Earth's Whitey-est Heroes

[lord.jeff]

I think of this comic everytime diversity comes up in entertainment I think of this comic. I really don't see any gain from the other characters being added in other then some moral pat on the back for the writers.

 

[Therumancer]

I've got to be honest, aren't some of those kinda embarrassing? Particularly Black Panther, because the whole 'African Tribal Nation but secretly Super Advanced' thing is just saying 'look Africa's a bunch of tribes, would it be cool if they had technology, Atlantis style?' Instead of recognizing Africa as a country that has consistently had cities and large influential, powerful areas for pretty much most of history (as well as some tribes).

I guess the problem is that if you set about creating a character based on demographics then you kinda have to do something interesting with that, otherwise people complain. (Like Susan Arendts grudge against Lightning, despite the fact Lightning even had a becoming-a-mother-figure character arc). You can't do outliers, when you deliberately bringing people in in the first place.

But then you already have two problems, what if the writer doesn't know much about a region? (I mean it's hard to have an accurate grasp of anything unless you've actually lived there for some time. The women one might be easier at any right it'd be nice if it's easy to find women writers who could do it) And then the audience won't know much about it either and it'll come off as weird or stupid.

Well, it's debatable as to whether the idea of Wakanda is embarassing or not.

When you get down to it Africa is something you can't handle while making everyone happy. If you show something like Wakanda some people will call it embarassing and patronizing because it's such obvious fantasy. If you show Africa as being what it is (a primitive hellhole, with little progress towards changing that) people call that offensive and insensitive. If you don't do anything with Africa at all, other people scream racism claiming your avoiding it because it's where black people are from and trivializing it. You have people attack everything from comics, to stories about workers going down there to help people, because true or not someone is inevitably going to say "well, why can't the people down there be shown to help themselves?" when ummm... tons of aid and personell and resources go there for humanitarian reasons because they can't and need the outside help. It's all a giant fraking mess.

Ignoring the entire issue that pretty much anything to do with Africa is a loaded gun, The Black Panther is kind of a throwback to when "Tarzan" type stories about lost cities and such were pretty popular. Instead of having a lost African civilization that was going to threaten the visitors, this one was fairly benevolent (if self interested like most are), and had it's own super hero. The initial story I know of involving The Black Panther was a giant trope subversion (for the time) where you had The Fantastic Four visiting this secret lost city where pretty much nobody goes, and being attacked and picked off by The Black Panther one at a time using traps and gimmicks. The tricks to the story was The Panther losing to a normal guy, and the reveal that the guy wasn't really evil, he was just practicing against superhumans to see if he could beat them before he opened up Wakanda more to the outside world. Especially for the time it was a fairly good story, and I think probably even counts a a Marvel classic nowadays.

As The Black Panther/Wakanda exists in the comics, I see absolutly nothing offensive about it at all. Or, well, I didn't, writers have been getting more racial about it, when Falcon's armor was updated with Wakandan technology around the time of The Civil War there were some racial comments and implications there that seemed almost like an attempt to pick a fight with a white readership... and the series done by BET (Black Entertainment Television) was just really, really obnoxious here on a number of levels. Netflix has it for viewing I believe, it kind of sucked a lot of the joy out of the character. As a ray of hope though, the version from The Avengers cartoon isn't bad though I think they wound up making him just a bit too arrogant (the character in the comics is arrogant, but that version is arrogant to the point where I wish someone would smack the crap out of him, and that's never a good sentiment to have towards a super hero).

 

[MDSnowman]

Black Panther is about as core an Avenger as you can get without being Cap, Thor, or Iron Man. He's in that big second tier of guys like Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk, Giant Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, or Quicksilver.

The downside.... the set up of a Super Advanced African Nation hiding behind the disguise of a "tribal" group is impossible to pull off now a days without coming off as racist. Now if Wakanda is shown to be a vital industrial nation, and T'Challa as their very civilized Prince then it could be easier to sell.

