New Brevoort Formspring

Yeah. I’m kinda in your camp on this one. I’m a 25+ year Marvel reader. I’m also black, male and bisexual. Diversity with Marvel has always been a mixed bag. For years it has been mostly straight white males trying to wrap their heads around writing queer, female and “ethnic” characters which, as you can follow fan feedback, has had its ups and downs. I think people are finding their stride and many writers are hitting the right chords and are “getting it”… that is a horrible way to put it, but I guess that is the case. For example, the new Mighty Avengers team is basically the racial diversity squad. Although some interviews say it happened organically or through listening to fans, I find it odd that other reports note that the discussion happened during black history month. Why? Is this the only time diversity is to be considered? Also why is the race conversation in the U.S. always mainly black and white? This diverse squad features 1.5 characters that are not black or white (that 1.5 is Latino and maybe Ronin will actually be Asian this time… 2.5)… Uncanny Avengers has one character that is not white, but it is also about diversity??? You could say this is being picky, but it still feels a bit wonky. But you have to ride it out and call people out if necessary. We all remember when Battlestar was briefly called Bucky… jeez. Let’s wait and see before we jump on anybody.

As for sexuality in comics, bold moves are being made, but I doubt many of these things are more than publicity stunts sadly. For example, the Northstar wedding was a damn sham. He’s Canadian and so is his husband, they could have been legally married in their own country years ago, but Marvel dragged their feet. If they wanted to hit people they should have been married years ago in Canada and had an issue where they were denied rights in the U.S. Instead they jumped on the N.Y. marriage bandwagon and shoehorned their relationship into it… Hell they can still confront the issue. It is currently a felony to apply for a same-sex marriage license in Indiana… but I doubt they jump on that… I guess the message is to move to a more open minded place when you can afford to do so… Ok, that was a bit mean, although they did wait until it was pretty safe to do what they did. Yet… Are they making strides? Yeah, albeit on a bumpy road. Am I happy to see another bi character in comics? Hell yeah! I’m not sure I wanted it to be Prodigy, but hey we have not seen a “coming out as Bi” story fully played out in a Marvel comic (Shatterstar and Lightspeed didn’t seem to struggle with it on panel). I love Gillen’s work so I’ll follow how this plays out. Honestly, I’m just glad to see someone deal with male bisexuality and it not be done for the sake of “manipulation” as it was with Daken. I think it was a really insensitive way to portray being bi, but sadly typical (“they’ll screw anything, it’s just mind games, it is only exploration, it is about power, books sell when hot women go at it”… and so on). Gage did a great job with Lightspeed being out a proud in Academy, so I think it’ll be great to see what Gillen does.

On another note Cookepuss, I guess it means more guys like you and me have to pound some keys and do some writing too. For every Latino, Asian, Black, Arab, Indian, Female, GLBTQ (etc) fan that has issue with how things are done, just know we can jump in too and hopefully write things the way we see them also. Sadly, the world as a whole lost Dwayne Mcduffie awhile back, but he is just one of many “diverse” writers that made great things happen and left a mark. It is funny though… there is often a big stink about not having enough female writers, but not writers of color… weird. Now that Greg Pak (I have no idea why he’s not considered serious A list) and Marjorie Liu (I’m assuming ML because her book is being cancelled) are out of the Marvel world, I don’t think there are any writers of color there at all, let alone GLBTQ. Lol, Cookepuss, I charge you with an Arabian Knight one-shot. Have it on Axel’s desk by next week.