Why isn't diversity in comics and comics material done organically anymore...

Why isn't diversity in comics and comics material done organically anymore? Nobody was pissed when it was done in the past be ause it wasn't to pander and heroes weren't getting arbitrarily replaced

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Question of the fucking day, user.

America lost its shit after 9/11
They went full patriotic with the war on Iraq but like that wasn't working, they tried becoming liberals with Obama but the damage was already done.

The moral is never go full retarded

Social Justice is "in" right now.

BLM and the push for a mirrion genders means it's more topical and by catering to SJW, you might get a bigger sales boost.

Back in the 60's Marvel introduced new black characters like Bill Foster and Robbie Robertson. It probably feels more organic because it's a sincere effort to get more black characters in comics, when compared to the new black female Iron Man.

Does anyone think Iron Man will be a black girl for the next five years? Does anyone think female Thor will stay female Thor forever?

Compare this to Black Panther, who began getting developed for his own solo series in Avengers.

>Nobody was pissed
I was. I was REALLY pissed about that.

>Nobody was pissed when it was done in the past because it wasn't to pander and heroes weren't getting arbitrarily replaced
You just answered your own question, in a way.
Because no one got pissed at something, some in the Biz feel that means they missed out on publicity and the attention it draws to what's going to happen with that character.
It's a genius formula, user.
>drum up readers through engineered controversy
>if the old hero is replaced? Even better, now they have to read it to find out where the heroes legacy is going
>if they're angry, they'll bitch about it online, meaning word will spread faster about it, meaning more might take a look for themselves
>roll in dosh while also seeming progressive and politically correct even though most of them almost certainly don't even care, excluding fem-thor's writer and the like
And as you can imagine, marvel does this more because DC is bad at making sound economical decisions.

The problem now is the fact that all of this seem pretty fucking forced.
the worse exemple is probably the new squirrel girl comics.

It is done organically -- see DC. Casuals just don't care, though. For them, the new characters quite literally have to REPLACE older heroes.

you're talking about subtly, something many comic writers don't know about.

social justice or politically correct has been around since the 90s, the cartoon duckman sorta dealt with it alot.
youtube.com/watch?v=knIroVvPZU4

>it wasn't to pander and heroes weren't getting arbitrarily replaced
Why did you ask a question you can answer yourself?

>and heroes weren't getting arbitrarily replaced

Are you being sarcastic? Aquaman was specifically left out because they needed a woman and John was chosen over Kyle and Hal because he was black

It was pandering but it was good so it didn't matter. Just like every other diversity decision. People got over stuff like Jaime as Blue Beetle because the stories were good.

I thought that his pic was an example of diversity done improperly.

noone was pissed cause you didnt look at anonymous image boards when it aired lol

To be honest, Marvel is the only comicbook company that is actually pulling this retarded shit off, enither DC or smaller publisher like Valiant or Image actually do this becuase they actually put out decent material.
Marvel is just compensating how shit all of their comicbook releases have been for the past 5 or so years with wow factor by hopelessly catering to a demographic who doesn't even read comics and just makes noise about it on Twitter.
>'Look guys, Spiderman is now black AND latino, how inclusive is that, huh?
>'We made Thor a girl now, GIRL POWER amirite?
>'Guys Miss Marvel is a muslim now we aren't we great?
>'We felt we weren't being inclusive enough so goodbye Tony, hello 15 year old black girl!'
I wouldn't worry about it too much honestly, it's really not working out for them, the first issues sell, then the numbers take a nosedive.

social justice, womens lib especially, was huge in the 90s, the difference was that you were allowed to make fun of it on TV

DC has a lot of diversity legacies but they don't sell them like that anymore

Why isn't diversity in comics and comics material done organically anymore? Nobody was pissed when it was done in the past be ause it wasn't to pander and heroes weren't getting arbitrarily replaced


they are though.. the problem is marvel needs money and they way they do it is by stripping out all relevant story points and just give time magazine and bbc the titel.

miles morales story went from "new spider-man successor in the ultimates universe" to "BLACK 13 YEAR OLD BOY IS THE FACE OF THE NEW SPIDER-MAN"

like shit dude talk about feeding the controversy.

