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Vinny Valenti
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8117
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | 1
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I could see Peter David having Iceman and Human Torch get together just so he could make a "make it rain" joke.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | 2
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Bottom line is that it’s all about surface characteristics and identity politics, now. Skin color (and gender, and sexual orientation) rather than content of character. That’s the great irony, of course: the PC Police who bleat the loudest about equality and not focusing on surface characteristics manage to do nothing but make these things about surface characteristics.
Marvel’s sales are in the toilet. STAR WARS, STAR TREK, AND DOCTOR WHO are all dead or dying, because the metaphorical bodies of their respective fandoms are rejecting the transplanted organs being forced upon them, ostensibly in the name of equality. They say “equality”, whereas I say “virtue signaling” and “lazy writing”.
This fan-rejection of numerous franchises is not a coincidence. It’s evidence of a pattern, a trend. By being obsessed with shallow, surface-level characteristics like race and gender, the people in charge of these properties have lost sight of storytelling and the suspension of disbelief. It takes no creativity to f*** up someone else’s character in order to be edgy or to serve a political point. Bisexual Johnny Storm is not Johnny Storm, period. A is A, not B. And complaining about it not a matter of being homophobic. It’s a matter of standing up for the integrity of the character as created by Lee and Kirby.
It would be exactly the same if someone came along and made Northstar straight. That’s just not the character who was created by John Byrne. And I’m just as annoyed by movie Aquaman not being blond and looking like Jason Mamoa (instead of looking like Aquaman) as I am by the many instances of race and gender-swapping in comic movies.
Once you start arbitrarily and disrespectfully rewriting and rethinking established characters and concepts, it all falls apart. The center does not hold, and the fans revolt. These various franchises have reached a point where fans will no longer blindly buy something just because it has a familiar logo on it. Brand loyalty is becoming less and less of a consideration for consumers of this material. They want quality. They want storytelling, not characters being sacrificed on the altar of of-the-moment politics.
Edited by Greg Kirkman on 10 January 2019 at 4:29pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133317
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | 3
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I wasn’t ALLOWED to be overt about Northstar’s homosexuality, but I still managed to get the message out. Subtlety is a dirty word these days tho. It’s all HEY! LOOK AT ME!!
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | 4
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I wasn’t ALLOWED to be overt about Northstar’s homosexuality, but I still managed to get the message out. Subtlety is a dirty word these days tho. It’s all HEY! LOOK AT ME!! ++++++++
Exactly.
“Hey, look at how Brave and Groundbreaking we are! Strong women! Gays! Trans! Minorities! We’re so much better than those old writers and their offensive, straight White male characters! We even make sure that we have women writing female characters, and Gay writers writing Gay characters! Because no one else could possibly do these brave and progressive characters justice! ...what? A story? You want a story? Featuring smart, interesting characters with depth, who aren’t there just to tick boxes on the Identity Politics scorecard? Umm...uhhh...Hey, you toxic, racist, sexist, homophobic manbaby! Look over there!” (runs away)
Sound and fury, signifying nothing. An empty shell which destroyed and took the place of something which used to mean something to a broad spectrum of people.
Edited by Greg Kirkman on 10 January 2019 at 4:30pm
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | 5
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Eric J., I have no worries about my Human Torch being raped. MY Human Torch - in fact,. most of my Marvel Universe - isn't being published any more. I infer that, want it or not, accept it or not, today's comic books are Marvel Earth-2, as DC did in 1963. Today's characters are like those of 20 - 30 years ago. Some are exactly the same, some are similarly named, but a little different, and some are completely different. In fact, if I recall right, haven't some of the current Marvel Earth-2 met some of their Marvel Earth-1 counterparts? The X-Men met the original team, IIRC? And there was a string of books where the current characters met the original namesake heroes?
Obviously, this doesn't match up exactly to Crisis on Earth-One / Earth-Two... but it sure seems to be much the same thing. Was there a Marvel "Event" that differentiates the two universes? Maybe "Ultimate War" or "Secret Wars II"?
My characters are safe and as they were for thirty, forty years of publishing. This new stuff is just another universe to me.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | 6
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How long until Johnny and Bobby Drake book up? Y’know, the fire and ice lovers?++++++
How long until they retcon Equinox, the Therodynamic Man into the time-traveling son of Bobby and Johnny, whose DNA was intermingled with a third (Black) man so as to give them a biological son? Covers all the bases: A polyamorous, three-way Gay relationship which results in a time-traveling, mixed-race child. All of which sidesteps the need to create new characters.
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Jim Muir
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1373
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | 7
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<<They say “equality”, I say “virtue signaling” and “lazy writing”.>>
I don’t post much, but Greg you’re spot on. With this and the rest of your post. This is why we hear genuine conversations about a black James Bond, female Doctor Who and so on. I have no problems with black secret agents or gay superheroes... but hey, I don’t know... choose new ones, perhaps?
