Confusion about minorities in comics

You know what I always found really strange? With the recent push for "Diversity/Minorities" in comic, there's not necessarily focus on creating cool characters or backstories. It's really strange to me that they'd want to make something as objectively terrible as "Black Ironman" or "Race-swapped existing hero."

Once one really thinks about it, comics are a medium where costumes, secret-identities, transformations and disguises are common. Wouldn't one think it'd be incredibly easy to make for lack of a better word, good, minority characters to the point where it doesn't actually matter? Just, give them an actual costume. Original powers and designs that make their race a detail rather than a focus. (And without making it stupidly blatant/obnoxious, like Miles Morales being literally the "Black Spiderman.) And the idea that their civilian identity might face adversity or discrimination in-verse -The very idea of a hiding their identity in the first place is, by virtue of being a superhero they're going to face backlash. So why doesn't Marvel actually take advantage of the concepts that capecomics allow to push diversity effectively?

Because they don't have any writers left who would actually know how to do that. The few who used to be decent have descended in to lazy mediocrity barring a few here and there.

I mean didn't people back in the day start to get upset over the endless _____Girl and She______ variations on classic characters because before they were fleshed out it they were just there to be the token girls? How is this current crop of dumb "Legacy" heroes any better than that in their eyes?

The funny thing is despite them being created with that mindset- Eventually they 'did' grow out of that stock mold. Characters like Batgirl and Shehulk got their own stories and developed their own identity. Characters lazily made for diversity points won't even get that much, nor be pushed with much initial appeal beyond the shameless push for twitter/media fanfare.

It's superfluous and simplistic, and has no concept of that which makes characters good. It's like, bad fanfiction. The people that make these are supposed to be professionals, how did we reach this point?

The characters don't pass for 'racial' if they're not an exaggerated caricature, or if they're behind a costume silly.

>Original powers and designs that make their race a detail rather than a focus.

Here's where you run into a confound. For these creators the RACE IS A FOCUS BY DESIGN. They want to tell stories where the race of the character is front and center.

So, creating something like Rictor, who's hispanic side isn't particularly relavent to the character really isn't what the creator wants in the first place.

Take Bends with Riri, or Spenser with mexifalcon, or the new patriot.

Now it's not necessarily a BAD thing that race is a focal point. But they're being as pandering and predictable as a chick tract.

Why did you post Mikasa?

New Super-Man has been pretty great OP. Chris Priest has a diverse cast in Deathstroke that is used very well. Basically, it's not a diversity or minority issue. It's a writer and editorial issue. Even if we look at Tom King: Kyle's Hispanic Catholic background was given an unusual emphasis within Omega Men but it fit with the religious and moral tone of the story and was used well within it.

Anyway, I'm glad you felt the need to make this thread fort he 10,000th time.

On that day mankind received a grim reminder; criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

Everytime I see DC or Marvel come up with a new "minority" character I instantly know three things. It's going to be terrible writing. It's shameless tokenism. It's going to be Black Ironman or Muslim Captain Atom, not something new. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt but I can hear the sound of some suit in marketing ticking boxes on a diversity bingo card. What's worse is I'm not sure what annoys me more, the tokenism or the rehashing of pre-existing characters to make cherokee captain america or hispanic ironman.

But Kenan (New Super-Man) and Tanya (new Power Girl) have been great and they're both new diversity characters from DC.

The shittyness of Black Wally cancels out those two, same way SamNova and Miles more than cancel out Kamala.

No, sorry, that's just retarded. You said "every time" and what you actually mean is you get so butthurt about bad things that you can't enjoy good ones? I get that's not an unsual attitude on Sup Forums but there has never been a point in history where comics were 100% good. Support what you like, don't support what you don't - that's the only way it can work.

And, shit, the Sam and Dick Nova miniseries was fantastic. No character is unsalvageable in the hands of the right creative team.

>No, sorry, that's just retarded. You said
I'm not that user.
>And, shit, the Sam and Dick Nova miniseries was fantastic
Too little too late for Sam.

>Original powers
This is actually a lot harder than you might think. There hasn't been a original powers set in years.

My own guidelines for checking out a legacy minority character would be something like:

>You actually have to pass the torch - that means meeting or a built-up relationship and not e.g. 'You can't be Iron Man' 'I'mma be Iron Man!'

>Don't boost up the new character by shitting on the old character.

>Don't remove the old character for a long period of time, especially without an unsatisfying reason.

>The minority or legacy status can't be the whole of the new character's uh, character. You have to bring something new to the table.

>Don't show the new character as flawless and completely perfect, especially where the old character wasn't.

I feel like New Super-Man hits all of these and say, for instance, Kate Bishop actually hits most of them but not #2, Kate is often boosted at the expense of Clint. I also think this idea that a legacy character has to be an out-and-out replacement isn't true: like Sam and Rich were way more fun together.

Kenan isn't a liberal coastal American teenager, so he's got that going for him.

Read Worm.

I think you might be on to something. Jaime Reyes hit all those notes except the third one, and Blue Beetle fans were so angry that Ted Kord was killed off like a bitch in Countdown to Infinite Crisis that they wouldn't give him a chance at first, resulting in critically low sales for what was otherwise an excellent comic.

Never thought i'd see General-Sci art on here, OP.

>unsatisfying
That should be "satisfying"

New character do not sell. They have always struggled toget a foothold next to established legacy heroes, and minorities have it even rougher, for it seems people actually do have trouble relating to characters who aren't the same hue as them.

Originality simply doesn't sell in comics.

>Originality simply doesn't sell in comics.
This.

But sometimes they do sell, spurring the creation of other ones. And writers want to make OCs to make royalty bux anyway.

>And writers want to make OCs to make royalty bux anyway.
whenever this happens the character just ends up being used less and less

>writers want to make OCs to make royalty bux
Ken Penders in a nutshell.

Poor Robbie, hit by a shitty start to his relaunched new title and the axe. I don't know if it was Felipe Smith's idea or Marvel's to start it off with a crossover arc where Robbie didn't even show up but either way it was retarded

>It's really strange to me that they'd want to make something as objectively terrible as "Black Ironman"

You do remember that James Rhodes was Iron Man, twice, right? He wasn't always War Machine.

I'm still angry about that shit, I just wanted Robbie raging around the streets of LA doing his thing, not the legacy kids stealing all the spotlight