 

[Therumancer]

I know that bob said that he wasn't trying to critisize the film along the edges, but that just raises the question of why he titled it as he did, or why he chose to use the entirety of his weekly soapbox talking about it. Either he is simply trying to court controversy to increase his (based on the number of comments per video) flagging viewer base, or this really is an issue for him.

Do you know why war machine was in the movie? Becasue the whole thing is a showcase of differant heroes interacting, adding another iron man would be redundant and, taking all racial causes aside, Stark is simply the more interesting character, he is more charismatic, has an actual character arc to get through, is the brilliant scientist and has the connections to the other characters.

He also seemed to pay off the fact that black widow was in the movie and that she kicked arse, except where it suited him. I'm also worried by the idea that two vastly differant characters (hill and black widow) should have been interacting soley because of their gender. THey are vastly differant characters, and not even in the iron man-cap way of it being an interesting contrast. They are simply two characters with nothing in common except they are women who work for shield.

The question also comes up as to what any of these characters would add besides the colour of thier skin. The reason that this film was so successful was because it managed to bring out the amazing characters and powers that superheroes are supposed to be without getting bogged down in the stupid parts. So throwing in characters like the head of a secret African superpower that for some reason doesn't seem to want to help the rest of Africa or someone who has spider related powers and a spider related name but is not related to spider man for reasons that are going to remain unsaid.

Bob seems confused that because hollywood is adapting the comic books that they are taking them warts and all. they are not, they may be throwing in small referances to the more bizzare elements, but that does not mean that they are going to start bogging down their movie in some of the more explotative, bizzare or flat out stupid parts of them.

To be honest I think the idea of putting War Machine into the Iron Man movies was twofold. One, he simply needed a supporting cast, and this gave him a connection to the military to talk through, and Rhodey is a character from the comics. Not to mention it allowed for the whole drunken armor brawl in the second movie which was an entertaining piece of filler. Two, Robert Downey Jr. has a very mixed reputation in Hollywood and there is probably some fear of him remaining reliable for reasons that should be obvious. Putting Rhodey into the movie allows them to squeeze at least one more out of the franchise where he puts on the Iron Man suit. Something they could do if Mr. Downey wound up being sent to rehab or whatever and they needed a quick filler movie, or wanted one more cash in.

See, before there was a "War Machine" Iron Man retired in the comics and since he had a secret identity he simply gave his friend Rhodey the armor and let him be Iron Man so he could keep doing the hero thing (it's a little more complicated but that's the gist of it). Indeed during the first "Secret Wars" it wasn't Tony wearing te Iron Man armor, it was Rhodey. "War Machine" was the mantle Rhodey took with his own armor when Tony went back to being Iron Man.

Now, while Tony Stark doesn't really have a secret identity in the movie continuity, there isn't any real way to tell who is in the armor to an outside observer. While we've seen War Machine AS War Machine, the possibility to have Rhodey playing Iron Man in that armor (and telling everyone that is who he is) does exist, and has some comics justification. They could even justify calling the movie "Iron Man" with him as the titular character as long as Stark wore the armor first, and will presumably put it on again, because for a little while Rhodey actually was Iron Man.


I know a lot of people won't agree with my suspicians on the studio having though ahead to perhaps replacing Robert Downy Jr. from the beginning, but as much as I like the guy, if I was basing a franchise around him I'd definatly consider making sure I had some options on the table if the worst happened.

This also incidently means that if they say want to do an Avengers Movie, and Mr. Downey is simply on another project or they have trouble getting him, they could in theory have Rhodey step in for a while. He is the biggest actor in these movies right now (I consider him bigger than Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johanson, and others names present) and I imagine his recent successes have put him in high demand. At some point I imagine they are going to hit the limit on how many pictures he pre-signed for, and if they still want Iron Man are going to have to negotiate with him while he's in demand. This is an option if that doesn't go well.

 

[Therumancer]

It's completely silly to add extra characters just to add more racial diversity. I don't think you quite understand equal rights. Aside from War Machine, none of these would really work. They haven't been in any film before, for a start. I know Hawkeye hasn't either, but he was a early member of the Avengers. Besides, there wasn't enough time to introduce any more characters. So as I said, only War Machine is feasible, and Spier-Woman is probably considered part of the Spider-man franchise, so that's not possible.