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | 8
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Eric J., I have no worries about my Human Torch being raped. MY Human Torch - in fact,. most of my Marvel Universe - isn't being published any more. I infer that, want it or not, accept it or not, today's comic books are Marvel Earth-2, as DC did in 1963. Today's characters are like those of 20 - 30 years ago. Some are exactly the same, some are similarly named, but a little different, and some are completely different.
+++++++
Once you accept that it’s over—and it is—, it’s very easy to stop caring, expect in a morbidly-curious way. The thing which burns me is legacy. Warped versions of beloved characters running around and misrepresenting the original versions to (potentially) generations of readers.
It would be easier to simply watch these characters stop being published than to watch zombie versions of them shuffling around in agony.
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Brennan Voboril
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 January 2011
Posts: 1741
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 9
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You hit the nail on the head Greg, Eric and John. How I wish we could turn the clock back.
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Gary Asuncion
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 November 2018
Location: United States
Posts: 19
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | 10
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Many say that comic books reflect the larger society at the time of writing.
This is an interesting time in our history, and these character reinterpretations (in my opinion) encapsulate these trends. Comic historians will definitely note the shifts (and conflicts!) when the time comes.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14857
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | 11
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Ugh. This thread went all Comicsgate quickly.
I don't always like the directions that characters have gone over the years. Characters have suffered under poor writers. What I find disgusting is the need to blame the push for diversity for bad storytelling. Bad storytellers are responsible for bad storytelling. This whole victimization mentality from some PC/SJW boogeyman is gross.
QUOTE:
| My characters are safe and as they were for thirty, forty years of publishing. This new stuff is just another universe to me. |
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Exactly. The stories I enjoy did not poof out of existence. I can give them to new readers just as easily as a new comic. If someone enjoys Cyclops as an asshole, well, they're wrong and have horrible taste, but they're free to enjoy their crap new comics. If they stop making Cyclops an asshole, then perhaps I'll read some new issues, but I still have my old ones.
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Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006
Posts: 8515
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| Posted: 10 January 2019 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | 12
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Johnny and Daken's gay hook-up occurred almost ten years ago. We're fine, everyone. We made it through the crisis. Somehow we all survived. By all means, panicked and frightened fans, call your relatives. Make certain the little ones are accounted for, but I think you'll find that we're all okay here. Most of you didn't even realize it had taken place.
The Comicsgaters here keep telling us that none of these new characters have personalities of their own and that no stories of any substance are attached to their existences. They're part of some vast liberal SJW movement designed to appropriate your most beloved characters and turn everything... diverse. Again and again, we're hearing how these are hollow mockeries absent any characteristics except their sex, color, or bedroom preferences. Those speaking are not backing that up with anything. They're just saying it.
What's actually being said is that those speaking cannot see them in any other terms.
There was a vast, critically acclaimed storyline connected with Jane Foster's assuming the role of Thor. Riri Williams was as fully developed a character as any other in her time as Iron Man and Ironheart. Miles Morales is not lacking in background details. If anything, he has a few pasts too many. These are Marvel characters, through and through. They are not under-imagined, but since they are of different races, genders, and sexual preferences than their critics, those are the only terms in which they will be spoken of and therefore the only ones they have. The end.
Triggered each time a minority appears in print or onscreen, the critics hereabouts decry the death of everything good and decent in fiction due to this incursion of... and I want to get this one right... unwelcome transplants that the healthy host body is rejecting... Do I have that right? Blacks are poisoning the body? Women are toxic? Gays are unhealthy for us by their very presence in a story? America Chavez is killing us all with her very... Hispanic nature?
We all want diversity, of course, they're insisting, there being fine people, very fine people on both sides, but they want diversity accomplished... how? Without all these toxic, blood-poisoning minorities being involved? Yeah, that's not racist. How could that be racist?
We're hearing that these new characters need to be separate from the established characters, but equal... Is that it? Separate but equal? Keep them in some sort of Milestone-style ghetto maybe? Let them be Rocket Racers and Night Thrashers. Those guys knew how to be minorities and keep their place, right?
We've seen these replacement-style storylines with major characters before, everyone. John Walker. James Rhodes. Artemis. Jason Todd. Tim Drake. Whoever that guy was in Sword of Aquaman. Somehow it was never a vast, conspiratorial social movement before now. Otto Octavius was Spidey for years, but since he was White, we're not hearing much about how this SJW-fueled diversity grab by overweight Roy Orbison lookalikes poisoned the marketplace and polluted our precious bodily fluids.
The thin-skinned, reactionary critics here are saying that all they want is quality, but they're lying. If it's to themselves as well as the rest of us, so be it, but they are lying.
When the solution is for there to be no more polyamorous, Gay, Black, Muslim, mixed-race, et al depictions tied to existing franchises or characters, how can your side of the argument not be racist, sexist, and homophobic?
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