There's no question the world of superhero comics is more diverse than it was 20 years ago, but the effort hasn't been without struggle.
And despite the best effort of creators and publishers, the most popular characters continue to be a slate of white men.
The best example of the phenomenon is the upcoming Avengers film, where Black Widow will be the one white female Avenger in a team dominated by white male heroes like Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Hulk and Captain America.
But it's not just an Avengers problem. "If you look at all DC's major characters, the big seven of the Justice League, they’re all white men with the exception of Wonder Woman, who’s a white gal," said Judd Winick, who writes for DC Comics. "We don’t really have many people of color who are considered a major character."
DC's 2010 replacement of Caucasian Aqualad with a new African-American character in 2010 was hailed by most fans, which does represent a step forward from reactions seen in the past when new, ethnically-diverse heroes replaced former characters that were white.
"I think what you see from fans sometimes is that people want exactly what they fell in love with over and over again," said Greg Rucka, who's written comics for both Marvel and DC. "They want the same thing except different. But that should have nothing to do with introducing a character’s color, or introducing s*xual diversity or religious diversity. That simply has to do with the idea that, 'that’s not my fill-in-the-blank character from 1972.'"
ENLARGE
Rucka pointed to the 2003 Marvel comic series Truth, which introduced the fact that an African-American Captain America existed before the current white hero. "I know when Marvel did Truth they received vitriolic hate mail," Rucka said. "But that's not just people disliking change. That's just people who are bigots, when you come down to it. That wasn’t just an issue with messing with a character."
Other times, fans that are sticklers for continuity get upset about story changes that introduce diversity. Winick experienced anger from fans when he introduced the idea that Green Lantern character Kyle Rayner was half-Hispanic, and fans justified their outrage by claiming there was a change made in continuit
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Monday, January 24th 2011 at 12:00AM
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