Race in Comics

[BentonGrey]

Ahh, I think I am beginning to see.  Where Black Panther comes from is important, just as it is important where Rogue comes from.  Hmm....but it isn't important where Cyclops comes from....but I suppose that if there were more minority characters, it wouldn't be as much of an issue if some of them were generic in background, hmm?  Thanks for explaining AA, I think I am beginning to understand your argument.

I don't believe I said that there wasn't much difference.  If you're referring to my previous point, I meant that there wasn't usually any differentiation in popular between various stereotypes of race and the type of identity that you were trying to outline, which I said was a negative thing.

Yes, I can certainly see how that could be a very frustrating state of affairs, AA.  Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view.

A good editor could avoid this, but, there's no such animal.  

All the more reason I should be running DC.

[murs47]

*Mentally commands the bits of tuna to wriggle and choke Murs.*  Yep....I can do that...bet you didn't know it.

You disgust me.

All the more reason I should be running DC.

I'm not interested in replacing what few DC characters I like with Care Bears.

[BentonGrey]

*Mentally commands the bits of tuna to wriggle and choke Murs.*  Yep....I can do that...bet you didn't know it.

You disgust me.

All the more reason I should be running DC.

I'm not interested in replacing what few DC characters I like with Care Bears.

I have no interest in those colorful ursine fools....fool.

[Ajax]

You can't write it off as just Johns though. His writing is popular enough to garner him the position of Chief Creative Director at DC. He is now in charge of the direction that DC universe will be taking from now on. I was aware of Millar's reputation involving how he portrays race in his stories, but I was suprised at how much there is out there on Johns. So it makes me wonder, given he is probably aware of some of the comments made about him, if this is a simple case of ignorance or something he is deliberately doing?

As for Marvel, they are heads above DC in terms of their depicition of minorities, but they still have some weak spots. Wakanda is supposed to be a technologically advanced nation yet the people still dress like extras from Kings Solomons Mine. It's one thing to give them their own ethnic identity, but last time I checked, people in Africa wear pants and shirts.

Shang-Chi is a casualty of the Bruce-ploitatoin movement and nothing much has been done with him since then. Even the few times he does appear, he still embodies the sterotype of the martial artist. Someone who is asexual and seemingly devoid of any human emotion.

Dr.Strange and Iron Fist are both representative of white men who go to the "mysterious orient" and obtain "ancient secret arts". Both become students of gurus (aka old asian man) and both rise quickly above their fellow students (aka non-white men). The gurus then choose them to be inheritors of their respective secret arts despite being foreigners.

These aren't deliberate forms of racism, but sterotypes that get perpetrated ad naseum. The problem is they get used so much that eventually they become part of the culture. Look at that new Sylvester Stallone movie, the one that has every action movie star ever. All the main characters have guns or some form of modern weaponry, but Jet Li runs around with knives. It's one thing for him to be a martial artist, but for him to be running around a gun fight with knives is a bit odd.

[BentonGrey]

Good points Ajax, and well said.  You know, I've actually always liked the fact that the Wakandans still wear "traditional" grab.  To me it said something about the fact that they didn't need to be westernized to be civilized.

[AfghanAnt]

Good points Ajax, and well said.  You know, I've actually always liked the fact that the Wakandans still wear "traditional" grab.  To me it said something about the fact that they didn't need to be westernized to be civilized.

That's exactly what I always thought too.

As for Cyclops, he has an identity - he's boring. But all kidding aside Cyclops is sort of a bigot now. He refused to help Dagger (even though she and Cloak were helping him for the last couple of months) because they weren't mutants. So I guess he's Utopian American.  



@Ajax I completely agree with you on all of those example however all those characters are products of their time. My concern with race in comics is directly tied to writers choices in modern comics. There is no excuse for a female Chinese characters superpower to be giving birth to Chinese Super-soldiers or taoism to empower someone with Superman-level powers. While Marvel has had its faults when you compare the two comic universes DC is "brighter".

[Tawodi Osdi]

I must admit I am mixed on this issue.  I'm mixed blood Native American and Caucasian, I had a black godfather, and a Hispanic babysitter; so, seeing the rainbow of humanity was normal for me.  I even wanted darker flesh than what God gave me; so, I am sensitive to the lack of good ethnic characters in comics.  Don't get me started on all the buckskin and feather wearing ecoterrorists that are supposed to pass for Indians.

