All Female A-Force Replaces The Avengers
- Thread starter Fanghawk
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Well, this has "Gimmick" written all over it. Almost insultingly so, which is sad because the idea pretty much admits Marvel sees those characters as gender first when they resort to using such gimmicks like this. "Oh hey, look at all the women we are using together! Done solely because they are women!" Pandering is the right word for it, but it comes close.
Still, got to give it some credit, sounds a hell of a lot better then anything DC would come up with and the story idea as an event comic is decent. Just wish it was a less blatant gender freak show (since the very aspect of them being women is the selling point, it comes off exactly like it is a freak show for that reason) and more just characters being characters without the publicity grab of "hey, look at us, we are using nothing but women!" It comes off as pretty demeaning when you think about it.
Tying back to the female Thor thing from before, it again shows a lack of understanding characters and instead overly concentrating on traits of the characters as if they are the most important and defining aspects of them. People were upset then because the new character took Thor's name, not so much that a woman was wielding Mjolnir. It reeked of a publicity stunt done to be shocking then and it still stinks of the same now. And that is a shame because those characters deserve better then to be relegated to side-show status like this.
Still, got to give it some credit, sounds a hell of a lot better then anything DC would come up with and the story idea as an event comic is decent. Just wish it was a less blatant gender freak show (since the very aspect of them being women is the selling point, it comes off exactly like it is a freak show for that reason) and more just characters being characters without the publicity grab of "hey, look at us, we are using nothing but women!" It comes off as pretty demeaning when you think about it.
Tying back to the female Thor thing from before, it again shows a lack of understanding characters and instead overly concentrating on traits of the characters as if they are the most important and defining aspects of them. People were upset then because the new character took Thor's name, not so much that a woman was wielding Mjolnir. It reeked of a publicity stunt done to be shocking then and it still stinks of the same now. And that is a shame because those characters deserve better then to be relegated to side-show status like this.
While I do agree that there is a definite double standard in the fact that appealing to men is "a smart business choice based on demographics," whereas appealing to women is passed off as "cynical pandering," these types of gender swaps and all female concepts do seem to be marketed differently.Vault101 said:
While there are definitely more men in the usual line ups, very rarely is the fact that there are more men an explicit selling point, nor does it usually factor into the marketing. When the entire selling point of these types of things is the fact that they are female, I can't help but see it as rather gimmicky. But, that's the world of comics for you ...
Not that my opinion on this really matters, since comics are one of those mediums that always baffle me.
There have been all girl teams before so it doesn't bother me much and I admit some of the backlash surprises me as I am usually one of those going off about SJWs and such. It might even stick around for a while in some form as they rotate characters in and out of the roster depending on popularity and depending on the needs of other teams. Having too many Avengers has been a problem where the roster periodically needs to be trimmed. Plus characters are given chances at solo books, or dumped into team books alongside an A-lister or two to lead sales when they have enough popularity to keep around but not enough to succeed on their own. A lot of the ladies in that picture fit into this category and I'm guessing "A-force" in part exists to avoid flat out retiring a lot of those characters especially since the way things are going I'm sure they want to put a lot of attention on new ones. You have a few A and B lister female heroes there along with a lot of fairly obscure and also ran ones.
I'm a little surprised to see some of the characters there. For example Snowbird is usually defined as being tied to Canada (and mystically unable to leave). I suppose if moving away from the X-titles is intended this might be away to keep some of those ladies around. I'm sort of surprised Hellcat/Patsy Walker still gets chances to be in comic books even if it's waaay in the back of an entourage scene. Medusa being there is a sign they are certainly promoting the Inhumans as expected, especially with such a prominent position on the cover (by definition though her duties as queen should prevent much adventuring). I'm also surprised any team would have anything to do with Elektra nowadays (vice versa as well).
Now all we need is a reboot of "Bad Girls Inc."
I'm a little surprised to see some of the characters there. For example Snowbird is usually defined as being tied to Canada (and mystically unable to leave). I suppose if moving away from the X-titles is intended this might be away to keep some of those ladies around. I'm sort of surprised Hellcat/Patsy Walker still gets chances to be in comic books even if it's waaay in the back of an entourage scene. Medusa being there is a sign they are certainly promoting the Inhumans as expected, especially with such a prominent position on the cover (by definition though her duties as queen should prevent much adventuring). I'm also surprised any team would have anything to do with Elektra nowadays (vice versa as well).
Now all we need is a reboot of "Bad Girls Inc."
You know these things are related, right? One can't use it as a selling point if it's the same as the vast majority of the competition.FirstNameLastName said:
Marketing team comics on "has mostly men" would be a bit like marketing FPSs on "has guns that shoot bullets".
