Something Amyss said:
Happyninja42 said:
Sorry, I was making that comment in regards to the other young, black, female engineer character that was mentioned earlier, and then asked why they don't use her. My point was that I've never heard of her, and likely very few people outside of die hard Iron Man fans have heard of her, so she has no draw power for the market. Hence why they wouldn't use her, and would instead make up a new character for the role.
My bad, I missed that. I'd seen several people (or maybe just the same couple over and over, not sure) bring up Pepper, so I thought that's who you meant.
I don't offhand remember the character in question, so I'm guessing she's fairly obscure, but I could have missed her or just not remembered her. Moreover, unless she's a teen, she might be missing the point.
Part of what made Marvel popular was its relatable characters. Another part, though somewhat overlapped, is the fact that they broke from the tradition of adult superheroes, with kids functioning almost exclusively as sidekicks. The idea that Peter Parker was just a kid with problems like his readership was originally quite novel (though his original appearance read almost like nerd revenge fantasies, though that could be argued as "relatable" I guess). Peter was the hero, rather than the person whose job it was to be caught, and people responded to that.
Teen superheroes give younger readers something to aspire to. And, like video games, it's sometimes easy to forget amidst a sea of complaints that comics aren't made solely for 30-40 something white men. 15 may be a bit young, I don't really know. I doubt Marvel did this without some research, though. For all the "they're worse than Konami" stuff, most of what Marvel's done to "piss off its fans" is not ignore the rest of its fanbase.
Bolded for emphasis here:
The fact that you don't know who I mean either, just helps support my theory on why they didn't use her. xD Yeah she exists already, but nobody really knows who she is. She's a C List supporting character,
for another support character. She's hardly going to have that much drawing power in the market. But a fresh new face with a brand new background (that isn't already bogged down by decades of backstory crap and retcons)? Yeah that's way more logical to me.
And yep, I agree they are making an effort to aim for a younger audience, by having younger heroes take on the key roles. Either by making them younger (in the case of Peter Parker and Miles Morales in that particular Spiderman title line, and other examples), or by having younger people take on the established mantle. And it works. I mean, the easiest way to get a kid invested in a story, to make them care about it, and love it, is to give them a character that they could say "That could be me, I could be doing that stuff!" I mean hell, why do we think the Goonies is such a classic, and firmly rooted in the hearts of a generation of kids? Because these kids, roughly the age bracket of most of the people the movie was made for, got to have this awesome adventure, with pirates! And buried treasure! And a map! And crazy Music of Death traps! That movie would be way more boring if it was all adults, and kids would not have found it as enjoyable.
So yeah, aging down the line of heroes makes perfect sense. Diversifying their genders and ethnicities makes perfect sense. It might seem silly to some, to say that it's easier to identify with a hero, when that hero is a lot like you, but it is. That's how humans are. I would not have found Wesley Crusher as personally identifiable if he didn't look a lot like me, happened to be my age, and had my own fucking name! I mean the self insert into the fantastic world of Next Generation was pretty much all done for me every episode. I mean come on! The number of Wesley/Troy fantasies alone fueled my budding libido for years! "Yes Counselor, please let's have a one on one session in your quarters. I have some things to discuss with you. Sure, feel free to get undressed if it makes you more comfortable." ...where was I? Right!
It had me hooked! And not just because of Deanna's cleavage and jet black hair...and striking eyes...gah! Damnit!
So, to give a character that young black girls could look up to, identify with, and imagine being heroic as, boom, hello new cash flow demographic. Which is honestly what this is all about. Well, not
ALL about that. I do think Bendis genuinely wants to diversify the lineup, just so that he can reach more people, and let more people enjoy comic books. But on top of that, it's also about that money. And having a diverse lineup, designed to tap into various pools of money,
as well as being genuinely good works of fiction (I hope), seems to be the most logical, and intelligent marketing strategy in today's world.