On the other hand, I prefer the comic book characters I grew up reading to remain as I remember them.  When I think of comics, I am about the nostalgia of being a little kid reading Superman or Batman comics that only cost me a quarter while chewing gum that cost only two pennies.  On the other other hand, I don't even read current comic books.  The stories have gotten to gritty.  It is harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys.  A whole new morality seems to be taking over.  Things will never go back to way they were, and today will the nostalgic memory for someone else.

Also, as someone who plays around with story writing, writing for other ethnic groups can be tricky, and since some groups would prefer you write nothing at all rather than get something wrong, it is easier to write nothing at all.

[lugaru]

Trying to veer back into more historical territory (and happy this is still open) I really think one of the things comics writers should be working on is casting off the legacy of Pulp/Golden Age. Silver age was whitewashed but it was before that when we saw the really nasty stuff. Writers these days have a responsability not to paint foreigners as scary villains, far off countries as mystical lands where any plot is possible, ethnic characters as cartoons who require rescue.

And yeah, at the same time we need to give comics writers a little space to breathe. I just finished Hellboy in Mexico and it is an incredibly stereotypical book but as a Mexican I think any creator from my country would have approached things just like Mike Mignola did. I mean as a teen in Mexico I saw stuff like "the ninja tortillas" (instead of ninja turtles, each character named after a Mexican painter) on the racks. There is a space for satire and I appreciate it. There is a place for big, uncensored ideas in comics. There is a place for a mecha kaiju to fight a giant mexican luchador. I just worry about the serious stuff which is most of superhero comics... when you dead seriosly say "This character is an angry black man, he is big and strong" people who know better look around and think "seriosly? In 2010? Why cant he be the psychic?"

I think a lot of it goes back to the idea that if all you read is comics and then you become a comics writer, well your comics have little chance of being better than what came before.

[AfghanAnt]

I think a lot of it goes back to the idea that if all you read is comics and then you become a comics writer, well your comics have little chance of being better than what came before.

That sums up Geoff Johns' work perfectly.

[Previsionary]

Also, as someone who plays around with story writing, writing for other ethnic groups can be tricky, and since some groups would prefer you write nothing at all rather than get something wrong, it is easier to write nothing at all.

I can agree with this. I cringe every time I see the way Thunderball and Luke Cage are written by some writers in present day... but then i think back to how Black Goliath, Luke, Misty Knight and others were written in the 70s and 80s and remember, things have progressed... a little. Honestly, I could do without the way some writers choose to portray character identity as it relates to dialogue. Gambit and Rogue have some of the most annoying dialog sometimes all because writers are trying to make them sound "authentically" southern, and it sometimes blows up in their faces and reveals their ignorance and reliance on stereotypes.

[BentonGrey]

Also, as someone who plays around with story writing, writing for other ethnic groups can be tricky, and since some groups would prefer you write nothing at all rather than get something wrong, it is easier to write nothing at all.

I can agree with this. I cringe every time I see the way Thunderball and Luke Cage are written by some writers in present day... but then i think back to how Black Goliath, Luke, Misty Knight and others were written in the 70s and 80s and remember, things have progressed... a little. Honestly, I could do without the way some writers choose to portray character identity as it relates to dialogue. Gambit and Rogue have some of the most annoying dialog sometimes all because writers are trying to make them sound "authentically" southern, and it sometimes blows up in their faces and reveals their ignorance and reliance on stereotypes.

Ha!  Now there's something that I could vent about....

[AfghanAnt]

I have lived in New Orleans for 4 years now and personally know a lot of cajuans I'm still waiting for someone to say "mon amie" to me or random insert french words into their sentences.

[John Jr.]

And we came back to the ignorance problem. A lot of comic book writers are only that, not "real" writers. They only read comics and can only write comics. They don't know about different cultures, so they rely on stereotypes. We always got a good laugh from the "Brazilian" comic book characters, because the writers don't even know we talk Portuguese here. And let's not start to talk about Fire...

[Ajax]

I think saying it is ignorance is too easy an answer. Whether we can articulate it or not most decently educated individuals generally know what is and isn't racist. Afghan talked about an issue (don't know if this is true or not but I'll take his word for it) where Mr.Terrific goes down to New Orleans and says to the blacks after Katrina that it is their fault they are poor. For such a scene to even take place, Johns must have known what he was doing. He didn't send Star Girl down there or some other white hero. He sent a black character.

[AfghanAnt]

I think saying it is ignorance is too easy an answer. Whether we can articulate it or not most decently educated individuals generally know what is and isn't racist. Afghan talked about an issue (don't know if this is true or not but I'll take his word for it) where Mr.Terrific goes down to New Orleans and says to the blacks after Katrina that it is their fault they are poor. For such a scene to even take place, Johns must have known what he was doing. He didn't send Star Girl down there or some other white hero. He sent a black character.

