Report: Only 30 Percent of Marvel/DC Characters Female

[Mister K]

Honestly? I'm a little surprised it's that high.

I do not know how it is in the West, but where I am from, there is a HUGE manganime fanbase, but western superhero fanbase is almost non-existent. What is the point of forcing something for the sake of equality, if those who are we equalizing this media for aren't interested in it?

If you don't know how it is, why assert something like it being "forcing" it for the "sake of equality?"

Sounds like you're working backwards from a predefined conclusion.

Because a) I made an assumption based on my own experience and, after reading posts here b) came to certain conclussion based on the info given and c) I am not saying that I was correct, although I WILL say that I'd really like more leading ladies and femanizing Thor and blackening Spider Man because Marvel is too lazy/affraid to create someone new seems like a cheap bullshit to me.

EDIT: I am in complete agreement with people here, who say it is better to make smaller cast of well-made female characters, then create 100 forgetable "chicks".

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Girl

She's a mutant squirrel/girl crossbreed. She has a cute fluffy tail and the proportional abilities of a human sized squirrel (except holding large amounts of food in her mouth. I don't think she's ever been shown doing that.) Despite being not very powerful, she's defeated some of the most powerful villains in the Marvel Universe, like Doctor Doom and even Thanos.

Yeah, she's a joke character that has just kept going. People just love her and she keeps showing up in books. So they're giving her a series of her own where she deals with super villains and college life.

I swear to god this sounds so much like a game charcter I know

Spoiler: Makoto Nanaya-Blazblue

Similar base appearance and strength and she is also one of the big comedic characters for that universe who somehow can screw with the plans of the villains unintentionally.

OT: do I think that more female characters should be made, to some extent yes. Do I think it should be mandated, hell no. Make a character that fits a story and personality needed, if it benefits from or doesn't matter if it's a female character, I say consider making the character a female. A quota will be problematic but some progress should be made.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I'm sorry, its a logical fallacy to assume that just because women are 50% of the total population, they must also be 50% of every fan base. This article never address if that 30% of characters being female corresponds to 30% of the fanbase being female.

 

[And Man]

In other news: Statisticians are amazed by the paradigm shift as 30% now reads as "about 1 in 4 superheroes is female" (25%) as opposed to the previous logic wherein 30% is actually much closer to 33%, which would have correctly been read as "about 1 in 3 superheroes is female."

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed this.

...with DC Comics claiming a slight lead over Marvel owing, in part, to its early willingness to create female counterparts to its male leads.

And I think this is the issue people have with focusing on "only" 30% of characters being female; DC creating "female counterparts to its male leads" gives the impression that they're lazily shoehorning in female characters for the sake of having more female characters. I'm not saying that these new characters are necessarily poor characters, but it definitely gives the impression that they were just thrown in.

 

[Lupine]

A proper valkyrie design would be better as she has a relation to them, but I forgot the details of it. I wouldn't say she fits a straight up ye olde vanilla type of hero though, but then neither does Thor and we know what marvels take on him is like.

Frankly, a non-standard heroine would be a good thing. Anti-heroes or Observer heroes are perfectly servicable and all.

You're probably right on the valkyrie angle.

Something like -

Spoiler: this or this

For a classic angle.

Or the more 'futuristic' movie versions.

- seems like it would be cool. I dunno. I find this idea a whole hell of a lot more interesting than just gender flipping a character.

Spoiler: Well this exists

The current rulers of Asgard in Thor at the moment.

Also the whole just gender flipping a character is a bit of a misnomer because as a fan of Modern Thor, the current Thor isn't a gender flip, she is a character that just happens to be female that is taking up the mantle of the God of Thunder and taking over his current Thor comic title. This exact same thing happened with Amadeus Cho over in Hercules but Cho didn't get this kind of press and there was no one calling it the worst thing ever...so I can see how people might have missed it as a non marvel comics fan.

Cho became the Prince of Power which had been Herc's title up until then as Herc lost his powers and basically disappeared. Thor Odinson of course hasn't really lost his powers, but I digress.

Spoiler: As for a Valkyrie design:

Marvel has a good amount of them. Not a fan or the designs for the most part, but you do tend to get some interesting characters out of it. That is so long as someone doesn't just come along and decide to treat it as just a gender flipped Thor, which some writers do and which is why the original comment of such sort of rubbed me as a fan the wrong way.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Spoiler: Well this exists

The current rulers of Asgard in Thor at the moment.

