Marvel executive says emphasis on diversity may have alienated readers

a reply to: the owlbear

The mighty Thor with the woman(Spoiler Alert!) Jane Foster is actually really good.IMO.
You are right on the money about replacing longstanding characters with more diverse ones.I never could understand why they never just made up some Asian,a African-American ,Jewish (kitty pryde is Jewish),etc.Not all of them will work,but they would have found a few gems.End rant.

As already mentioned... make new characters, have them be as diverse as you want... stop changing established toons to force the diversity... it is not rocket science.

Vain attempt to try and recover the market and sales. Profit over quality . Anything for a buck...

When you make Iron Man a teenage girl, you done messed it all up.

Certain things should be left alone, no matter what SJW's want to put their dirty little fingers in order to champion a cause.

Get your dirty little fingers off Iron Man.

a reply to: c2oden

Yep. When i saw black teenage girl iron-man a few months ago i knew marvel was screwed big time

a reply to: Gothmog

Plus thinking that unnecessary oddly doled out diversity is the ticket to automatic sales increase.

Sounds like a boardroom decision.

a reply to: Idreamofme

I saw that too and thought it was a joke, seriously.

This smells of a boardroom bright idea that all the yes men agreed with. If you have no one to stop such nonsense your company is already broke.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: JHumm
I understand that they want to reach more people, and adding new characters could help with that but why do they have to replace iron man with a teenage girl?

I have my own theory on this one. Robert Downey Jr has effectively destroyed Marvel Studio's ability to ever put own a movie with anyone else in the role of Tony Stark. Downey IS Tony Stark. The same holds true for Captain America and probably Thor and now Deadpool. The studio makes way more money than the publishing house does, so the studio (in my theory) drove the change in Ironman. They saw two possibilities:
1. Wait a generation to reboot the franchise, grabbing up an entirely new, younger fan base who don't know Ironman only as Downey Jr. (an example is the Superman franchise... an almost 20 year hiatus to free viewers from rejecting a non-Christopher Reeve Superman)
2. Change the character significantly, allowing the audience to see a whole new, unique vision of the character which will allow them to still think "OK, Jack Nicholson was an amazing old school Joker, but Heath Ledger's Joker was a dark sociopath serial killer, I can like both characters because they're dramatically different from each other."

I'm not old enough to remember, but I would think the same thing was said about the James Bond franchise after Sean Connery.

They didn't make James Bond a teenage girl.

That's probably next.
A transgender James Bond who likes it stirred, not shaken.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Vain attempt to try and recover the market and sales. Profit over quality . Anything for a buck...

these media people seem so eaten up with PC that they're probably proud of losing readers/income as long as it promotes the PC cause.
not to get off topic but look at the news media. PC 24/7 with declining readers/viewers.

+1 with those who say, introduce new rainbows, don't change up the old ones.
(rumor the next Dr. Who will be Tilda Swinton)

originally posted by: Irishhaf
As already mentioned... make new characters, have them be as diverse as you want... stop changing established toons to force the diversity... it is not rocket science.

It really isn't that complicated, is it?

It seems so blatantly, blindingly obvious to me. It almost makes me think its all a charade and that they are getting exactly the results they expected.

Maybe I'm giving too much credit here, but its just hard for me to believe there is any actual confusion or surprise on the topic.

Reaching out to new markets whilte ostracizing your base is not good.

When Miles Morales replaced Peter Parker, there was some outcry. But Miles is still a teenage boy, just like Peter was. He didn't try to become the new Spiderman, that was how the rest of the Ultimate Universe saw him. Apparently he stayed popular enough to survive the Ultimate cancellation and hop dimensions.

The main audience of action comics is teenage boys. That base wants to spend money on a story they can relate to or be attracted to. They may try a new mag every now and then, but they don't want to read about a muslim or black girl unless there is some skin/pinup art involved. It's not rocket science.

There can be some about of 'rage against the machine' or SJW storylines so long as they are not ham-fisted. When the X-Men comics are subtle representations of fighting against racism, anti-gay or just plain bullying they shine. When they shove it in your face, not so much.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Sales are suffering, so the VP said that there are markets that are excited about this must be a forced confession. I imagine he was motivated to change his original statement by someone higher up the corp ladder.