How was that organic? It was obviously done because they didn't want the team to be all-white or Wonder Woman to be the only female. If they'd gone by the comics John would not have been Green Lantern and Hawkgirl would certainly not be a founding member.

It ended up working out, so it feels "organic." But that's all it really means - if it works, we think it was a good idea all along.

I can only think of Mr. Terrific and Jaime right now. Who else?

More like they got Johns'd

Kid Flash in Rebirth now, I believe

They need to stop replacing old Superheroes with new ones and just create new characters .By replacing an existing character you’re saying “we do not have faith in diverse characters being able to sell books, so we’ll just shoehorn them into this already popular one.” We need to show them that we want new original characters and that they should have faith in them. We need more black Superheroes like Static, Icon, Black Lightning and Bumblebee .

And that's a good approach by them, honestly.
Sell them as 'The next X', not making noise everywhere on the internet ny advertising them as 'The next racially diverse X'.

Nobody cares, Hal.

>“we do not have faith in diverse characters being able to sell books, so we’ll just shoehorn them into this already popular one.”
But it's true, though.

Why was it that Earth ended up getting 5 different humans to be overlapping Green Lanterns? I know black Jon Stewart was number 4, wasn't he?

>Why isn't diversity in comics and comics material done organically anymore?

It was never "organic", it was always a conscious decision on the part of the creators. You're like someone on Sup Forums who claimed a few weeks back that Star Trek was "subtle" in its social messages. It was a fucking brick to the face of 1960s America.

>Nobody was pissed when it was done in the past

Of course they were. If you ever read decades old letters to the editors in vintage comics or Usenet discussion archives, you'll see that comics geeks were exactly the same as they are today - shrill & reactionary to any change or story direction they didn't personally approve of.

>it wasn't to pander and heroes weren't getting arbitrarily replaced

It's funny how people only start complaining about "pandering" when they're the ones who stop being pandered to for a moment. And heroes were absolutely getting arbitrarily replaced in the past. Does Beth Chapel ring a bell? She took over the role of Dr. Mid-Nite in the early 1980s. How about Yolanda Montez? She was Wildcat. Inza Nelson? Doctor Fate. It's worth noting that all of them died and were replaced by their white, male predecessors because comics geeks, including writers, are always the same.

What about Kyle Rayner? He actually was Green Lantern on Superman: TAS. And then they made Justice League and it was like "no, no, Kyle can't come over and play, it's got to be the guy whose name sounds like a late-night comedian's."

I imagine there must have been some outrage from Kylites at the time.

No one cares about completely new characters with no ties to existing popular characters, they're right to not have faith in them.

If you had any familiarity with Hawkman and Hawkgirl you'd know this show was a slap in the face to both characters.

People just don't like seeing their favorite characters changed in any way. Look at George Takei. He doesn't like Sulu being gay even though he's gay and it's a tribute to him. But that's not how he thought of the character, so he doesn't like it.

Fine, most fans don't have as personal a connection with characters as the actor who played him, but the point is characters are our imaginary friends, or our imaginary better selves, and we don't want them touched.

Im still pissed her monster girl face turned out to be a helmet...

And let's face it, also a slap in the face to Aquaman. We forget that because this show helped prove to people that Aquaman wasn't lame, but obviously Hawkgirl took what should have been his spot.

Again, it worked, so it's OK.

>Why isn't diversity in comics and comics material done organically anymore?


they are though.. the problem is marvel needs money and they way they do it is by stripping out all relevant story points and just give time magazine and bbc the titel.
miles morales story went from "new spider-man successor in the ultimates universe" to "BLACK 13 YEAR OLD BOY IS THE FACE OF THE NEW SPIDER-MAN"
like shit dude talk about feeding the controversy.

You know, I've thought a lot about this and why it pisses me the fuck off. And you know what conclusion I've come to?

It's fucking LAZY. "Take character X, now that hero is ethnicity Y. Aren't we inclusive? Check out the new face of X! A new hero, for a new age!"