And that is awesome. I say bring her to the forefront...except apparently that character is named Frigga who's apparently taken the name Freyja? And that's a triumvirate of goddesses formed for some...reason- All right, so I'm getting that comics are something of a massive pit of events/entities/facts/etc.

Ugh.

Also the whole just gender flipping a character is a bit of a misnomer because as a fan of Modern Thor, the current Thor isn't a gender flip, she is a character that just happens to be female that is taking up the mantle of the God of Thunder and taking over his current Thor comic title. This exact same thing happened with Amadeus Cho over in Hercules but Cho didn't get this kind of press and there was no one calling it the worst thing ever...so I can see how people might have missed it as a non marvel comics fan.

Cho became the Prince of Power which had been Herc's title up until then as Herc lost his powers and basically disappeared. Thor Odinson of course hasn't really lost his powers, but I digress.

Spoiler: As for a Valkyrie design:

Marvel has a good amount of them. Not a fan or the designs for the most part, but you do tend to get some interesting characters out of it. That is so long as someone doesn't just come along and decide to treat it as just a gender flipped Thor, which some writers do and which is why the original comment of such sort of rubbed me as a fan the wrong way.

Those designs are kinda neat, honestly. The topmost being something modern, the middle being futuristic/vaguely reminiscent of X-Men, and...well, the bottom one looks like someone really enjoys playing World of Warcraft and took an interest in its Val'kyr (or vice versa).

Spoiler: See what I mean?

As for the new Thor: I realize it's a "different" character, but what I mean by a 'gender flip' is...well, look at her.

Spoiler: Blonde hair, similar costume design...she looks like a gender inverted version of the previous incarnation.

I mean...give her different colored hair. Cover her arms. Bulkier armor. Less armor. Whatever. Something that doesn't look like they were too scared to stray away from the original while simultaneously discarding it. If you're doing this; really DO it, you know?

 

[Lupine]

Spoiler: Well this exists

The current rulers of Asgard in Thor at the moment.

And that is awesome. I say bring her to the forefront...except apparently that character is named Frigga who's apparently taken the name Freyja? And that's a triumvirate of goddesses formed for some...reason- All right, so I'm getting that comics are something of a massive pit of events/entities/facts/etc.

Ugh.

Also the whole just gender flipping a character is a bit of a misnomer because as a fan of Modern Thor, the current Thor isn't a gender flip, she is a character that just happens to be female that is taking up the mantle of the God of Thunder and taking over his current Thor comic title. This exact same thing happened with Amadeus Cho over in Hercules but Cho didn't get this kind of press and there was no one calling it the worst thing ever...so I can see how people might have missed it as a non marvel comics fan.

Cho became the Prince of Power which had been Herc's title up until then as Herc lost his powers and basically disappeared. Thor Odinson of course hasn't really lost his powers, but I digress.

Spoiler: As for a Valkyrie design:

Marvel has a good amount of them. Not a fan or the designs for the most part, but you do tend to get some interesting characters out of it. That is so long as someone doesn't just come along and decide to treat it as just a gender flipped Thor, which some writers do and which is why the original comment of such sort of rubbed me as a fan the wrong way.

Those designs are kinda neat, honestly. The topmost being something modern, the middle being futuristic/vaguely reminiscent of X-Men, and...well, the bottom one looks like someone really enjoys playing World of Warcraft and took an interest in its Val'kyr (or vice versa).

Spoiler: See what I mean?

As for the new Thor: I realize it's a "different" character, but what I mean by a 'gender flip' is...well, look at her.

Spoiler: Blonde hair, similar costume design...she looks like a gender inverted version of the previous incarnation.

I mean...give her different colored hair. Cover her arms. Bulkier armor. Less armor. Whatever. Something that doesn't look like they were too scared to stray away from the original while simultaneously discarding it. If you're doing this; really DO it, you know?

Honestly my only real annoyance with the designs is that they sometimes come across as too similar. Especially when you're looking at a ton of Asgardians and they are within the same space. Without other characters around you get a sense of cool astetic choices, but in a crowd it is a little too similar, though I think that is probably a part of the artists plans so that you can get a feel for Asgard as a culture.

As far as female Thor goes, I for one think that everyone should just wait until her identity is revealed, there have been alot of theories floating around and one of them if true would pretty much address the design issues you might have.

Spoiler: Theory

Some people think it might be one of Thor's Granddaughters from the future. We've seen the three of them together and we know they are Thunder goddesses. If this is true, well her resemblance to her Grandfather makes a ton of sense.

 

[Erttheking]

To be perfectly honest, this isn't that bad of a ratio.