This is what happens when a company caters to an extremely vocal minority that... surprise... doesn't even buy or read their products!

It's not even about social "justice" anymore, it's just about imposing their will on every facet of society under the guise of PC.

The thing Marvel did so well was make stories that the outsider could identify with no matter who or what that outsider was, and for a long, long time that worked.

These days, the outsiders want their characters they identify with to be blatantly like them in every way.

So, for example, if I identified with the X-Men as an outsider back in the day, and I did, today it wouldn't be enough to simply share that bond of essential outsider-ness and feeling of alienation from everyone else. Today, I would want a superhero (or superheroine) who was exactly like me in every way so that I could really identify and feel like my comic is "inclusive."

And once a company gives in to this pandering, there will always be one more group who says they aren't represented with their very own avatar character.

For those who know video games, BioWare has fallen into this trap.

a reply to: c2oden

There's have been rumors of a shake up for the next Bond, either a black Bond (Idris Elba has been the prime rumored Bond in this case) or a homosexual Bond. I'd be OK with a black Bond... as an American, I feel like his "Britishness" is more integral to the character than his color has ever been, but a gay Bond isn't James Bond in any way. His womanizing and carousing are absolutely integral to his persona. It would be like casting a child to play Gandalf.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

Theres only 1 true spiderman. Tobey mcguire. Anything else is treason.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: c2oden

There's have been rumors of a shake up for the next Bond, either a black Bond (Idris Elba has been the prime rumored Bond in this case) or a homosexual Bond. I'd be OK with a black Bond... as an American, I feel like his "Britishness" is more integral to the character than his color has ever been, but a gay Bond isn't James Bond in any way. His womanizing and carousing are absolutely integral to his persona. It would be like casting a child to play Gandalf.

For me, when it comes to replacing an iconic character like Bond or any of the supers, the question is - is the character the person or the persona? For example, is Bond more of a persona or myth than he ever was a single man? I think, given the way the different actors playing him have been handled, we can make a good argument that maybe he is. 007, James Bond, is more of a role filled by the best agent Mi6 has than he ever has been any one person in particular and on those grounds, I can easily see putting someone like Elba in the role as none of the various actors have looked or sounded alike at all.

But I do agree that a gay Bond or female one would simply break too many of the expected conventions. Bond is a womanizing man. The Bond girls are as iconic in their way as he is.

a reply to: ketsuko

Oh my goodness. I want a superhero completely opposite of me. Id be like that drunk superhero will smith played in that one movie. Effing everything up

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: burgerbuddy

I want characters who make sense.

I don't want to feel like some aspect of this or that character is simply there for the window dressing. When a skin color or religion or sexual orientation or gender becomes as much the character as the character, then there is a problem because you know it was injected simply to be a selling point.

When you have an otherwise competent Capt. Save-the-Day and the story is going swimmingly, but suddenly you have the out of left field gender or sexual orientation or religious or racial issue complication that otherwise bears no impact at all on the story and doesn't fit ... then you know that aspect of the character is the permanent side-kick and as much a character as the character Capt. Save-the-Day.

Then your comic sort of sucks.

That's right.

Get that muslim super hero gal all gussied up in a skimpy I dream of jeannie outfit and a couple swords to go around taking out jihadi terrorists.

Like all the white superhero's do to the white bad guys.

That would work, I think.

Who's the blind dude? His name escapes me.

So the disabled are covered. Daredevil!

Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt are hard to beat as Catwoman. Black and white. Purrrrrrrrrrfect.

Deadpool is ugly, so that's covered. Can't think of any fat dude superheros, tho.

Superhero's are not like us. They are what we want to be.

Some are closer than others, tho. Now if only I could fly....

I'm 55 years old, I remember reading the "golden age" of comics ( it was not the 60's) the 50's were the best, back then science was burgeoning, Atomics (nuclear power) were the "new" thing. and comics and science fiction were rampant, not it has all turned into "social- fiction, the science is "old hat". therein lies the issue, going to the moon is no longer a dream. the "fantasy" aspect of comics have been lost, that is what is needed, just look at TV, Walking Dead, is a fantasy show, that is what makes it work, not the blood and gore the escape from reality, when you lose the fantasy and bring to much reality in, it loses the appeal. You can read about the same folks in the news as of late no they are not superheroes, but they are diverse.