Haha,
Heaven forbid there's ever anything all women in comics. I've heard about the all female avengers, but not Iron Man's all male illuminati group for some reason. Probably because an all male group's not particularly noteworthy while an all women group gets discredited, and criticized as if women can't pull it off, and is generally news worthy because it's pretty rare. It doesn't help any that it's rare that the all women group gets respected in the first place.
Kinda irritating that people expect people to be happy with the status quo, and heaven forbid anything ever alter it even in the slightest. People acting like others should be happy with being disrespected, marginalized, and so forth. Frankly, it's a really idiotic notion that people have to be silent so long as what they speak of dares go against the "norm." As if any excuse can make things better when people are upset with the status quo. It might be a temporary balm to hear an excuse, but it won't last forever.
Heaven forbid there's ever anything all women in comics. I've heard about the all female avengers, but not Iron Man's all male illuminati group for some reason. Probably because an all male group's not particularly noteworthy while an all women group gets discredited, and criticized as if women can't pull it off, and is generally news worthy because it's pretty rare. It doesn't help any that it's rare that the all women group gets respected in the first place.
Kinda irritating that people expect people to be happy with the status quo, and heaven forbid anything ever alter it even in the slightest. People acting like others should be happy with being disrespected, marginalized, and so forth. Frankly, it's a really idiotic notion that people have to be silent so long as what they speak of dares go against the "norm." As if any excuse can make things better when people are upset with the status quo. It might be a temporary balm to hear an excuse, but it won't last forever.
I'm aware of this, and I wondered whether I should explicitly mention it under the presumption that it would probably be brought up.theNater said:
Obviously a gimmick has to have some degree of novelty about it, but that does not make it any less of a gimmick.
There is a difference between "shaking up the status quo" and "making a side show of gender specific character for publicity sake". Maybe people are far less upset about it being a "deviation of the status quo" and instead see it as a reflection of the status quo ("hey look at us using women, how unconventional, am I right?!?")and of a shameless PR stunt in how it is executed?Rebel_Raven said:Haha,
Heaven forbid there's ever anything all women in comics. I've heard about the all female avengers, but not Iron Man's all male illuminati group for some reason. Probably because an all male group's not particularly noteworthy while an all women group gets discredited, and criticized as if women can't pull it off, and is generally news worthy because it's pretty rare. It doesn't help any that it's rare that the all women group gets respected in the first place.
Kinda irritating that people expect people to be happy with the status quo, and heaven forbid anything ever alter it even in the slightest. People acting like others should be happy with being disrespected, marginalized, and so forth. Frankly, it's a really idiotic notion that people have to be silent so long as what they speak of dares go against the "norm." As if any excuse can make things better when people are upset with the status quo. It might be a temporary balm to hear an excuse, but it won't last forever.
Honestly, I would have been a hell of a lot more convinced about the purity of the motives if instead of making it a noteworthy spectacle that "omg, all women avengers!?!?", they just ran the storyline and had that simply be a result. It doesn't take much to not intentionally call attention to the fact you are doing some as if it is a freakshow.
while I might not *exactly* agree with that marketing approach (to an extent)...they do it because its a novel conceptFirstNameLastName said:
take for example Rat Queens, which is reasonably well regarded and popular as far as comics go, part of its appeal is the fact it features a team of diverse women...[I/]a definite and perfectly legitimate selling point [/I] because its the exception to the "norm"
just like the Matrix might be considered old hat these days but was a breath of fresh air in the action genre at the time
people loooooove to pretend thease things aren't a factor when they really are, you offer me nothing but sausage 99% of the time and all of a sudden someone shows up with pizza? damn right I'm gonna get excited about pizza!
its also worth considering how much is over and calculated "marketing" and how much is just people projecting their prejudices, if youre gonna have an all female team youre gonna have an all female team...you can't downplay that.
reminds me (I think) of internet Critic Lindsey Ellis who was accused of showing off her chest area in one or two videos years ago, except she wore what was practically a turtle neck top...and even if she wasn't [I/]the only thing she did was happen to have breats of a certain size[/I] but for some people if theyre visable theyre up for show and there for woman in question is an attention seeking slur....
[quote/]Not that my opinion on this really matters, since comics are one of those mediums that always baffle me.[/quote]
just look at them like they are the worlds longest running soap opera...or better yet check out stuff that isn't from Marvel/DC I don't "get" superheros eather
To be fair, if a person is running around and punching bad guys all day long you are bound to get that body. You can't stay fat the entire time unless your power was about being fat.Avaholic03 said:
As for this comic. If they manage to fix all the problems the males started without their help it would be a bit silly.
