Such fragile egos these fanboys have

The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is ‘doomed,’ because the people you’ve just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man’s little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries – they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight it’s high noon, the hottest day in history, and you’re about to spend it in the Twilight Zone.

 

That’s the opening narration to the ‘The Midnight Sun‘, the 75th episode of the Twilight Zone, by host Rod Serling. The Twilight Zone was a popular USAmerican science fiction television show that ran from 1959 to 1964 (and saw several attempts at revivals over the decades, as well as a movie). This particular episode is one of my favorites as it involves an apocalyptic scenario in which humanity is helpless. All our intellect, our wits, our technology, our weapons-all of it is useless in the face of a catastrophe of global proportions. The episode served as a reminder that for all our power and accomplishments, for all our money and wealth, we are fragile creatures.

 

This episode came to mind today as I was giving thought to the ongoing culture wars in society. Progressives have been fighting for decades (longer than that, really) for marginalized people to be treated with fairness and equity. They have fought to extend the rights enjoyed by the majority-white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied men-to everyone else. From the battle for women’s reproductive rights to the fight for LGBT equality to the ongoing crusade by the Black Lives Matter movement to dismantle systemic and structural racism, the culture wars have been fought on multiple fronts. And while some successes have been achieved (yay, LGB people can marry and oh look, some police departments are getting body cameras), there still continue to be setbacks (the reduction in abortion providers across the country and the lack of accountability of police officers around the nation). But not all such cultural battles occur on a national scale, nor do they all occur in meatspace. Some occur on a smaller, more private scale-the Internet. One such conflict-the push for greater diversity and inclusivity in the comic book industry (specifically at Marvel and DC)-has been brewing for a while now. Funny thing though, for all the pushback, it’s clear that just as Hollywood is making progressive strides, so too is the comic book industry. Of course, along with that progression comes the howling and screaming of those opposed to progress.

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Such fragile egos these fanboys have
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What if…?

The pervasive influence of white bias is felt in all corners of society. From musicians to actors, politicians to police officers, firefighters to lawyers, CEO’s to teachers, there is no area of society free from the bias in favor of white people (and, more specifically, heterosexual, cisgender, white men). As a long-time comic book reader, I was long ignorant of this bias in the comic book industry. Growing up as a teen, and later as a young adult, race was never on my radar. It wasn’t until I began to pay attention to matters of race that I began to see the comic book industry through more enlightened eyes. Once I began to view the world with greater clarity and understanding, I began to see that the comic book industry has long been dominated by white men. And that explains why, for the vast majority of the history of USAmerican comic books, white men have been the primary protagonists, villains, and supporting cast members. The same holds true of the film industry. But what if things were different? What if white men were not the sole (or primary) guiding forces behind movies and comic books all these decades? What if people of color were involved as well? What might the result be?

Alijah Villian is an artist who has tried to imagine just such a world. Using African-American celebrities, he re-imagines protagonists and antagonists from comic books and movies. Take a look:

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What if…?

Pop Culture Link Round-Up: Superhero Edition

Superheroes have been near and dear to me for most of my life. Growing up, the hero I most loved was Spider-Man. I used to run around the house, pretending I could stick to walls or shoot webs from my wrists. So much fun. Well except for the time I threw the rope from my bathrobe around a metal coat rack and thought I could swing from it. It fell. Hit my head. I was a young little one…maybe five or so. The rack looked similar to this:

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t have the habit of removing the plastic coverings that fit over the ends of the hooks. So yeah, when it fell, I fell, and one of the hooks hit my head. I’m sure it’s just my brain filling in the details from my mother telling me about this, but I “remember” walking into the bathroom where my mom was doing something and she looked at me and freaked out. I had blood coming from my forehead. Parents out there can just imagine how they’d react if they saw blood dripping from the head of their child. Total [justified] freak-out mode. Turns out it wasn’t anything serious, thankfully, but boy did I scare my mom. As I got older, I branched out (though never away) from Spider-Man. I loved the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Alpha Flight, Justice League, Justice Society, Wonder Woman, the Authority, Flash, Thor, the Legion of Super-Heroes, every iteration of the Titans, Captain America, She-Hulk and so many more books. Even though I’m nearing 40, my love of superheroes has not changed. What has changed is the appreciation of superheroes in the world around me. No longer are comic books and superheroes treated solely as “kids’ things”. Today, superheroes are found all across the pop culture landscape, from movies to television to video games. They’ve even spread into non-conventional areas, and here are five examples:

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Pop Culture Link Round-Up: Superhero Edition

Marvel's all-new Giant-Man is another win for diversity

I began reading comic books around the age of 7 or 8, and began to seriously collect them when I was old enough to get a job. Some of the earliest comics I had were Marvel’s Avengers. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was (and still is) the tagline. Captain America, Thor, Wasp, Hercules, Sub-Mariner, She-Hulk, Black Knight-they were awesome. But there was someone else I really liked reading about. Someone who I appreciated for different reasons-Monica Rambeau-Captain Marvel at the time. She was special to me because she was unique among the Avengers: she was black. Like me.

