issues and her religion/race hasn't really come up except for little background images. It's not like any of it changes her character or who she is. Maybe a story will come along once in a while that will reflect some social pressures, but most issues it'll be fighting bug monsters I'm guessing.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:36
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The early issues of Sam Cap are basically all about how different it is received by people when Cap is black. Suddenly the staunch defense of civil rights and standing up for your beliefs about what America means is seen as unpatriotic rabble rousing when a black guy does it.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:38
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This is the same thinking that gave us black Wally West, the juvenile delinquent with an absent dad.JoshTheStampede posted:The early issues of Sam Cap are basically all about how different it is received by people when Cap is black. Suddenly the staunch defense of civil rights and standing up for your beliefs about what America means is seen as unpatriotic rabble rousing when a black guy does it. There's no reason this story couldn't be done with black Steve Rogers too.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:38
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WickedHate posted:This is the same thinking that gave us black Wally West, the juvenile delinquent with an absent dad. Yeah, that is an example of the wrong way to do it. Sam and Kamala are examples of the right way, where their race or religion inform their experiences and are part of their character without being cartoonish stereotypes.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:40
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JoshTheStampede posted:The early issues of Sam Cap are basically all about how different it is received by people when Cap is black. Suddenly the staunch defense of civil rights and standing up for your beliefs about what America means is seen as unpatriotic rabble rousing when a black guy does it. Yeah, and that's fine, and you get it out of the way, and you either tell good stories with it or you move on to other stories. I guess I'm not really seeing what the issue here is? It's not like the entire character has changed. It's just using the character's personality as a lens to tell stories. They get on to exploring the universe soon enough.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:42
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WickedHate posted:Which is why having Spider-Man 2 and Cap 2 at all is dumb. Either make the originals black or whatever or just make new characters/pull out underused existing ones. This is an argument you see a lot in nerd discussion, and it's always an argument that ignores the business side. If Marvel "just [made] new characters," those new characters would be DOA because they haven't been around for 25-plus years, with the notable exception of Kamala. Marvel is largely staffed by progressive dudes who see the value of representation, but it's a catch-22. They can't just introduce new characters to broaden their world, because it's throwing money on a fire, but they can successfully diversify their audience by handing off the mantles to new characters. That, in turn, gives them a ton of mainstream press, changes up the stories they can tell, and at least in the case of Thor, gives them a huge sales boost. One thing I don't think enough people have noticed and/or given Marvel enough credit for, though, is how they've been handling the supporting casts lately. Tony's dating that girl from Sri Lanka and hanging out in Japan, Peter's spending a lot of time in China, Daredevil's sidekick is an undocumented Chinese immigrant, Silk's best friends are two women who are dating, Deadpool has a Latina daughter, etc. The world feels a bit wider and less homogeneous than it did before.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:45
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ashpanash posted:Yeah, and that's fine, and you get it out of the way, and you either tell good stories with it or you move on to other stories. I guess I'm not really seeing what the issue here is? It's not like the entire character has changed. It's just using the character's personality as a lens to tell stories. They get on to exploring the universe soon enough. I don't have an issue with it, I was responding to the assertion that race and gender and orientation don't matter to a character at all.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:50
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ashpanash posted:Maybe a story will come along once in a while that will reflect some social pressures, but most issues it'll be fighting bug monsters I'm guessing. They just had a whole arc where the villain was gentrification. How is that not a social pressure?