Despite the name Spider Woman is not really tied to Spider Man, she's more of an energy control character with pherenome attraction powers (black widow style).

There is a Spider Girl (which is differant from Spider Woman) who is an alternate universe daughter of Spider Man who would probably be off limites.

Truthfully I would have expected them to use Malice, or Spider Woman as SHIELD Agents before Maria Hill. Malice (I think I have the name right) being Nick Fury's daughter. Spider Woman having worked for SHIELD in the past, and even wore the uniform (which is one of her alternate costumes in Marvel Ultimate Alliance).

Of course if you think of all these huge, big bugget fight scenes they were doing, just imagine the cost of getting some of these other characters involved and getting them to shine. The more impressive the powers, the more expensive it's going to be.

This is a point "who should have been in the movie" arguements overlook, there is more to it than just having the actor, a costume, and some dialogue on a set. Someone actually has to create all those FX for their fight scenes, hire stunt doubles, and everything else.

We've already got a bunch of characters running around, a huge cast for a movie (which isn't a short one), and truely epic amounts of money being spent on FX. Practically speaking if they were going to do another hero, they would have to remove one with similar FX involved. To say have Spider Woman, who is pretty bloody flashy (she is nothing like Spider Man, understand this... she's a bio energy controller) you'd have to say remove Iron Man, because your going to have to do all those movement effects, ranged attacks, evasion, etc... with her in similar kinds of fight scenes. So when your budgeting something like this, you can't have EVERYTHING and have to choose, so if say Spider Woman was a possibility, would you think that people would rather see her OR Iron Man if you had to pick? Of course ideally people would like to have both, I mean even the FX guys would love to be paid even more money to do it, but there are not limitless resources, and you can only make a movie so long.

As time goes on I do not think the roster of characters is likely to get much bigger either, they might add one or two more people, or replace some of the characters, but when everyone has to get time a cast can only get so big before it becomes top heavy. While all the super hero action is cool right now, after a another movie or two it's going to be pretty much "same, old, same old" with a lot of the big fight scenes. This could easily fall into the trap of super hero movies just dialing it in, figuring people will watch anything as long as they blow enough stuff up... which has killed plenty of movies. If they say double the cast and action of the Avengers, but cut the plot and dialogue (as far as it went), objectively speaking it probably wouldn't be a very good movie anymore.

 

[Calbeck]

*sigh* SERIOUSLY?

"Diversity for its own sake" is about is meaningful as "coconut filling for its own sake". I don't recall Bob complaining that "Red Tails" lacked Hispanic and Asian pilots --- and good thing, too, because the Tuskeegee Airmen were an ALL-BLACK UNIT.

Shoehorning other minorities into a film which doesn't call for any wouldn't improve things one bit. And the fact is, two roles WERE shoehorned into the Marvel movies to expressly replace white characters (Nick Fury, Heimdall) with black actors.

I'm sure Bob would be quick to say these are supporting actors, but then we get back to the idea of replacing just ONE of the supporting actors from "Red Tails" with an Asian guy. Let's make him female just to get that ol' diversity train going, eh?

That would be STUPID. But it would also be exactly the sort of thing Bob supposedly wants in a movie.

 

[Therumancer]

Black Panther is about as core an Avenger as you can get without being Cap, Thor, or Iron Man. He's in that big second tier of guys like Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hulk, Giant Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, or Quicksilver.

The downside.... the set up of a Super Advanced African Nation hiding behind the disguise of a "tribal" group is impossible to pull off now a days without coming off as racist. Now if Wakanda is shown to be a vital industrial nation, and T'Challa as their very civilized Prince then it could be easier to sell.

They just shouldn't be politically correct about it at all as that would destroy the whole idea of Wakanda.

I'll also be blunt, Wakanda is not a civilized nation hiding behind a tribal disguise, they are a group of tribals with access to high technology as a result of their Vibranium.