The second hero to bear the name Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau debuted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16, by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr.

Continue reading “Marvel's all-new Giant-Man is another win for diversity”

Marvel's all-new Giant-Man is another win for diversity

Marvel’s all-new Giant-Man is another win for diversity

I began reading comic books around the age of 7 or 8, and began to seriously collect them when I was old enough to get a job. Some of the earliest comics I had were Marvel’s Avengers. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was (and still is) the tagline. Captain America, Thor, Wasp, Hercules, Sub-Mariner, She-Hulk, Black Knight-they were awesome. But there was someone else I really liked reading about. Someone who I appreciated for different reasons-Monica Rambeau-Captain Marvel at the time. She was special to me because she was unique among the Avengers: she was black. Like me.

The second hero to bear the name Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau debuted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16, by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr.

Continue reading “Marvel’s all-new Giant-Man is another win for diversity”

Marvel’s all-new Giant-Man is another win for diversity

Texting with the superheroes

Enjoy some texts from superheroes! Yes, I know Deadpool is in there. Yes, I know he’s not a superhero-I didn’t come up with the name of that blog. Believe me I can’t stand the guy. He was interesting for a while, but now he’s gone the way of 90s Wolverine, Cable, Ghost Rider, and Punisher–appearing everywhere, even when it makes not a lick of sense.

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Texting with the superheroes

The Fabulous Art Of: Mike Wieringo

Born on this day in 1963, Michael Lance “Mike” Wieringo (often referred to as ‘Ringo) was a USAmerican comic book artist. He broke into the comic book industry in 1992, with an issue of Justice League Quarterly. From there, he worked on other DC titles including the Flash (where he co-created Bart Allen, aka Impulse, with writer Mark Waid) and Robin, as well as several Marvel Comics titles, including Sensational Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and perhaps his best known work for the company, Fantastic Four (where he was paired with his former Flash writer, Mark Waid). Along with writer Todd Dezago, ‘Ringo created the popular creator-owned fantasy series Tellos for Image Comics. Sadly, Mike Wieringo passed away on August 12, 2007 of a sudden heart attack. He would have been 52 years old today.

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The Fabulous Art Of: Mike Wieringo

The Fabulous Art Of: Héctor Barros

In their regular series Best Art Ever, Comics Alliance spotlights artwork by working professionals, rising stars, and talented fans. Thanks to this series, I’ve been introduced to the work of many amazing artists. Here are several pieces by one such artist, Héctor Barros. Enjoy!

Head on over to Barros’ Tumblr to check out more of his amazing work.

The Fabulous Art Of: Héctor Barros

A bit more gender diversity from Marvel Studios

One of the many upcoming projects from Marvel Studios is the long-simmering Doctor Strange movie. In the comics, Doctor Stephen Strange was a talented yet arrogant neurosurgeon who sought to regain the use of his hands after a tragic accident. He traveled around the world seeking the best doctors to repair his hands, but all to no avail. Despondent, distraught, broke, and homeless, Strange continued his search and eventually learned of the Ancient One, a hermit in the Himalayas who might be able to assist him. While he is initially rebuffed by the hermit, Strange eventually proves his worth and the Ancient One agrees to help the doctor, though not by repairing his hands. Instead, he trains him in the use of the mystic arts and eventually grants him the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme.

Why all this background about Dr. Strange and the Ancient One? Weeeeell, Marvel is currently in the casting stage for the upcoming Dr. Strange film. They already have Benedict Cumberbatch lined up to play the arrogant, former neurosurgeon, and they might be close to picking someone to play the Ancient One. And they’re thinking outside the box on this one. In a move that many (myself included) see as a positive step, actress Tilda Swinton is in talks to play the Ancient One:

The Ancient One is a hundreds year old mystic who has mastered magic and travels the Earth, battling demons, later settling in the Himalayas with an order of monks. In the comics, The Ancient One was an older, Tibetan man, — and earlier in the film’s production, they had talked with Ken Watanabe, Morgan Freeman and Bill Nighy for the role — but the character’s identity is being altered slightly for the film. In the film, the character will train the villainous Baron Mordo before sensing evil in his heart and turning to mentor Dr. Stephen Strange, eventually bestowing on him the powerful Eye of Agamotto.