Though I'd question what the ratio of protagonists were. I imagine that might be a bit less even.

 

[Something Amyss]

Because a) I made an assumption based on my own experience and, after reading posts here b) came to certain conclussion based on the info given and c) I am not saying that I was correct, although I WILL say that I'd really like more leading ladies and femanizing Thor and blackening Spider Man because Marvel is too lazy/affraid to create someone new seems like a cheap bullshit to me.

EDIT: I am in complete agreement with people here, who say it is better to make smaller cast of well-made female characters, then create 100 forgetable "chicks".

Since you admitted you already don't know what you're talking about, none of those really seems to matter.

You're not saying this is happening, you're just ranting about it as though it's happening and ascribing motives to people with no information.

That's absurd.

 

[Something Amyss]

I find this idea a whole hell of a lot more interesting than just gender flipping a character.

Since the ideas aren't mutually exclusive, though, what difference does it make?

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

While it would be nice to have perfect inclusiveness I cant help but to feel that were trying to fill a quota here.

30% doesn't seem like a big problem. Thats still a large amount of female characters.

There is such a thing as a target audience and there is such a thing as a reader base. Maybe the overall effort should be to try and create comics that have a general appeal to both men and women, or at least a similar amount of comics directed towards both groups. And whether or not such a thing has already been achieved really cant be directly observed from character percentages.

You also have to consider what percentage of these characters are actually relevant. I'm just not convinced that this data is particularly valuable.

 

[blackrave]

And this is problem how exactly?

Ok, let's assume that ~50% of DC/Marvel customers are women.
Is it really reason to start gender flipping characters?
Maybe, just maybe, some of these women started reading comic because comics are like they currently are?

Let me give my anecdotal example.
I regularly read Spinnerette.
And I assume there are a lot of men reading that web-comic.
If this ever started to influence author and he started to change comic to tailor it my demographic stereotype preferences I would be pissed and most probably stopped reading it.
I like it BECAUSE it is like it is and because author does what he does.

Basically if something works you DON'T FUCK IT UP.

Captcha: the big easy
Yeah, damn right captcha, it is.

 

[blackrave]

And this is problem how exactly?

Ok, let's assume that ~50% of DC/Marvel customers are women.
Is it really reason to start gender flipping characters?
Maybe, just maybe, some of these women started reading comic because comics are like they currently are?

Let me give my anecdotal example.
I regularly read Spinnerette.
And I assume there are a lot of men reading that web-comic.
If this ever started to influence author and he started to change comic to tailor it my demographic stereotype preferences I would be pissed and most probably stopped reading it.
I like it BECAUSE it is like it is and because author does what he does.

Basically is something works you DON'T FUCK IT UP.

Captcha: the big easy
Yeah, damn right captcha.

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible attitude in my opinion.

Videogames sell millions of copies. Videogames have a sexism problem too, as we all know since we're discussing it a lot. We shouldn't represent female videogame characters as nothing else than fanservice, because videogames sell well anyway?

We shouldn't represent female heroines as nothing more than what the Hawkeye Initiative shows us, because comics sell anyway?

Actually... yeah.

Your current fans like your work because you do what you do.
Trying to shove some sort of quota will mess with that.

And like I said previously

If something works you DON'T FUCK IT UP.

If something stops working THEN you should change things to make them work again.
When you run large company changing things to change things is potential risk to profit.
Same is following questionable social justice agenda.
Profit is only thing that matters at the end of the day.

 

[maninahat]

So?

I'd rather have 30% of charaters being male/female and the authors of the books making them male/female because they wanted to make the character that way rather than it being 50/50 and authors being denied creative freedom with their character for the sake of political correctness.

I'd like to think there were more than just those two options. No one is asking for a HR person to accompany comic book writers, poised to slap the pens out of their hands whenever they try to write another male character.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I don't really think "Number of Female Protagonists" translates to "Number of Comics for Girls."

I mean Playboy must really be making a killing off the female demographic with all their female leads.

If anything, I'm surprised there isn't more female superheroes to target the same white male demographic. I'm a guy and some of my favorite heroes are girls and I would like more girl superheroes too. But that doesn't change the issue of how comics are geared towards guys.

I appreciate the update, but I feel like the article puts an unnecessary spin on it.