You sir are my hero. Every time I read one of these I run into the old Anti/Pro SJW crap and as someone that just digs Marvel comics I'm pretty tired of that crap. Save it for someone who isn't following the books, I for one read what I like and ignore what I don't and I was one of the first people to call the Jason Aaron Thor play and I still think that Marvel probably talked him out of what he really wanted to do and actually make Thor have a female alter-ego. Now that is totally speculation on my part, but it sounds like something Aaron would have explored as his run was all about exploring new angles of Thor.piscian said:
Speaking of X-Men, loved that series so much, but I was so bummed after they cut Rogue from the roster because of Uncanny Avengers which at the time I wasn't a fan of. Still not a fan actually, but it seems slightly less terrible to me after reading a bit more of it and after they got rid of the nonsensical "hate" between Rogue and Scarlet Witch which if you read Children's Crusade is the exact opposite of Rogue's characterization toward Wanda up until that point.. Though I certainly need to see if there is a trade for the 2013 series of X-Men as that series was awesome and only getting better even after Battle of the Atom Crossover sort of hobbled it for a bit in my opinion.WarpedLord said:
Except none of that is happening. A-Force is a mini that is spinning out of Secret Wars. In short an event book. Anyone that at anytime thinks that an event book is anything more than a little playing with and examining the status quo before firmly reaffirming it is just straight up delusional. If you're a fan of the comics then you've been here before with The Fearless as it spun out of Fear Itself and while I actually liked that book no one thought it was going to be some sort of Spider-Man, Wolverine, popular character jamboree killer, it was just a book looking at some lesser known and lesser used characters that was used to open up the way for a few character solos and a new team book...Fearless Defenders. Marvel does this all the time, so much so that people into comics have event fatigue and some don't touch these kinds of books on pure principle because even if they do turn out to be good then they still probably won't get to stick around after the status quo lords have spoken.BiH-Kira said:
To quote Loki and one of my favorite books of all time Journey into Mystery "The house always wins." The House of Ideas always wins and even Spider-Man's marriage wasn't strong enough to survive.
So then you're saying sexism is perfectly fine and we should all just not talk about it? Ok, I'll have that in writing if you will.Vault101 said:
It's not having an all female/majority female team that I took issue with. It's taking an already established team and swapping them all out with only females on purpose to cater based on sexism. It's a specifically sexist action. It's still just the same thing but this time done on purpose and done 100%. Done to a team which, mind you, had a female who not only contributed to the team from day one (the Wasp) but also named it the Avengers. The same era (the 1960s) saw the Scarlet Witch and the Black Widow operating alongside the team. The Avengers already had a rich history of producing new and unique female heroes. Imagine taking DC's birds of prey and deciding that it will be temporarily replaced with an all-male cast. It just wouldn't be fair to the readers.
You don't knock out the team that has been doing right all along. You don't go full-sexist on the most popular team in the universe. You knock out an all-male team or create a new one that you publicize heavily. Otherwise it's just sexism for sexism's sake and you're just trying to force something unwanted on your current fan base.
Males are the standard aggressors in our sexually dimorphic species and so it generally suspends belief to think they'd be the fighters on the front line. They sell more comics for that reason. However, these are superheroes and so there is no inherent reason why a female hero can't be the strongest of them all since it's basically magic. It just doesn't resonate with most readers to see a female hero punching the Hulk into space like it does to see someone like the Black Widow get him to use his own strengths against him. Do you think it's ethical to respond to sales if you're a business?
It is one thing to cater to your clients. It is another to consciously take a sexist action against your current clients in the hopes of getting new ones.
But, as I said before, this should actually be interesting. I have been wanting them to examine the female heroes more thoroughly to create a more thorough a-list of them. I wish DC would replace Wonder Woman with more legitimate heroines in a similar manner.
It looks like Marvel is aiming for the "other" 46% of their readers, that is women. I've had fun for years watching teams of men fight evil and be heroic, but I enjoy seeing it mixed up. I know they did this with the X-men a few years ago, but I wasn't reading them at the time to see how that worked out.
It should be expected that there would be short-sighted accusations of SJW demagoguery in response to this. Marketing to women in a largely female audience isn't some kind of social engineering. Its just good business. Comic books have always traded on gimmickry. So long as its compelling to read and keep reading, everybody wins . . . except for the people who believe in some sort of zero sum game when it comes to fun. Those people never win.
It should be expected that there would be short-sighted accusations of SJW demagoguery in response to this. Marketing to women in a largely female audience isn't some kind of social engineering. Its just good business. Comic books have always traded on gimmickry. So long as its compelling to read and keep reading, everybody wins . . . except for the people who believe in some sort of zero sum game when it comes to fun. Those people never win.
Three things:ryukage_sama said:
1. 46% is not "largely female", it's around half. Catering to just under half of your consumer demographic is not smart business. Especially not at the cost of the other half. Catering to all of them is.