It was Amazing Man not Mr Terrific - eventually Amazing Man and Mr Terrific have words implying they do not share each other worldview. Here is a part of the scene - http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v188/72/26/1010354/n1010354_32485794_2065.jpg

I'm all for scenes in reality but Johns using Katrina as a chance to talk about personal responsibility is in bad taste. Especially when he wrote this corny line to accompany it - "We need to find that amazing transformation within each one of us" (Amazing Man power is to transform...)

A blogger who discussed this matter summed it up as "Cosby-esque personal responsibility rhetoric that blames black people for the results of the past several hundred years of economic and social oppression" and I think that nails the scene perfectly.

It is even more insulting because the original Amazing Man was something of a Civil Rights hero but Johns has created this caricature to replace him. I meanly why is Amazing man wearing a kente hat and a dishiki? All other Amazing Men wear standard superhero costumes but Johns obviously thought they weren't Black enough (you being civil rights heroes and all the interracial/interspecies dating).

Frankly I'm just tired of seeing Johns graphical killed/depower minority characters because he can't tell a story without murdering someone and the black guy always dies first (unless you are Ted Kord of course).

[BentonGrey]

Hmm...that scene by itself doesn't seem so bad.  I'd like to see the whole thing, 'cause I feel like I'm missing plenty of context.

[AfghanAnt]

Hmm...that scene by itself doesn't seem so bad.  I'd like to see the whole thing, 'cause I feel like I'm missing plenty of context.

That line in itself isn't bad but its who he's talking too (a black man), who he's writing for (a black superhero), and where he set it (Post-Katrina).

It is clear Johns has no idea what Katrina did to poor Blacks in New Orleans. There is no taking responsibility when the government is corrupt, your insurance refuses to cover the damage, your family has died and you have nothing left. Is it right to steal and kill, no. In a world of Bruce Wayne's and Superman's, you'd think he or anyone at DC would seen that this "personal responsibility" comment is insulting but can I say, this is the same issue he introduced Amazing Black Man here and Japanese Judomaster (if you were wondering the first Judomaster was white) to the team.

Also he's greatly confused about the looting and general crime in this city during that time. It was about survival not stealing a radio (and I will never understand how your family dying makes you want to steal a radio).



You know who got post-Katrina perfectly - JMS in Thor. He actually gets they are victims.

[DrMike2000]

I always thought Pete Milligan had it right. From his earliest work he's created multi-racial casts in a way that seems natural. His black characters aren't stereotypes or tokens, and the fact they're black gets addressed regualrly in ways that move the story along or provide character moments, and all those things a good writer should do. Bad Company in 2000AD, The Extremist, X-Statix, Greek Street, all feel like hes plucked the cast from a phone book of late 21st C London. King Leon in Deadline was a story with a black protagonist, but London black rather than US black.

He does this so much better than his fellow brits Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, to name two, and its easy to see why. Like I said, Milligan's from London, and has grown up in a properly multi-racial city. He's gone to school with black kids, drunk in pubs and gone to parties with black people and so on. Morrison and Millar are from Scotland, probably one of the whiter parts of the UK. Millar explained on his website once how he had one black kid in his year at school. Same here, out of 300 kids or so in my year. Morrison's attempts to write black characters, say Mr Miracle or the Final Crisis: Submit one off often feel a bit forced, like he's fulfilling a quota of some kind and copying some behaviour he's seen on TV or read in a magazine. Its good that he tries, but he seems to struggle a little bit.

I get this. On more than one occasion I've inadvertently created a supergroup with no black members. I have to keep reminding myself.

That's my perspective on writers that I can get a cultural handle on.
I don't know what the situation's like in the US, if there are pockets of whiteness similar to Scotland. But it wouldn't surprise me if there are, and if Geoff Johns comes from one of them.

More than anything, the industry could really use more black writers.

[Trelau]

More than anything, the industry could really use more black writers.

I think that's the core of the problem.
For example, the representation of women in fiction became less stereotypical when they (tv writers, movie writers, etc) finally hired women-writer to help them. Because you can only write correctly about what you know, and whatever you do, a man can never know what it's like to be a woman, just as a white man can't know what it's like to be a black man.

The problem would be, how to be fair to everyone? If you take every race possible, from every country possible, with every religion/personal belief possible and every sexual orientation possible, mixed with every social status...
Nobody can write that good. So writers use stereotype; but until there's someone from every origin to "show them how it's done" we're probably gonna see a lot more of that.