The Black Panther really isn't a second string avenger, because he's mosly focused on Wakanda, they have found excuses for him to get out and do things, but mostly he sticks to his neck of the woods and gets involved when plots go there, or by a plot involving him calling for help or whatever.

If you follow some of his adventures you'll see that a huge amount of his rogues gallery basically comes down to various tribal enemies with legitimate or semi-legitimate pretensions to the throne trying to take it from him. One schtick that is fairly consistant is that he's only King as long as he's the strongest (which is hardly civilized) so people are always looking for ways to challenge him and knock him out. Indeed the Avengers cartoon used that to have him exiled as an excuse to have him with The Avengers (and things along these lines have happened in the comics).

The reason why they should keep it more or less the way it is, is not just for consistincy (and to maintain the mythos, I mean if they change all of that the character is no longer The Black Panther, the guy being half gentleman, half tribal Barbarian is kind of what makes him what he is), but because it's bloody cool, and provides excuses for The Black Panther to fight guys to defend his title (and fights are always cool in comics).

What's more one big threat is always that villains are going to steal the Wakandan Vibranium reserves, or that one of T'challa's rivals is going to knock him out of power and then sell it all to tge Latverians (Doctor Doom's country) legally or something.

You couldn't really say that Wakanda was truely civilized and developed without raising questions like why it didn't conquer and civilize the rest of Africa, which raises questions about the tribal origins of characters like Storm (who was worshipped as an African goddess in her youth), and everything else. Right now it's pretty well balanced in the infrastructure.

One of the points I think the BET series missed (along with all the other horrors involved) is that half the point is that Wakanda for all of it's arrogance and technology really isn't able to defend itself all that well against the potential threats out there. The Black Panther is a formidible defender, and can hold down the fort, but it acts as a sort of flashpoint for super heroes, since if Marvel has an off month and can't think of much else "someone is invading Wakanda and the Avengers (or whoever) need to go help" is always
on the menu. It's one of those locations that exists so heroes can save it periodically (and there are many throughout comics).

 

[SilverUchiha]

This will come off as rude, but "I demand a Big Picture Episode about Black Panther." I know a bit about him, but I would like to know more about him, and any other diverse characters. I'm sure there are plenty more to toss out there worth mentioning.

Also, no nod towards Wasp? She's another female that would have been nice to see in Avengers.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

I can see a few problems here:

1) The Avengers movie already has a lot of characters in it. Adding more would spread the movie too thin unless you lengthened it. You could possibly replace Hawkeye since he was the obvious "weak" character of the movie(weak in that he had the least on screen backstory of the cast), but that's about it. Okay, maybe the Black Widow as well, but that kind of defeats the purpose of your article.

2) Trying to use Spiderwoman would likely get the production mired in legal battles for so long that the movie would never see the light of day. It doesn't matter that the two Spider characters are unrelated by story. They're related by name, and you'd better believe that high paid lawyers would find a way to exploit that connection. Not worth the effort.

3) Although those characters may have been in the Avengers at some point or another, very few of them would be as(oh how I loathe this word) "iconic" as the ones presented on screen. I could see a case made for the Black Panther or Luke Cage, but the others are mostly hard sells, especially without a preceding movie to introduce them. Which is a problem, because other than Luke Cage and the Black Panther, I don't see much of a case for the listed characters getting their own movie without being introduced elsewhere first.

4) War Machine. Good idea, but due to point #1 completely unworkable. When you need to keep the cast size manageable(the current lineup size is pretty typical of Whedon's past teams), adding in a character that is pretty much a functional clone of another is a big no-no. You'd have to choose between Iron Man and War Machine, and there's no way the Studio would approve of ditching a character(or actor) that was the star of 2 very successful movies over what essentially amounted to a sidekick in the 2nd movie.