I'm going to use a character that I myself don't like or read at all, so forgive me if I'm not entirely accurate here. But you wanna know why Black Panther is Black Panther, and not, say, Black Hawkeye? It's because if you want to appeal to a new demographic, you should do it RIGHT. Take ethnicity whatever the fuck flavor you're going for, and build a NEW character around that identity. Black Panther is very clearly a black hero for black people. If that doesn't appeal to me? Fine, I don't need to read it. He's got his own series, with his own stories. He's not rammed down my fucking throat like femThor is if I want to read about norse mythology.

You don't need to change the identiy of something people have gotten really attached to to be inclusive. You can make NEW heroes, instead of changing old ones. Whenever they do change the old to be more "inclusive" what they're really doing is taking the lazy way out of writing a compelling story about a new character with new and maybe unfamiliar struggles that ethnicity faces.

What pisses me off isn't comics pushing new ethnicities to the forefront. It's them doing it at the expense of what's already there. And above all else it's FUCKING LAZY. Make some new heroes to represent these people, who can stand side-by-side with the heroes we pasty white manchildren know and love, as equals. For fuck's sake.

Who was the last completely new hero?
Who was the last one to get popular?

Deadpool?

Hal was first, Guy was his back up until he got injured then John became the back up, then John ended up a full-time GL

Then some bullshit happened and Kyle came along, then for a while the four of them co existed, then Simon Baz happened because reasons, then Jessica Cruz happened also because reasons

because it used to be natural and organic, now it's "take THAT white people/men/straight people" etc.

>organically

What?

Hawkgirl was the reincarnation of an alien who cheated on her husband because she wanted some black dick.

She was solely born for the purpose of being BLACKED and got horny as fuck when she learned she was going to breed black alien babies.

Even John wanted to break it off because he felt destiny was telling them to hook up as opposed to falling in love with her on his own.

Mantle diversity is the wrong way to go.

Mantle characters in general actually.

It's good when you introduce a new one without really getting rid of the old one, GL minus Kyle is a good example. Helps for adding in-universe history and new character relationships. Always addition over replacement.

replacing Kyle with John is Timm's biggest blunder

Bisexual Biracial Atheist with Autism here that has a negative privilege scote (I took one of those stupid tests) and I agree. I don't mind diversity at all but diversity for the sake of itself is meaningless and pure pandering to those that place character value on superficial things like race and gender. Some would call these people racists or sexists but this is 2016 and these people are considered "enlightened" today. Dicersity is fine or even good depending on the story, but diversity of character is the most important.

But nobody really goes for new characters with no ties to popular ones. That's always been a problem.

Right
Black Panther should be the face of diversity not the shoehorned trenddy replacement superheroes that get churned out every year

Sometimes character swaps do make sense like when cap was relaced by falcon. In the context of the story it seems logical because of who Falcon is. He's capable in his own right and established. He is Steve's friend and is worthy of the name of Captain America.

But a supergenius black grill outta nowhere is stupid

As an aside does anyone else find it racist that Marvel thinks an African-American director is the best fit for directing an AFRICAN (not american) hero? Like I'm black and what would I implicitly know about african culture and experiences compared to any other american?

>Nobody was pissed when it was done in the past

But that's wrong, McDuffie even made that video talking about how people were pissed about the minorities when he was writing too

Yo, they did sell them as the next best thing, it's just that none of them ended up lasting in the end.

It occasionally happens when they don't try so hard to make it about the "diverse" traits.

Take pic related for example, first volume was good and Billy, Teddy and Eli generally didn't feel forced at all, they just existed. Then came volume 2 and suddenly everything was "so gay!" "strong latina woman!" etc. which sucked balls because suddenly the diversity was more important than the story and the characters.

Not to mention that they aren't really utilizing the characters they already have. E.g. Northstar seems to have fallen of the face of the Earth and both Runaways and LoSH could practically support diversity central on their own but aren't even being published at the moment.

Yeah DC does diversity fine

Marvel goes full sjw

>Make a lame character
>Make them a non-white to shield them from criticism
>Give them another heroes identity so they'll be at least somewhat popular just for the name they took
It's sad because there are a lot of cool non-white characters that just fade into obscurity.
At least Night Thrasher's back.
Didn't people hate black Wally until old Wally came back?

...

This. Legacies are just lazy.

