Let’s face it, a woman would look at a situation different from a man. I am not a sexist, nor am I saying that looking at a situation different is bad. Hell, going into a world-shattering predicament, it would serve better to have a female problem-solving brain doing the thinking other than someone with a “hit it until it’s fixed” mentality. Case in point, Thor. This is an example of a time that I believe that it strengthened the book. 

 Marvel has given us a twist on their new character, Thor. Jane Foster has been a fascinating character for so long. She is always portrayed as someone who uses her mind above all emotions. This has served her well. When we first met her she was a nurse. She is now a full-fledged doctor and has been depicted in various media as an EMT, and an Astrophysics. This is someone who is smart and has proven it time and time again. She even has taken action a few times before gaining her power; during Marvel’s Civil War she even joined Captain America’s side. 

 Eventually, she took on the mantle of Thor. I love her as the new Thor, although I think that the breastplate should have more matched Lady Sif’s or some other authentic female Norse armor. In this case, changing genders worked. As a side note, she has recently made her video game debut in Marvel’s Puzzle Quest. 

X-23 is another case where I believe the gender changed worked. Having the “Old Man Logan” as well as X-23 taking on the name of Wolverine seemed to fit. Personally, I think that they should have given her another name, call her Sabertooth and give her Wolverine’s X-Force costume. Yet, I think she has earned her own identity and deserves this much-needed step up in the comic world. Give her, her own team and have her train with the Avengers. Push her further into the spotlight. Make her stand out that much more. My point is that it worked, so far.

Race

Another hot topic when it comes to our beloved comic characters. Swapping races isn’t in the best interest of diversity. Look at Nick Fury, Human Torch, The Ancient One, or Catwoman (sorry movie-lovers, were going there). I am personally biased on this one due to the fact that I am half black/half white. Growing up, I was too black to play with the white kids and too white to play with the black kids. I found a group of strong-willed friends that didn’t see in terms of color but of the content of my character. I will always be grateful to them. That's all I will say on the matter because this post isn’t about me, it's about comics. 

Changing for the sake of change almost comes across as pulling a race swap much like Rachel Dolezal. Unless it is a new character, leave them alone. Let's look at Wally West.

Wally West

I loved Wally since I first saw him in the pages of Flash. As the Kid Flash, he had the coolest costume EVER! When he eventually became the flash (after the death of Barry Allen), I was ecstatic. He was the first Titan to finally fill the role he was destined to fill and take over for his mentor. If you want to see something cool, check out his costume in the Dark Flash saga as Walter West. He had a life and family of his own. He was his own man. Then Barry Allen came back. 

 Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to see Barry return. I like Barry. As soon as Barry returned, poof, Wally was gone. I understand that having 2 Flashs would have been confusing, but he was just gone as if he was never there. 

Now Wally makes his triumphant return to comics in the new 52. In my opinion, his costume is way too busy, though I do like the color scheme. What bothers me the most about his return is the sudden race change. 

Keep in mind, Wally is a character that has been around since December of 1959. He was a founding member of the Titans and served on the Justice League (several versions). He has a major role in the DC Universe. Now to make such a drastic change, I believe is uncalled for. If the writers wanted a new speedster, create a new character. Give them an authentic ethnic background. If you still want to bring Wally back, have Wally train a new black speedster called Kid Flash. My point is why make the change? It comes across as in-genuine and forced.

Captain America

On the other hand, there is an all-new black Captain America. Steve Rogers has been one of the premiere comic characters since the dawn of time. He became REALLY interesting when Ed Brubaker began writing for him. Steve Rogers has not always been the man in the costume. Isaiah Bradley, another black guy, wore the costume and had the mantle before Rogers. After Steve was William Nasland, Jeff Mace, William Burnside, John Walker, Bucky Barnes (my personal favorite), and now Sam Wilson. Keep in mind that Sam took over as Cap for a short time in April of 1999 in the Sentinel of Liberty issue 8 and 9. 

It feels like Sam is keeping the seat warm for Steve until he can reclaim the role of Captain America. I like Sam. He is a great character. He was never a sidekick, but a partner to Captain America. He is a strong character with ties to so many other characters and has been part of so many different versions of the Avengers as Falcon. He is cool and deserves to be displayed front and center in the Marvel Universe. Portrayed wonderfully by Anthony Mackie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I personally can’t wait to see what’s next for this character.

Simon Baz & Jessica Cruz

Simon Baz is another character that has recently been introduced into comics. He is a Lebanese-American taking over as Earth’s Green Lantern. His story seemed to spring up out of nowhere. I didn’t even know that they were introducing a new GL until I started seeing ads for new comics with his face on the cover. By the way, stupid mask, interesting and complex individual, but a stupid mask. He fits well into this current post 911 world that we see everyday. His character was born in the kind of shades of grey (not 50 Shades of Grey, get your mind out of the gutter) world of today and I can’t thank DC Comics more for his creation. I just wish he would get a new mask. He does come across as a big ball of clichés at times but I think that over time, with enough well thought out storytelling, that will get ironed out (I hope). 

The only issue I see with this is that there is now WAY too many GLs flying around our pages. Then again, I thought that when they first introduced Kyle Ryner. Turns out I was wrong then. Interesting that back then I hated the mask than as well. Maybe I just hate the changes to masks, not the characters. Ok, now on to Jessica. I still really don’t know anything about her. She is the rookie. I think she has Power Ring’s ring from the Crime Syndicate. If that's true, interesting backstory. BTW, digging the mask. At first, I was thinking that they are trying to oversaturate the current market with the green. I figured that they just wanted to get the female demographic. As I sit down to think about it I remember at least 20 different female GL’s. She will never be Hal Jordan to me, but I will give her a pass for the time being. 