2. The actual number was 46.67% if you're referring to the study I think you are which can be safely rounded up to 47%.
3. This number was from the number of people on facebook who liked any term associated with comics. There are several criticisms with this report:
A. It is a survey of only people on facebook purporting to be a fan of comics. This is not necessarily representative of readers who currently buy comics nor is it necessarily real people or single accounts that have this.
B. Look at the data at the bottom [http://www.comicsbeat.com/demographics-comcis-readers-almost-45-women-now-and-how-publishers-stack-up/], they got a response of 84 million people that like "comics" (the term the writer is basing the data off of) and yet less than 20% of the respondents are American despite these studios being primarily American publishers. Most of the terms like "DC Comics" or "Marvel Comics" don't even surpass the 30% US mark. So there's something wrong here when the vast majority of comic revenue comes from the US but the respondents of this survey aren't.
Sorry, but it just isn't a legitimate study and I have no idea how we'd honestly go about quantifying it. Even if we went off the numbers that site put together we'd still see that the gender difference in "DC Comics" and "Marvel Comics" is still more than 60% male. But with those numbers constituting less than 30% of respondents that are Americans, who actually knows what the number would be here? Could be higher, could be lower. We don't know.
What we do know are legitimate studies that come from the studios themselves. For example:
http://comicsalliance.com/dc-comics-readers-survey-reports-new-52-readership-93-male/
That found that of the readers enjoying the new 52, 93% of them were male. This flies in the face of the facebook survey results but was released by DC as valid.
Comixology states that 20% of the people that use their service are female. That's not half but it is a nice jump from the previous 5%:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/10/comixology-is-connecting-with-female-audience/
Look, I'm all for inclusivity and equality. But let's not tell outright lies when we know them not to be true.
1st, having one comic series that caters to a certain demographic isn't a poor business model. Marvel published dozens of series which cater to different minorities within their fanbase.Lightknight said:
2nd, The Nielsen study you linked to demonstrates that comic publishers desperately NEED to do something to reach additional readers. The female readership numbers I referred to might be off, but that doesn't diminish the strength of their strategy of diversifying their reader base.
One day we'll be able to talk to each other about these things without collectively losing our tempers and having everything being reduced to sniping at each other.
One day
One day
Well, sure. But this is replacing the Avengers which is one of the most popular series there are. It'd be different if the Avengers were still there, but this is replacing them. Like if DC replaced Batman with Batwoman and didn't run Batman comics as long as Batwoman was at the helm. There's no reason why both can't exist. It'd be different if it were a less notable series. But the Avengers and the X-men are kinda the big team names in Marvel and I believe Marvel has already done an all female X-men series that was decent.ryukage_sama said:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=43153
Well, yes and no.
1. Yes, they should continue to make comics that are friendly to readers of all genders and backgrounds. Image comics, for example, is kicking ass in that department and is by far my favorite publisher. I believe they are expanding their reader base by a fair margin and are enabling themselves to make more dramatic titles that aren't all testosterone fueled action comics (though there is nothing wrong with action comics, it's just one genre when so many others are viable).
2. Not necessarily regarding action comics as much. See, men and women have different tastes in the media we consume. Young males are much more likely to prefer action flicks and other generally violent films while women seem to prefer more dramatic movies and romance. This is true in film, literature and even video games. It likely translates into comics.
So trying to pursue female readers in action-esque comics may be a bad idea or at least not as worth the effort as creating other series that are built from the ground up to cater to women while just making the action genre comics more female friendly (no reason why there should just be a token female on a team of five when there could be two or three instead).
So if you assume that men and women are exactly alike then you'd be right. But we aren't. Neither is better than the other but we absolutely express differences over a wide range of subjects. That's just the nature of a sexually dimorphic species and isn't bad.
3. Also no. If your consumer base is something crazy like 93% male you don't do something drastic to cater to the 7% at the expense of the 93%. You make other changes to continue catering to the 93% while making the environment more friendly for the market you're trying to expand. That's good business.
The thing is though, I'll likely enjoy this series. I just don't think it's entirely ethical to support sexist actions. Sexism isn't a just tool to use against sexism. Equality is.
Everyone, just calm the hell down.
You know what a great solution would be? I know this'll completely blow people's minds so brace yourselves...
A superhero team that's... not dominantly male or female.
I am a genius.
I mean seriously it is just so depressing how much people think is at stake here. Even polytheistic religions from millennia ago had a more balanced representation of men and women (and even those that are in-between!) than the so-called "cutting-edge" superhero lore.
You know what a great solution would be? I know this'll completely blow people's minds so brace yourselves...
A superhero team that's... not dominantly male or female.
I am a genius.
I mean seriously it is just so depressing how much people think is at stake here. Even polytheistic religions from millennia ago had a more balanced representation of men and women (and even those that are in-between!) than the so-called "cutting-edge" superhero lore.