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Jun 30, 2016 01:50
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 *kisses fingers, makes mwah sound*
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Jun 30, 2016 01:53
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Wanderer posted:Marvel is largely staffed by progressive dudes who see the value of representation, but it's a catch-22. They can't just introduce new characters to broaden their world, because it's throwing money on a fire, but they can successfully diversify their audience by handing off the mantles to new characters. That, in turn, gives them a ton of mainstream press, changes up the stories they can tell, and at least in the case of Thor, gives them a huge sales boost. That's a pretty defeatist attitude when every single Avenger except for Hulk and maybe Thor was, at best, solidly b-list as far as the mainstream public was concerned until the MCU hit the scene. If you told someone at the beginning of the century Iron Man would someday be an icon rivaling Batman and Superman you'd think they were goddamn crazy.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:55
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There is no amount of killing off or shelving the originals that would elevate Sam Wilson from Captain Falcon or Jane Foster from Lady Thor for the people who call them Captain Falcon and Lady Thor.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:56
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JoshTheStampede posted:I don't have an issue with it, I was responding to the assertion that race and gender and orientation don't matter to a character at all. They don't matter. Not to the character. If you don't like the stories, that's another issue. But it has little to do with the character. TwoPair posted:They just had a whole arc where the villain was gentrification. How is that not a social pressure? I guess it just seemed like Ms. Marvel was acting like Ms. Marvel and that's kind of all I cared about.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:57
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WickedHate posted:That's a pretty defeatist attitude when every single Avenger except for Hulk and maybe Thor was, at best, solidly b-list as far as the mainstream public was concerned until the MCU hit the scene. If you told someone at the beginning of the century Iron Man would someday be an icon rivaling Batman and Superman you'd think they were goddamn crazy. If you told someone at the beginning of the century there would be a black president then a woman president and gay people could marry they would think you were crazy.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:59
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How many times does this have to be repeated? The MCU isn't the 616. The MCU has no bearing on the 616. The demographics that like the 616 aren't as large, as wide or as popular as the ones that like the MCU. Something working in one has no bearing on it working in the other. It's not some copy-paste, you're talking about seventy years of informed history and a totally different medium and comparing it up-and-down to a series with like four years of history as a collective movie franchise and pretending they're at all equivalent.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:59
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Mr Hootington posted:If you told someone at the beginning of the century there would be a black president then a woman president and gay people could marry they would think you were crazy. Yeah, and it happened anyway thanks to people who didn't see it as doomed efforts from the start.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:00
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Wanderer posted:This is an argument you see a lot in nerd discussion, and it's always an argument that ignores the business side. If Marvel "just [made] new characters," those new characters would be DOA because they haven't been around for 25-plus years, with the notable exception of Kamala. Prove it, prove anything you just said.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:02
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WickedHate posted:Yeah, and it happened anyway thanks to people who didn't see it as doomed efforts from the start. That's what they said about letting in the Irish. Sometimes change is fast and sometimes change is slow, but there's always change. That's not an opinion. That's just plain old physics. ashpanash fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jun 30, 2016 |
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Jun 30, 2016 02:02
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JoshTheStampede posted:Would people care as much about Miles if he was Captain Whatever instead of Spider-Man, even if he is A Spider-Man? Is Sam being A Cap worse than when he was Falcon, already a second-stringer to Cap? You're obfuscating the issue though. Sam being A Cap is better than Falcon but it is worse than him being The Captain America. The presence of all the "original" heroes makes all the legacy heroes... not legacies. It makes them seem like they're around so Marvel can have their cake and eat it too by pointing out their diversity but have the originals around for all the people going "Not My Cap!" I think this is why Jane Foster has worked out pretty well as Thor, because Aaron has largely gotten rid of Thor Odinson after Jane's first arc. By not having Odinson just be a presence all over Marvel like Steve Rogers or Peter Parker, it lets Jane really become Thor.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:08
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ashpanash posted:That's what they said about letting in the Irish. And I thank god they let us in. Too bad whitey took and destroyed our culture.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:15
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TwoPair posted:You're obfuscating the issue though. Sam being A Cap is better than Falcon but it is worse than him being The Captain America. The presence of all the "original" heroes makes all the legacy heroes... not legacies. It makes them seem like they're around so Marvel can have their cake and eat it too by pointing out their diversity but have the originals around for all the people going "Not My Cap!" I think this is why Jane Foster has worked out pretty well as Thor, because Aaron has largely gotten rid of Thor Odinson after Jane's first arc. By not having Odinson just be a presence all over Marvel like Steve Rogers or Peter Parker, it lets Jane really become Thor. Until the movie that will make millions of dollars.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:17
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WickedHate posted:That's a pretty defeatist attitude when every single Avenger except for Hulk and maybe Thor was, at best, solidly b-list as far as the mainstream public was concerned until the MCU hit the scene. If you told someone at the beginning of the century Iron Man would someday be an icon rivaling Batman and Superman you'd think they were goddamn crazy. There's nothing "defeatist" about it. It's realistic. In the current direct market, Marvel is actually being considerably less risk-averse than people give them credit for. Yeah, Deadpool's on the cover of every second book, but if they were simply out to maximize profits, they'd never have gone on the diversity initiative to begin with and they'd sure never have published something like Hyperion or Nighthawk or Starbrand and Nightmask. It'd be nothing but Spider-Man, Deadpool, and the big seven Avengers from hell to breakfast. If you can honestly say that a brand-new book like the one you're advocating for, with a new, non-legacy character who's queer, colored, or both, would last more than six issues in the direct market, then you're insane. It might pull a Kamala or a Jane Foster and ride the controversy to an audience, but everything we have seen about modern comics indicates such would not be the case.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:26
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You're missing my point, which is that Iron Man and Captain America might as well have been nobodies before they got movies. There are like eleven Avengers titles now because of the movies. None of the adapted characters were anything but straight white men(including, now, Spider-Man) and we got Scott Lang before we got a single movie starring either a black guy or a woman. The comics and the MCU are related. I'm not saying they should start cranking out a horde of new movies, but clearly, they can take characters that weren't too appreciated beyond geekdom before and make them into huge draws if they put forth the effort.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:37
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