Now, in movies, it can be a little different. In the Hunger Games, Rue was beautifully played by Amandla Stenberg. Fans of the series went ballistic that this beloved character was not played by an “olive-skinned” actor. I was personally mezmories by her performance. Those that went to social media and delivered threats and hate speech should all rot in a South American prison! On the flip side, when I heard that Will Smith was once offer the role of my cherished Superman, I lost my mind. I vowed to burn the planet down. I pulled out my hair (it never grew back). I broke down and cried for days. Then I finished reading the interview and it turns out that he had the foresight to turn down the iconic role.

"There is no way I'm playing Superman!' Because I had already done Jim West [of 'Wild Wild West'], and you can't be messing up white people's heroes in Hollywood! You mess up white people's heroes in Hollywood, you'll never work in this town again!"

Now, it's not to say I don’t like Will Smith. He is one of my favorite actors. His work in movies like MIB & Independence Day was so fun to watch. I love this actor, yet my favorite roll of his was in Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl. He played himself and was his small part was pure genius on Kevin Smith’s part.

Same-Sex Relationships

We’ve covered race and gender, but another “hot topic” is the sexuality of a character. With the recent Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage, it comes as no surprise that several long-standing straight characters are “switching teams”. I have absolutely no problem with homosexuality. I also have nothing against openly gay characters. Northstar is a great example of a complex character gay character. 

My problem is the exact same as race and gender. Instead of introducing new characters that happen to be gay, they are taking long standing straight characters and revealing them to be gay. Both Iceman and Green Lantern (Alan Scott) have recently come out. 

Alan Scott had one of the most potentially interesting personal lives in all of comicdom. His first wife was to a villain with a dual identity (Rose & Thorn). His second wife was to a reformed villain Molly Mayne AKA Harlequin. He even had 2 kids that turned out to be really interesting heroes in their own rights. When DC decided to shake things up during the beginnings of the new 52 Alan Scott became gay and engaged with partner Sam (who dies during the re-envisioned origin of Alan). This presents a problem for me. There wasn’t enough time to truly gain any insight into their relationship other than to say that they were in love. They flipped everything on it’s head and didn’t put enough backstory into it to make it relevant. This feels like a completely new character that shouldn’t be named Alan Scott. 

At the same time they are introducing another new Green Lantern (Simon Baz, I already mentioned him). If they wanted a homosexual Green Lantern, he would have been the perfect candidate. Instead of changing 75 years of compelling history, they could have given a new character another layer with the same results. 

Over all, my feelings to the sudden climate change in comics is mixed. If you are changing a character to further a story or creating a new character to replace a character (most likely temporary due to the fact that no one dies forever in the comics), then I’m ok with it as long as the writers and artist respect the character and have a little reverence for all that came before. If you take a character and change them for the sake of change, you are doing a disservice to your fan base and should remove yourself from the title before you (and your comic) lose the respect of the fans. Creators have been breathing life into these characters longer than most of the current writers and artist in the industry have been alive. 

In conclusion, it feels like all the changes are being forced down our throats. I understand changing with the times. I understand that there is a huge need for diversity both on the pages and behind the scenes, but it almost feels lazy to just say we “We need to fill our Politically Correct quota for the month so you, you and you are gay. You’re now a woman, and you have to become black.” As much as I believe in shaking things up and tearing down the walls of the industry in certain aspects, the characters that we have loved and got us into comics in the first place should be shown more respect than this. Just give us something new and different is all. 

I would love to hear your opinion. Leave a comment below and let's find out what the rest of the people have to say on this.

*Updated 3/22/2019

Ok, now I look around the current comic landscape and I wanted to revisit this old post. I still feel that to many changes have been forced and I can see some backlash in terms of sales for certain characters that were not handled correctly. I might have to write a completely different blog post about this in the future. Let me know what you think.  

Certain characters have embraced diversity and it is beautiful. At first I was leary about certain things like a black Spider-Man but I believe that the writers and artist have given him his own look and feel that pays homage to the original yet allows them to be their own character in general. I recently took my kids to see the latest Spider-Man movie and I have to say, well done. 

Thor is back to his Asgardian roots. Jane Foster has gone to hel and back to become just Jane Foster again. She is had given up the power of Thor to focus on her chemotherapy. This has been an amazing story with a wild ride. Bravo Marvel!  

On the DC side, it looks like they killed off Alan Scott before he ever even became Green Lantern. I’m not sure how this will play out. It feels like I’ve been waiting for this to play out since 2010. I’m still such a huge fan of G.L. that I’ll wait forever. It just better be worth it.  

In recent years I have been watching market share sales of popular comic industry titans. It seems like giants who have changed their characters to match the times is generally down 3.4%. Others who are introducing new characters with more diverse backstories and ethnecienticy are up. I know that 3.4% doesn’t sound like much but you have to remember that comics are a $1.03 BILLION industry. This is up from $805 million from 2003. This change equals about $34,102,000 in lost revenue if my calculations are correct (I’m not a Math Teacher). The point is that fans are showing their support with one of the few voices that they have, their wallet. 

My opinion is that overall, diversity is good. It helps more people relate to comics and gives other a champion who they can look up to, emulate and relate. It can be a great tool, but it can backfire. Don’t just have diversity for the sake of diversity, give me a well thought out story and character.