[DrMike2000]

Being fair to everyone is a noble goal, alright, but giving black writers and black characters a fair crack of the whip is probably the most important issue to mainstream comics at the moment.

I could, for example, complain about the treatment of Scottish characters at the hands of American writers (and maybe extend that to Irish ones just so I could use Banshee as ammunition ), and talk about how great it was when Morrison finally wrote Madrox and the Mirror Master with proper Scottish accents.

But, Scots do not have a history rooted in slavery and oppression. Scots are not still at a considerable economic disadvantage in a century that should be doing better, or experience widlly differing treatment at the hands of the police and justice system. That's where the line needs drawing. Banshee living in a castle and smoking a clay pipe is easy to laugh off. Stereotyped or just plain absent black characters are not.

[Previsionary]

The problem would be, how to be fair to everyone? If you take every race possible, from every country possible, with every religion/personal belief possible and every sexual orientation possible, mixed with every social status...
Nobody can write that good. So writers use stereotype; but until there's someone from every origin to "show them how it's done" we're probably gonna see a lot more of that.

Religions isn't much of a problem because most comics don't tackle them, and when they do, they do so badly (X-men villains, Nightcrawler, Iceman). Regardless, for the past 2 years, Marvel has been making strides in hiring new talent from Spain, Italy, the UK, etc. and given them a shot at writing some of their bigger characters in One-shots and minis (Wolverine, Spider-man, Human Torch, Captain Britain, Deadpool).

With that said, Marvel does have "some" Black Writers and they don't seem to be fairing much better at representing those characters. Black Panther was written by Reginald Hudlin for almost 4 years, and he got such mixed reviews because of how he portrayed Storm and T'challa at the time (the characters were married during his run as well). Christopher Priest was also a pretty big writer for DC and Marvel, and both companies seemed to treat him badly in varying degrees.

[Tawodi Osdi]

If you aren't from the northeast or the west coast, you will likely be represented by a stereotype even if you are a white male.  Here's a hint not everyone in Texas and Oklahoma are cowboys and oilmen, not everyone from the deep south are bigoted racists, and many from both regions are well educated.  We aren't all hillbillies.

[BentonGrey]

If you aren't from the northeast or the west coast, you will likely be represented by a stereotype even if you are a white male.  Here's a hint not everyone in Texas and Oklahoma are cowboys and oilmen, not everyone from the deep south are bigoted racists, and many from both regions are well educated.  We aren't all hillbillies.

This is a good point, but Dr. Mike also makes a fairly important point.  There should be a certain amount of social responsibility in art, and it would behoove us, even in our fiction, to at least make some efforts to be aware of the more negative sides of our respective cultures and resist them in whatever venues are open to us.  That is not necessarily an easy thing to do.  As I was trying to say, and Dr. Mike said much more clearly, I think that the growing diversity in the industry itself is the best way to address some of these shortcomings even if, as Prev. points out, it is hardly a cure-all.  Also, it would be just as unfortunate if the industry were to fall into a pattern of writer segregation, where only black writers could write black characters and so on. 

AA, I lived through Katrina, I know what it was like, and there was quite a bit of looting that had nothing to do with survival.  Days after the storm hit I chased a few men out of the ruins of our family business where they were looting metal and other materials for salvage (no food or water, just stuff they could sell), and it was a good thing I was armed, because it could easily have turned ugly otherwise.  New Orleans was worse than many places for those things, but there was also more need there because the situation was so badly mismanaged.  Still, there was a lot of bad stuff going on...of course, there was also a 18 foot crocodile swimming through the streets, so it was obviously a fairly crazy time.

In this particular page (once again, I hesitate to comment too strongly since I haven't read the whole book), I think I can see what the author was trying to do.  There is a positive message there about overcoming adversity, but I can definitely see how it is, at best a backhanded type of compliment, eh?   I think I get your problem with it.  Maybe it is not a bad sentiment, but definitely not the right context or setting for it!

[AfghanAnt]

The problem would be, how to be fair to everyone? If you take every race possible, from every country possible, with every religion/personal belief possible and every sexual orientation possible, mixed with every social status...
Nobody can write that good. So writers use stereotype; but until there's someone from every origin to "show them how it's done" we're probably gonna see a lot more of that.

Religions isn't much of a problem because most comics don't tackle them, and when they do, they do so badly (X-men villains, Nightcrawler, Iceman). Regardless, for the past 2 years, Marvel has been making strides in hiring new talent from Spain, Italy, the UK, etc. and given them a shot at writing some of their bigger characters in One-shots and minis (Wolverine, Spider-man, Human Torch, Captain Britain, Deadpool).