I would add two more general points:

5) The weirdness factor of adding all sorts of new characters with completely distinct origin stories will eventually become a negative for the films. Not only would it (to reinforce your first point) require too much additional storytelling for a two-hour movie, but it would make the movie downright schizophrenic. This is to say: it's not just the screen-time that would be required but the fact that it would also require the audience to keep track of far too many subplots. Even if you could tell it in a brief amount of time, an audience just can't become invested in 15 different stories without getting infuriated. Good series (like Game of Thrones, for instance) make an effort to tie everything together. But the background stories for the characters mentioned by Bob (aside from War Machine) just don't tie in.

6) If there are to be new characters, they shouldn't have magic-based powers. Every hero in the movie thus far derives his or her powers from technology, even Thor's powers are ultimately based on scientifically explainable technology (though it's a bit out there). Introducing magic might just be too much for the audience's suspension of disbelief.

 

[Forestbjorn]

Personally I think this new wave of movies has the opportunity to at least add some more female heroes. A new hulk movie could introduce She-hulk for instance.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Yeah, I saw the title and my first thought was, "Where the Hell was Rhodes?"

Seriously, what was he doing that was more important than stopping an alien invasion kicked off by a god?

Captcha: come back

Yes, Rhodes, come back, where have you gone?

War Machine was busy holding murdering the shit out of some dudes, keeping other armor projects down, Philanthropy-style.

The only problem with the idea of "diversifying" the avengers (at least form this list) is that a lot of those characters just suck.

No flames, please. If Bob is allowed to hate Bane, I'm allowed to think these guys are lame

Especially Luke Cage. When you can be defeated by flooring, you no longer interest me

 

[rancher of monsters]

I think of this comic everytime diversity comes up in entertainment I think of this comic. I really don't see any gain from the other characters being added in other then some moral pat on the back for the writers.

Well there are all the morals reasons that whole pat on the back thing, bringing your company out of the 50's, but if you wanna talk real incentive let's talk money. The fact of the matter is that minorities aren't really a minority anymore. "Minority" births made up a little over 50% percent of U.S. births last year. We have immigrants pouring in constantly from many countries, and they're shifting the tide. As the years role on the economic opportunities for "minorities" increase and they gain more spending power. Major companies can only pretend to have an all white audience for so much longer. If Marvel and DC can't get their act together there's gonna be a time when the "majority" is going to look at their comics and wonder, "why do none of these heroes look like us?" Then all it takes is for someone else to come by with a more diverse roster and they?re screwed.

I'm not saying I want a race lift of Wonder Woman or anything, but let's be honest, it's 2012. DC and Marvel must have thousands, if not millions, of "minority" fans. If they can't be bothered to find some "minorities", learn a bit about their culture, and ask what they'd like to see in a superhero then they really don't deserve to be able to survive in the market. Besides, it's not like a "minority" can't carry a show or comic (Generator Rex anyone?)

I?m gonna go to sleep now because I?m beginning to sound like a black panther (no not that one!).

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

Well, the copyright issue on Spider Woman is going to be extremely tricky. While the first one had more to do with the Avengers than Spider Man, the next four (or three depending on how you count the one from the future) spider women all DID have a connection to Spiderman. Even if they made it clear it was the first one only, the name and the fact she is lumped with Spiderman in several Marvel printed guides (including the "Ultimate Guide to Spiderman") is just begging for a lawsuit.

 

[pigmy wurm]

too all the people saying "yeah but their were already a bunch of characters and adding more would have hurt the movie" I think what movie bob meant (with the partial exception of war machine) is that they should be in the next Avengers Movie.

I'm surprised you didn't mention either Ms Marvel or Wasp as I feel they are both far more iconic than many of the characters you listed, particularly the various martial artists. I would particularly like seeing Ant Man and Wasp together as the idea of a Superhero Couple is something that they have not done in the movies yet.


///SPOILER////

Also since the next movie has Thanos I think it would be fitting to have Moondragon who is both a woman and openly gay (and might be part asian, I was never sure).