I was more mad that they used an irrelevant black guy, there's no blacks in my country so when i was a kid i hated "filler blacks" or as americans used to call them "token black guys". It's the same reason i hated Arnold, him having a black friend made no sense.

Because there wasn't any point to it.

I see this come up a lot and while I agree, I admit it's not really easy to do. Comics aren't super popular to begin with and most people who do buy comics are just buying the ones they're already familiar with, so it's pretty difficult to make a strong push with a brand new character.

What actually upsets me is that people are too dumb to realize they're being cheaply pandered to. They don't seem to comprehend that 90% of the time the company doesn't actually give a shit about their views of diversity, they care about fooling them into thinking they're helping their cause for a quick buck. They need to realize that instead of praising a story just for having a character with a diverse background, they should be focused on making sure those stories are praise-worthy. In the longterm they're not going to get what they want by encouraging every shit story just because it pretends to go along with their views.

More importantly, people need to stop trying to bend writers to their own views and desires. You're not going to get good diverse characters by forcing a creator to make them, you're going to get good diverse characters when a creator genuinely WANTS to make them.

it isnt. There's no such thing as organic fiction, old diversity is simply grandfathered in before you didn't care or you didn't really notice it. now that it's a hot button issue you see it everywhere.

That picture isn't helping your case, user. You know that they picked John as the Green Lantern to use on the JLU cartoon specifically because he was black, right? Otherwise they would've used Hal or Kyle.

I see there are people on Sup Forums who take fanfiction as canon

I think the most important question here is why are black mutants so lame? Can anyone name one that could be considered good besides Storm and Sunspot?

>sunspot
>black

...

>'Guys Miss Marvel is a muslim now we aren't we great?'

I thought she was done right like Jaime Reyes? I don't read any Marvel but she's got a large following here and her comics seem fun and cute.

oh I thought he was indian. my bad

Best post in the thread by a country mile.

Because white comic nerds will never find the presence of minorities "organic"

and now it'll definitely never happen. We're at the point where people get mad when white characters are white.

I just don't like it when it's forced.

This is correct. Ms. Marvel is like Jaime, except Jaime's predecessor was killed off and Carol was promoted, so she's even less of a "forced replacement" character.

Honestly, everyone who's getting pissed over this on ideological grounds needs to chill out and focus on the actual stories. They're what matter.

Ms. Marvel is the best teen legacy character I've seen since Jaime Reyes.

The new Thor is written by Jason Aaron, whose Thor comics were already plagued with Captain Planet-tier tone-deaf political commentary. Her series didn't work for me.

Miles Morales is written by Brian Bendis, so I've stayed well away, I can't comment on his stories.

>Nobody was pissed when it was done in the past

You're kidding, right? Even in your pic, people did nothing but bitch about the black green lantern in JLU. They thought that Hal deserved it and he only got in because of Dwayne. How delusional are you to believe this bullshit?

but that shits subjective. Someone's forced is another person's organic.

The only reason people don't complain about John is because Justice League Unlimited was a great show that a lot of anons remember nostalgically.

>It's a Hawkgirl chooses the writer's self-insert over the love of her life for a thousand years episode

Because that was in a time when the media wasn't trying to garner attention from a new demographic that's becoming more and more socially aware and discovering that the decision to replace a character can momentarily increase sales.

not exactly true. These things go in cycles, we're simply at a very vocal peak but there were always these types in media

If you want a great example of this, watch the scene with the three college girls and the black crow in the beginning of Bakshi's Fritz movie.

That's great to hear, when I eventually start reading Marvel I'll definitely check whatever material of her I can.

I got a huge soft spot for Jaime. I absolutely love his 2006 comic, his unusual personality and methods, the setting, his design and abilities being different enough from Ted's. And Ted, even in death is treated with a lot of respect, not to mention showcased in the Brave and the Bold and even in Young Justice. I really, really love how BatB handled him. I genuinely believe Jaime is a hero that benefited of trying to make a "diverse" character, as insane that must sound.

Hell, I'm reading 52 right now and while I don't know how good a Question Montoya was, the passing of the mask was superbly done. How he taught her, made her ask question, hang out with her, their banter, training... Being a huge fan of the 90s Question run, Vic's hallucinations of events from that series in his deathbed made me almost tear up.