With that said, Marvel does have "some" Black Writers and they don't seem to be fairing much better at representing those characters. Black Panther was written by Reginald Hudlin for almost 4 years, and he got such mixed reviews because of how he portrayed Storm and T'challa at the time (the characters were married during his run as well). Christopher Priest was also a pretty big writer for DC and Marvel, and both companies seemed to treat him badly in varying degrees.

As man of color, I hate Hudlin. He ignores continuity, he doesn't understand characterization, and I honestly think he has his job because someone owed him a favor/thought it was a good PR stunt.

Priest on the other hand is a solid writer. I loved his JLX Unleashed, Black Panter was good, and time with Spider-man is ok (I'm not a Spidey fan). Is he is a great writer, no but I like him because he understands continuity and characterization. For every Priest there are ten Robbie Morrisons or Duane Swierczynskis - that's the problem.

AA, I lived through Katrina, I know what it was like, and there was quite a bit of looting that had nothing to do with survival.  Days after the storm hit I chased a few men out of the ruins of our family business where they were looting metal and other materials for salvage (no food or water, just stuff they could sell), and it was a good thing I was armed, because it could easily have turned ugly otherwise.  New Orleans was worse than many places for those things, but there was also more need there because the situation was so badly mismanaged.  Still, there was a lot of bad stuff going on...of course, there was also a 18 foot crocodile swimming through the streets, so it was obviously a fairly crazy time.

Yes, but the majority of the looting had nothing to do with stealing for profit. In fact, most property was destroyed in the city (I'm not talking about Metairie or Kenner) and Johns choosing this has his chance to give his perspective on the Katrina problem through the eyes of a black character is in bad taste. It was a national tragedy, and should be treated as such. Katrina should not have been the chance for him to talking about how people should help themselves especially when the characters involved are black.

[BentonGrey]

Now that's a fair point, the looting mostly wasn't happening in neighborhoods, but in the city proper.  Yep, I hear you, kicking a man when he's down and all them, hmm? 

[Ajax]

We all remember the old GL/GA comic where an elderly black man asks GL why he hasn't done anything for the "black skins". Well someone has apparently decided it is time to come up with a response.

Clicky Clicky

Going to avoid the obvious flaws (just because he saves the earth doesn't necessarily mean he is doing it for everyone. Example: The Spartans didn't fight in the Persian War to protect their slaves) in the argument and just amuse myself at the fact that it looks like Hal is about to use his ring on a defenseless person.

[BentonGrey]

Haha.

[lugaru]

Priest on the other hand is a solid writer. I loved his JLX Unleashed, Black Panter was good, and time with Spider-man is ok (I'm not a Spidey fan). Is he is a great writer, no but I like him because he understands continuity and characterization. For every Priest there are ten Robbie Morrisons or Duane Swierczynskis - that's the problem.

Also I LOVED The Crew, it was the sort of comic I kept wanting when I was a kid. Not so much the "we are all minorities" aspect (which I enjoy) but the idea that they are all low key, street level heroes with interesting lives under the mask. I especially love Kasper Cole (White Tiger/Black Panther), he is like the perfect "macho" Peter Parker balancing job, family obligations and a mask. I also thought it was dumb that Rhodes never put on the armor but after finishing the series it made perfect sense, Rhodes (if he was not all maimed up now) could make a perfect tough guy with gadgets, weapons and martial arts. They should bring the characters back, and I think current Daredevil comics would be the perfect place. Also anyone else think Isiah Bradley is super iconic? There is just something about "black captain america" that is really striking.

[AfghanAnt]

It looks like Geoff Johns continues to deface black characters...

Brightest Day #2 Spoilers (snagged from a forum)

Spoiler

You make him and Ronnie murder his girlfriend, then you force him into backseat in the Firestorm matrix, now you've made him look like a bigot to Ronnie?

This is even worse than Ronnie's "you people" comment in Brighest Day #1.

[The Enigma]

AA: I can't be totally certain, but from the looks of things, there's no speech bubble coming off that particular comment. Equally, it looks like Firestorm hears something he doesn't say at the start of the page too. It could just be that Firestorm's hearing wacky voices (more than usual) so he's either mad or something's messing with him. The context of the page kinda supports that (if you read it that way), but we'll probably have to see the whole story to know for certain.

Equally, it's a fairly stupid thing to do regardless, especially if my interpretation above is wrong and Johns is just intending to set up racial tension between the two for no real reason.