 

[MorganL4]

I have been calling for T'Challa for years!!! When I heard Howard Stark mention vibrainium, and saw the mark on the map in some random African place I got all giddy.... I mean I kinda expected it just because the team could use some color (as Bob said) But no, Avengers first, BUT PLEASE, PLEASE Marvel DO A BLACK PANTHER FILM, and don't give me the " He first appeared in The Fantastic Four comics thus he can't be used by Disney" crap...... He is his own hero, HE HAS A COUNTRY for crying out loud!!! ( yes I know so does Doctor Doom and he is a Fantastic Four property) But Panther has long been considered more an Avenger than a 4 side character..... Only problem is, his love interest is Storm ( yes the X-men Storm) So there goes that part of the back story.


OH and I want Dr. Strange... He is also on my list ( yes he is white and a male and we are discussing diversity, but still)

Shut up! They made Nick Fury black, isn't that enough?

I really hope this was sarcasm.

yes he was being sarcastic, if you read the article, it is actually a quote from Bob (kind of)


Oh, and I just had a thought on how to get Panther into the movie-verse, Captain America 2, his shield breaks ( somehow) they cant smelt it back together, so where do they go? YEP, you guessed it Rogers shows up in a Black Panther film to get a new shield, helps T'Chala out, T'CHalla owes him, so he answers his Avengers pager when it beeps come Avengers 2. Plus, Thanos is gonna want to destroy earth, and Wakanda is on earth last I checked....

Yay problem solved.

 

[BrotherRool]

I've got to be honest, aren't some of those kinda embarrassing? Particularly Black Panther, because the whole 'African Tribal Nation but secretly Super Advanced' thing is just saying 'look Africa's a bunch of tribes, would it be cool if they had technology, Atlantis style?' Instead of recognizing Africa as a country that has consistently had cities and large influential, powerful areas for pretty much most of history (as well as some tribes).

I guess the problem is that if you set about creating a character based on demographics then you kinda have to do something interesting with that, otherwise people complain. (Like Susan Arendts grudge against Lightning, despite the fact Lightning even had a becoming-a-mother-figure character arc). You can't do outliers, when you deliberately bringing people in in the first place.

But then you already have two problems, what if the writer doesn't know much about a region? (I mean it's hard to have an accurate grasp of anything unless you've actually lived there for some time. The women one might be easier at any right it'd be nice if it's easy to find women writers who could do it) And then the audience won't know much about it either and it'll come off as weird or stupid.

Well, it's debatable as to whether the idea of Wakanda is embarassing or not.

When you get down to it Africa is something you can't handle while making everyone happy. If you show something like Wakanda some people will call it embarassing and patronizing because it's such obvious fantasy. If you show Africa as being what it is (a primitive hellhole, with little progress towards changing that) people call that offensive and insensitive. If you don't do anything with Africa at all, other people scream racism claiming your avoiding it because it's where black people are from and trivializing it. You have people attack everything from comics, to stories about workers going down there to help people, because true or not someone is inevitably going to say "well, why can't the people down there be shown to help themselves?" when ummm... tons of aid and personell and resources go there for humanitarian reasons because they can't and need the outside help. It's all a giant fraking mess.

See you've fallen into it too. This is what Bob was talking about in one of his big pictures. It's not you being racist, but our cultural consciousness is horribly inaccurate.

Factually countries in Africa have been world leaders in wealth and technology for most of history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6XtBLDmPA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvnU0v6hcUo

This is discounting Egypt which no-one every thinks of as being in Africa anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Wvw6BivVI

In the current world African countries are seeing faster growth than East Asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa#Recent_economic_growth

Botswanna for example is in the top 30% of econmies in the world, has grown from a GDP of $70 to $14 000 and has a higher IMF ranking than Iran, China, Jamaica, Peru etc

Equitorial Guinea has the 22nd highest GDP per capita in the world, beating Poland, Hungary, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico.


Our impression of Africa is not what it thinks. And specifically with old civilizations, the idea of discovering an ancient super civilisation is patronising, because in the last millenia, for most of the last millenia there were African civilisations much more advanced than European civilisations.


Africa is still the poorest continent in the world, with lots of political, medical and social problems but it's not this unimaginably deprived hellhole you imagine, and despite western beliefs it's perfectly easy to find prosperity stories if you feel like it