 

[Saetha]

You know, I don't think people realize just how small the comic book industry in the US actually is. Despite the success of movies and tv series from the big two, the whole US comic book industry in the US only brings in about 600-700 million in revenue each year, or about what a single one of their blockbusters does, and that's split 3 ways between Marvel, DC and everyone else. Gimmicks like turning Thor into a woman for no discernible reason are poor attempts to increase sales numbers by getting people who wouldn't otherwise read comic books to do so (though sales numbers for most which have had gimmicks like this make me certain that the story will be canned within the next 6 months).

This is actually something that really pisses me off - the small industry thing you mentioned. I think it's painfully stupid that, as far as I can see, the comic industry has done basically nothing to try and get "fresh blood," so to speak, in their fan base. For instance, I think comic books are pretty neat. I'd love to get into them, but there's one small problem - where do I start? What are the best books? Where can I find them? Why do I never hear about them? Why is that, if not for the non-comic book properties the comic industry produces, I basically wouldn't even know they exist?

I mean, hell, maybe your fanbase is dwindling because you're basically not putting any effort into maintaining it? Maybe you'd pull in bigger numbers if you, y'know, bothered to do some advertising and actually got your books on the shelves? Trumpeting Lady Thor's existence from the rooftops was a step in the right direction (Though I still say it's pretty sexist to use a character's gender as a selling point) but it's still not much. If I wanted to get into video games today, it'd be ridiculously easy. They've got web ads, youtube pre-rolls, even some commercials on TV. I realize the comic industry maybe can't advertise to that scale (And that maybe video games go a bit overboard in their advertising) but it's still piss easy for me to know where to start. I'm looking at an ad for The Evil Within right now! And I could probably walk down to Wal-Mart and swipe it off the shelf, if I wanted to.

Hell, this is something webcomics understand. I'd have never heard of Hanna is Not a Boy's Name if I hadn't seen the ads on Deviant Art. I would have never known shit about Namesake if they hadn't plastered my Tumblr in sponsored posts. (The fact that I would've been happier never knowing shit about Namesake aside) But I cannot ever recall seeing an ad for a published comic book series. The closest I've ever seen is the blurb at the end of The Wolf Among Us, and what do you know, that blurb got me interested in Fables.

There's just no guidance or direction. You could have the most diverse cast of characters ever, and it wouldn't matter because no one would know they're there.

//end rant

 

[Mister K]

Because a) I made an assumption based on my own experience and, after reading posts here b) came to certain conclussion based on the info given and c) I am not saying that I was correct, although I WILL say that I'd really like more leading ladies and femanizing Thor and blackening Spider Man because Marvel is too lazy/affraid to create someone new seems like a cheap bullshit to me.

EDIT: I am in complete agreement with people here, who say it is better to make smaller cast of well-made female characters, then create 100 forgetable "chicks".

Since you admitted you already don't know what you're talking about, none of those really seems to matter.

You're not saying this is happening, you're just ranting about it as though it's happening and ascribing motives to people with no information.

That's absurd.

Well, yeah? As I said I made an assumption based on what I read and on my own personal experience. Never did I say that this was the ultimate truth, didn't I?
Oh, and by the way, saying that mine (or anyone elses, for that matter) opinion "does not matter" is not not only hurtful, but is also laughable, because in the end yours doesn't too. This an internet forum. No mmatter the comment, it won't change anything, ever. Yet you seem to think, according to your reply, that yours SOMEHOW actually matters, my dearest special special snowflake. And you even DARE to tell people that their thought do not matter, that THEY do not matter.

Well hon, THIS is actually offensive. I was called many things (this IS the internet, is it not?), but for someone to say such a thing to me? Happened for the very 1st time.
Oh, and if my opinion, my thoughts, my execution of right for freedom of speech, does not matter, then why did you not ignore it? It did not matter right? You could've skipped it, yet you did not. Matters for you, doesn't it?

P.S. The only thing that ACTUALLY matters in the end is money, i.e. whether you'll buy a certain comic book or not, so, yeah, in the end you are right, non of this matters, neither your comment, nor mine.

 

[cleric of the order]

Report: Only 30 Percent of Marvel/DC Characters Female

Despite efforts to balance the scales, Marvel and DC still focus primarily on creating male comic characters.

One of the blatant paradoxes of many a human society is the fact that women make up 50 percent of the population, but are often treated as a minority. In fewer places is this clearer than in the world of <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/comics%20and%20cosplay>comic books where the status quo has long been one tailored toward individuals possessing a Y chromosome. It's something that major comic makers like <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/marvel>Marvel and DC have been trying to reverse in recent years, with some success. That being the case, recent reports on the state of female characters in comics would indicate that there's still a long way to go.