I'm just glad that, regardless of forced fuck-ups there is a good way of doing this kind of character.

Kek

you know this isnt an example of that, right? just letting you know. they openly said they included these guys for diversity

They don't complain about it NOW, because the show was awesome in retrospect and so was John. That didn't stop the complaints and ridiculous rumors when the show was going on though.

I assume they chose an african-american director in order to appease the liberal media, rather than because Marvel thinks a black american implicitly knows all about african culture

>having a black friend in the inner city makes no sense

...

...

A whole generation learned that racism and sexism were bad, but never actually learned why outside of shallow shit like "we r all human" or, worse, "all life is equal". Left without an adequate justification for having empathy, everyone became horribly racist and sexist, but they remained in a society where racism and sexism were looked down upon, so they started coming up with shit to make them sound less bigoted. Thus, social justice was born, piggybacking off genuine egalitarians who envisioned a society of equals instead of a society of racist white guys bending over backwards to hide how much they look down on everyone else.

Shoehorned minority/female characters are the creative equivalent of screaming "BUT MY BEST FRIEND IS BLACK YOU CAN'T CRITICIZE MY OPINIONS".

>Women are just less emotionally resilient than men and need to work from home or be in tightly controlled environments where dick jokes aren't allowed, or their inferiority will get the best of them. Chivalry isn't dead, we need to accommodate women because us men have the privilege of being the best. *adjusts snapback*
>Also, check out my new comic about black lesbian superman and his best friend, otherkin flash. Black lives matter.

calm down trigga

Did you have a bad day, user?

It's true. This shit is full of white upper/middle class white kids.

It's the pro-social version of "dark enlightenment" retards that never received adequate justifications and ended up forming their own opinions counter the norm. Racists that desperately want to fit in.

Someone literally shit in my cornflakes this morning

>nice day
>eat breakfast outside in the sun
>wow there sure are a lot of robins in my backyard today

So you killed them all, right?

No they just shit in my cornflakes so I went inside and got more cornflakes

Kid, the writers of JL got fucking DEATH THREATS for pairing John with Shayera.
This. DC introduced a load of black characters in the 70s (Lucius Fox, John Stewart and Mal Duncan, to name but three) because of a survey they put out in... I want to say late '69. The Daily Planet hired a black couple as columnists... who were then replaced by a completely different black couple.

Really, one of the things that made DC lose market sales to Marvel back in the 60's was that Marvel actually acknowledged that black people existed outside of Africa and maybe a few crowd scenes.
Looking back, it was really fucking patronising how Rocket Racer was turned into TROUBLED YOUTH GETTING MIXED UP WITH THE GANGS for the 90's Spider-Man cartoon. And that goes double for Robbie's kid, especially when you read the Lee/Romita Snr. run and see how father and son had a rocky but overall sincere and loving relationship

I just get tired of all the bullshit. You can't escape it anywhere. Even when I logged onto tumblr today something felt off. I just wanted to check out new drawings from my favorite artists and there's more "black lives matter" bullshit and what do you know. New mass shooting because niggers are super racist. And artists are supporting them. They gunned down cops in cold blood and artists support them and people share their art all over the web. Went on twitter and same shit there. What's insane is how insane it all is. I know some of those artists don't even care about it and just want to gain fans and views.

>wow there sure are a lot of robins in my backyard today
Well, I'm glad there's no black Robin yet, Bruce, cause if I was a brooding vigilante, that would be a good sign that niglet I took from the streets was beyond civilizing.

These two characters on this show are the reason I fell in love with comics again
The entire arc with John and shayera was fantastic. Their relationship slowly building up through out the show then falls apart after her betrayal, and JL's trust is destroyed. Shayera slowly gaining JL trust back and reconciling with john, then you find out they have a kid.
Shayera's face reveal, wew.
Lots of great stuff.

The internet wasn't as big, that's why the world was a better place.

Is that nightwing?

I thought the protestors weren't the ones shooting

Superman once was a new character with no ties to established ones.
So was batman
And spiderman
And thor
And hulk
And ironman

A new character can become important.

there's no such thing as organic - if dc were to announce a brand new black hero tomorrow, as organic as that is, y'all would still scream FORCED