Swinton’s casting is exciting for a variety of reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and superhero movies as a whole) don’t need another all-powerful male character; there are plenty of those. It’s honorable that Marvel was looking at a group of actors that were ethnically diverse, but even better than they were thinking further outside of the box to cast a woman.

For all that Stan Lee’s work at Marvel was groundbreaking and noteworthy, he was still writing comics at a time when women were not well represented in pop culture because the socially approved role of women was homemaker or housewife. Yes, Stan created the Wasp, the Scarlet Witch, and the Invisible Girl, but they were frequently relegated to the role of damsels-in-distress or the girlfriend (and dear Odin, Stan wrote many a cringe-worthy scene involving female superheroes). Meanwhile, their male counterparts rarely (if ever) received such treatment. No, male characters in the various titles written by Stan got to be more than the boyfriend. They didn’t have to worry about being hogtied, captured, and held hostage waiting for a savior to swoop in and free them. The men got to steer the plot. The women were treated as window dressing. So it probably never crossed Stan’s mind that a woman could serve as mentor to Doctor Strange.

It’s sad in a way. Like so many people back then (and plenty today), Stan Lee’s creativity was constrained by an adherence to rigid gender roles imposed by society-he was thinking inside the box. As a result of such limited thinking, Stan Lee’s comics did not-contrary to a long-running narrative about Marvel Comics-“reflect the world outside your window“. How could it, when the Marvel Universe as created by Stan was populated by a sea of white, male faces (with a few women and a smattering of black folk included for token attempts at diversity)? That’s not what the real world has ever looked like.

That’s one of the reasons I like the idea of casting Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. Women exist in the world outside my window (and everyone else’s). Yes, some women are housewives and homemakers, but they’re also sanitation workers and teachers, doctors and dental hygienists, lawyers and judges, astronauts and chemists, sociologists and electricians, librarians and painters, writers and activists, and so much, much more. That’s why it makes sense to me for Hollywood executives to widen the pool of potential candidates for movie roles. Instead of treating men as the default, they’re slowly beginning to realize that women can do the same things as men (hello Charlize Theron in Fury Road), and that includes playing the role of wise and aged mentor to the master of the mystic arts.

A bit more gender diversity from Marvel Studios

This is the most diverse team of Avengers ever

As Marvel Comics inches towards the huge, multiverse shattering Secret Wars event, they’ve released many details about the project (which will be written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Esad Ribic). We know that the Marvel Multiverse will be reduced to one planet-Battleworld.  This patchwork world will be composed of various alternate realities that have existed throughout the history of Marvel Comics. We know that 33 Marvel titles will be cancelled by the time Secret Wars begins. These titles will be replaced by a host of new Secret Wars related books, with each title falling into one of three broad categories (or brandings)- Battleworld (books featuring this brand will explore the political structure of the planet), Last Days (this brand consists of those books that deal with Earth’s heroes facing the impending destruction of their world in the days before the Secret Wars begin), and Warzones (these books will focus on specific Battleworld realms and will lay the building blocks for the Marvel Universe that will emerge post-Secret Wars).  Of course there are many more mysteries to be revealed, including just what the heck the Marvel Universe will look like after Secret Wars is over. Fans are accustomed to reading these big events and having to wait until the close of the story to find out post-event details. As if to whet readers’ thirst to know more about the Marvel Universe after Secret Wars. the publisher has revealed the lineup for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the wake of this crossover:

Ms. Marvel, Nova, Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales, Vision, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America are the members of the post-Secret Wars Avengers.

When I first learned of this lineup, I thought it was interesting. But the really awesome thing about this lineup completely went over my head. Andrew Wheeler of Comics Alliance explains what makes this team noteworthy:

Most surprisingly, the roster includes only one white male member. And even that’s not confirmed. We don’t actually know who is in the Iron Man armor, but Tony Stark is always a safe bet. The rest of the team is made up of one white woman (Thor), two African-American men (Captain America and Spider-Man), one Pakistani-American woman (Ms Marvel), one Hispanic American man (Nova), and an android (Vision).

That is THE most diverse roster of Avengers in history! Man, Marvel is really embracing diversity. It’s almost as if they’re realized that there is money to be made by catering to comics readers other than cisgender, heterosexual, white men (and for all the whiners out there, don’t worry, Marvel isn’t going to stop creating books that cater to your demographic, they’re just trying to stop showing as much bias in your favor-you aren’t the center of the world). Alongside Secret Wars #0, the all-new, all-different Avengers (by the creative team of Mark Waid and Mahmud Asrar) will debut as part of Marvel’s offerings for Free Comic Book Day (May 2).  I. Can’t. Wait!

This is the most diverse team of Avengers ever