The report, which was recently published but the media site FiveThirtyEight, found that among DC and Marvel's current line-ups, only around one out of every four characters is a woman. More precisely female characters only represent around 30 percent of either company's overall cast, with <a href-http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/dc%20comics>DC Comics claiming a slight lead over Marvel owing, in part, to its early willingness to create female counterparts to its male leads.

The roots of this uneven division are, in turn, likely grounded in what comic companies perceive to be their primary audience: white men. And while this might be true to some degree, there's also some indication that things remain this way simply because comic makers don't create products with appeal for anyone else. In addition to the fact that most of the people working in comics are men, there's a belief among some that they've narrowed their sights on a shrinking demographic of white male readers. "Over time, we started to appeal to the same, dwindling fans," said Thor-writer Jason Aaron.

A possible side effect of this narrowly focused creative process however, could be the passing up of potential profits from other corners. Speaking in the report, Aaron cited the success of Marvel's Ms. Marvel, especially in digital formats. "That book has great digital sales," he said Clearly it's reaching an audience we haven't been reaching before through our longstanding distribution system." Fronted by a female Muslim Pakistani heroine, Ms. Marvel's creator G. Willow Wilson expected the book to die less than a year after its release. The wider availability offered by things like digital distribution however have helped it to build a strong fan following that's helped it to be a repeat top seller for Marvel.

Sadly, despite the success of properties like Ms. Marvel, big name brands are still playing things fairly safe when it comes to the creation of new books and characters. Even in the past few years female characters only made up around 30 percent of new superheroes introduced by Marvel and DC. One can only hope that things like the introduction of <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136159-Thor-Is-Getting-Gender-Flipped-Officially>a lady Thor, the continued success of Ms. Marvel and the introduction of various <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138002-Marvel-Announces-Gamora-Comic-for-Spring-2015>solo series will eventually help tip the tide toward a more balanced comics market.

Source: FiveThirtyEight


Permalink

People will create what they want to create I don't see a problem with that. To point if there is a majority of male characters and comic book writers then I suppose it would be better to write what you know. At this point in time i don't see any need to have completely equal numbers on both sides and forcing the Issue often makes people turn out un artistic trip. As it stand I would rather a small number of WELL WRITTEN female characters then a large number poorly written and often vaguely sexual charterers but then this is why i don't buy a lot of marvel or DC books. I prefer image and the indie comic book scene.
Let me just leave you with this, numbers are numbers but good work is something completely different

 

[blackrave]

Let me put it this way.

The world functioned perfectly fine when slavery was a thing. In fact, one might say it was economically better than now. Removing slavery made things economically worse.

So why the heck did we remove slavery, since it's not like things weren't working well back then?

1)Generational overt slavery stopped working with technological advancement.

2)Let me burst your bubble- slavery still exist.
It just changed its form.
Instead of generational slavery we have economical slavery now.

Oh, and for centuries, women had no right to vote. Yet, things were going just fine, no problem at all. So why the heck did we even bother giving women the right to vote, if voting was working fine as it was before?

Let me burst yet another bubble
During history 99% of people of our civilization had no such right.
Why? Because for most time political system was monarchy.
And under monarchy only those with power could influence political decisions.

And when it comes to antique democracies they were similar
Only those with power (military or financial) could vote
Those rare cases when someone without power could vote was short-lived, because next generation of said family members either regained power or lost votes.
In 99.9% cases those were males indeed.
But no, it wasn't because Patriarchy[sup]TM[/sup], but because objective reasons like physical strength or the fact men were not busy with pregnancies (necessary evil to keep our species from dying off, due to diseases and famines)

And when it came to our current voting system women gained ability to vote shortly after men (at least in most of Europe, I'm not familiar with US political history well enough to comment on it)

This is the same exact thing. Comics sell well as it is now. So why should we bother removing sexism? It's a pointless hassle.

Yes it is.
Goal of every company is to make profit, not to make SJWs happy.

Also- sexism will exist for as long as we will remain dimorphic species.
All we can realistically achieve is to go from severe sexism to light sexism.
And 30% seems quite light to me.

 

[kilenem]

But more importantly, what's the percentage of Marvel & DC characters who identify as female?

That isn't a good argument because the Teen titans Cartoon had a larger female viewer ship then the comics because it was better at portraying women. Like Terra sleeps with slate in the comics. If you make better Female charterers more women will read it.

It was also on TV with a wider audience than the comics ever reach. It has everything to do with TV vs Comics rather than anything to do with the the subject material at hand.

That's true but with any tv show based on source material people will go and check the source material.