Diversity: Not An Old Wooden Ship

Diversity in Comics

I recently joined twitter and have been very much delving into that world. What I enjoy about twitter is that for the most part, depending on whom you follow, you can get the thoughts, jokes and comments from real writers, actors, and other individuals in certain industries. As a comic book fan, I of course follow many comic book creators, as well as many of the intelligent people who tweet and respond to those creators. Recently, I engaged in conversations with the Marvel V.P. Tom Brevoort, and two bloggers @dcwomenkicknass and @SonofBaldwin about the issue of Diversity in comics. Both of them posted on their blogs about these issues here:http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/5359835068/muchmore and here:http://sonofbaldwin.blogspot.com/search/label/comic%20books . Both of these bloggers have and can speak more eloquently about the issues of race, gender and sexual diversity in comics that I can.

However, as a white heterosexual male who is a comic fan and grew up in a middle to upper middle class neighborhood outside DC, I wanted to chime in as what most comic book creators (people who work and write for Marvel and DC) might see their audience to be.

I love comic books. I love classic comic book characters. My top five DC and Marvel characters are all name recognizable characters. However, when I was in high school, I read Morrison’s JLA. And I remember thinking to myself, why the hell is Steel on this team and not Captain Marvel? To me, Captain Marvel is an A-List character and Steel is a weird combination of Iron Man, War Machine and Superman. And then, I read Steel in Morrison’s JLA and he instantly became a favorite of mine.

He made the character unique and real and human.

He wasn’t a stereotype or even their to represent all black males (which the character once said himself) he was there to fulfill a role because that is what the JLA needed and that is what the writer thought was best. And Morrison wrote the hell out of him. At the same time Priest was writing the Black Panther, which I was catching onto and was then seen in the Avengers, who Busiek at the time referred to as the #4 after the ‘Big 3’ of Cap, Thor and Iron Man. And between how the character was written and grew betwee

n Busiek and Priest, I couldn’t agree more. That hooked me on other Priest books like the Crew and I started to develop a love of characters that provided a li

ttle more diversity than I had originally thought needed in the comic book world. At the same time, personally, my eyes were opened to how I benefited from diversity. I was going to college, rooming with a Haitian-American from Long Island who loved Dragonball Z, working for a gay man, and meeting people from around the country. And then I traveled abroad to Belgium where I met young people from all over Europe as well as other places, and started traveling a lot. However, what that brings me to is that our world is diverse. Comic book readers are diverse. And I think it would surprise many comic book fans and creators how much fans enjoy true, real and well-written diversity.

I’ve said before that I really started to like the Black Panther in high school. It was a great book written and drawn by a great team. It was engaging, intelligent and action packed. Priest made the Panther into a unique character that wasn’t an ‘African Batman’. And when they brought the book back under Reggie Hudlin, in my mind, it didn’t measure up to Priest’s run. And that, I think gets to the heart of issues of ‘diversity’ in comics. All characters can be and have been poorly written. ‘Minority’ characters in particular have suffered that in huge ways. But Brubaker writes a great Falcon, and Bendis a great Cage and so on. There have been great comic book writers who are not ‘minorities’ who have written greatly diverse characters and treated that’s character diversity not as the defining characteristic about that character but as a contributing characteristic to that character. Black Lightning is African-American, he is also a teacher, a divorced husband who stills get along with his wife, a super-hero and a father. These are all parts of a whole character. And what comics needs are good, well written whole characters.

I understand that when the ‘classic’ characters were being created, they were mostly white with certain aliens filling out the ‘minority’ spots on these teams. And when diversity was added, many characters were written very stereotypically. Even female characters on these teams who are ‘classics’ have been and often are written stereotypically. However, I feel since I have been reading comics, creators who have written comic better, including ‘diversity’ characters.

However, what I do not understand is the choices by creators and editors not utilize the wealth of diverse characters that they could use. Why do we have to Hank and Jan and deal with their craziness where Bill Foster would fulfill the role of giant scientist and would offer a new and different voice as would Rita DeMara. They have the same powers, with new histories, new perspectives and new voices. Have Ollie Queen be the Green Arrow in the main comic, but

have Connor Hawke in either Birds of Prey or on the Justice League with other 2^nd and 3^rd generation heroes right now. Steve Rogers dies, why would Marvel consider and even weave in Josiah X from the Crew into the book or have Casper Kole be in the New Avengers as a NYPD officer on the team. Tom Brevoort stated that an all Black Avengers would be contrived. And while I understand the point that it could seem contrived or paying lip service to have a minority book, the concept of super hero teams in general could be considered contrived, especially teams like the Young Avengers (which of all Avengers teams is probably the most diverse!) However thinking upon it, I have a hard time that a good writer couldn’t come up with a reason that the Black Panther (a classic Avenger) couldn’t call together a team composed mostly of ‘diverse’ super heroes such as the Falcon, Photon/Pulsar, Firebird, Mantis, White Tiger (Kasper Cole), Madame Web (Julia Carpenter), Black Knight, Goliath (Bill Foster’s nephew Tom). These are no more Avengers than the New Avengers are today, and if you needed a Cap, Iron Man or Thor, you could throw in War Machine or Battlestar for good measure. I just feel that perhaps creators and editors feel more comfortable with characters who at first glance they feel they and their readers can immediately relate to. I think they also feel that their readers are mostly white males who don’t enjoy reading about characters who are not like them, and they may feel that they don’t want to mess up a character who is 'not like them' by portraying them in a way that might be uncharacteristic of that character.

At the end of the day, what I am saying, is that as a white, male, heterosexual, I enjoy diversity. I enjoy the diversity of life, food, opinions, sayings, culture, and comics. Secret Warriors took over for Checkmate as my spy comic. Batman Inc. is my conspiracy book and Avengers are my team book. I love the Guardians of the Galaxy as much as I love Green Lantern. I think the people in charge of comics are overtly concerned with ‘watering-down’ their product with too many variations on a rift. And economically speaking, I can understand that issue. However, I feel that should be a challenge and not an edict to back down from realities of the life. The world is diverse. Comic readers are diverse. Comic books and their characters should be diverse as well. Could it be confusing to have two Green Arrows or two Flashes, one in their own book and one in a team book – Yes? However, Green Lanterns and Batmen seem to make it work, because they are written by good writers who understand how to make the characters unique and different. Couldn’t we have a Barry book with Wally in the JLA? A New Avengers that maybe took the idea of ‘street-level’ characters to a new, unique and real place by including real ‘street-level’ characters? I like Ms. Marvel, but she is not street-level.

At the end of the day, comic book fans want well written stories that matter. We always want to see our favorite characters but the way they become our favorites is by being well written. I’m sure comic book companies will always be concerned about the sustainability of a comic, but I refuse to believe that your classic comic books couldn’t have a little more balance and diversity when it comes to gender, race, culture and sexuality. Should it be lip-service or inclusion just for the sake?... no. But Morrison made Steel work on the JLA. Birds of Prey is an amazing book and Black Canary led Meltzer's JLA. Static Shock was a hugely popular TV show. John Stewart was the GL of a kid's cartoon. So why don't we have a diverse character on the new Avengers book?