-Jak- said:
You would have to individually prove that specific comic makers from the golden, silver, etc age were indeed racist sexist, etc. And those views influenced character and story development.
Just looking at a general population, and labeling everyone as racists. Isn't fair to those who for helping minority groups, got beaten, verbally abused, lose their jobs/homes, and killed too. Or secretly helped oppressed groups behind close doors.
Why would I have to prove claims about individuals when my point is about the industry as a whole? Whether isolated individuals were great non-racist people says absolutely nothing about the trends of the industry as a whole and your point is irrelevant.
If you know anything at all about the golden and silver age you'll know that female and minority superheroes were massively under-represented, so I'm not sure if you're arguing for the sake of it or if you really know absolutely nothing about the points you're trying to argue. I even just did a quick Pearson Chi-Square based on expected race as per the racial breakdown at the time and the race observed in the leading old fasioned superhero teams and the idea that characters were racially biased can be rejected with statistical certainty.
Humans are just as capable now as in the past to create new characters and their stories.
No they're not, which is the entire point.
Creating a successful new superhero book requires sales.
Sales are based on many things.
One of the most important things, if not THE most important thing, is a character having accrued a lot of love and support from decades of being published and people having grown up with this character being marketed to them in all kinds of media.
Why do you think that regardless of the writer they put on it, and no matter how they chance the characterisation, books like Amazing Spider-man and Batman are always big sellers? While when those very same writers go and try to create a new character, it will do far far worse and likely get cancelled within 6 issues?
So exactly as I've already explained to you, people are not just as capable of creating successful new characters as in the past because unlike in the past there exists a wide array of long-standing characters who readers have accrued a lot of love for which new characters have to compete with for a limited amount of people's spending money. While it's possible for new characters to break out and become popular, it's very rare and much harder and this is again something basic that comic fans know.
And perhaps what Thaluikhain said about comic book market share. May be the reason why new characters aren't growing as big as older ones. You can say women and minorities are being underrepresented; and that the population from the 30-60's were racist and sexist. But the present day comic book audience that includes those "under-represented" demographics, is the one that aren't buying these new comic book characters.
They are buying the new characters - comic sales are generally trending upwards - and the point is they are doing this by tapping into the legacy of old characters rather than inventing new ones. They don't invent a brand-new female berserker type with a healing factor, they get rid of Logan and replace him with X-23 as the
new Wolverine.
Do you know the highest paying male model in the world Sean O'Pry, made $1.5 million in a year. While the female model Gisele took in $47 million. Can you even comprehend that massive wealth difference. Or maybe your thinking of just how much less other male models are making.
Do you have a point you want to make with this seemingly random observation?
Comic books are a male dominant industry. It should be no surprise that the majority of characters are male, as one thing artists can relate to and express well, is their own gender and personal vulnerabilities. And I honestly don't see modern day comic book fans being crazy over Wonder Woman taking complete lead over Superman and Batman. Just to appease non-comic book fans with a political agenda on their mind. Who can care less about the quality of their comics and the movies based on them.
Nope, about half of comics fans are female (https://graphicpolicy.com/tag/facebook-fandom/) and the idea that artists are only capable of drawing men is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Have you ever read a comic book? Or art in general for the matter?
can a normal non-superpowered writer ever possibly understand what it's like to be someone with superpowers!
You do not know me. You do not know that last week I was ministering with my sister to a friend of ours; who opened up to us that she was beaten badly by her brother when she was younger. Or the young kids/teens at the gym I go to, that want to start fights with each other. And when I went to break up the fight between two little kids, their own cousin was encouraging them to keep swinging hands and tossing each other on the gym floor. So keep the generalizations to yourself, as that was only a sample of the community work I may do on a weekly basis. And does not include my reserve officer duties where I stand out in the extreme cold or heat to help people in their time of need.[/quote]
You can take this load of hypocritical nonsense and get rid of it. Despite your claims the only one making generalisations that are completely wrong and obviously based on a complete lack of knowledge is you.
I am not making a generalisation, I am making a specific claim based on your own statements.
You can't imagine people writing about people that don't represent themselves. This of course is hilariously wrong as writers of all sorts (not just comic writers) continually write about different races, genders, sexual orientations, etc. I mean I could list books if I had to, but this claim of yours is such utter nonsense that I can't see the point.
Thaluikhain said:
It could be argued though that the old characters are popular in large part because they keep pumping out stuff about them, not just because they are old. You have new characters outside of comics that have gained large followings in recent years, after all. New Latino Superhero isn't going to keep getting movies and reboots thrown at us like Spiderman or Batman.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying> I'm not arguing that Golden Age ma Hunkel is as popular as Superman just because she's really old.
Characters outside of comics aren't a good comparison though. The entire way comic work with continuous never ending narratives that aren't limited by any writer and don't have actors that age doesn't translate well to novels or movies.
Additionally the comic market is a lot smaller than novels, tv or movies and is dominated by a few major players. It's a lot harder to break into.
I'd also point out that the X-Men movies would seem to have less minorities than the comics did. The excuse that the people were backwards doesn't really work when the comic was about minorities (by way of an allegory that's no longer needed, in that you can put real minorities in nowdays, like the comics have and movies avoid) to begin with.
It depends on the era. Original x-men were all white for instance. It was only with second genesis in 75 that the X-men actually got minorities representation and by that time it was well into the post civil rights era with Luke Cage already having appeared a few years earlier and a year after Black Panther got his own series. That was the beginning of the trend towards better representation in comic books although even then it was fairly ham-handed.
