Thoughts on Marvel Comics

Stopped reading after:

"These 'new' characters are mostly minorities, and while many call these changes 'Political Correctness' I like to just call them 'Correctness'. You see, the top 20-25 most popular superheroes are caucasian. This is a fact, and its even worse if you consider all the other popular heroes from Star Wars, LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. This is unfair and it has to change. "

You don't consider it political correctness, because you agree with the views of being politically correct, and therefore you - obviously - can't see the other side of the argument.

In your first point how are you defining popularity? Have you based it on sales figures for solo series, publication history, recognition of a character or a combination of those and other things? If you haven't taken those into account yourself, where've you pulled that information from? I'd like to know purely for my own benefit.



You say "or something" a lot. You don't sound too certain of yourself. Take out the "or somethings", you're writing will flow better, plus you'll piss more people off for sounding certain of what you're saying.

If you're not satisfied with the team dynamic in The Ultimates, read Guardians of Infinity. It's basically the same concept but with less of an attachment to the primary events of the MU. Also, I hate what's been done to Galactus. He's a force of nature that's a necessary evil and making him a creator of life is a piss poor decision because he's supposed to be maintaining the balance between life and death in the universe.

Your point about the Inhumans needs to be longer. If there are infinite possibilities, tell us a few of them.

Peter being a genius is a core aspect of his character. So is the infamous "Ol' Parker Luck". He's not supposed to catch a decent break in life. Ever. Any time something good happens to Spider-Man, he has to have that horrible reminder that life is shit and he has to overcome every challenge thrown at him or he's [frick]ed. That's what makes him an interesting character. He's endearing, and despite having lost near enough everybody he has ever held dear, bar May and MJ, he still does what he does. He may be a genius, but he's a moderate genius. He's never been about the billionaire socialite lifestyle, Iron Man has. Keeping Peter as a high school science teacher who leads a financially normal life as a superhero was perfect. It was the right balance of tragedy and normality, but now Spidey's stories are just Iron Man stories. Peter can be normal and interesting at the same time. He's been doing it for fifty years. Nobody was complaining, at least not overtly publicly, so there was no need to change it. Character development doesn't have to be becoming one of the richest men on the planet, it can be experiencing one thing on one particular day that changes the character for the rest of their existence, without detracting from the core of the character.

In your Jane Thor section, you use the term fact pretty loosely and you definitely can't use fact and "may be" in the same sentence when referring to the same thing.

I was expecting you to talk about Kamala being a Muslim, but I'd love to hear your opinion on that.

On the topic of The Others, those being the characters who've adopted mantles belonging to other characters, I hate that Marvel has done that. Why not call Sam Wilson's series Falcon? He's still Falcon, he just has a shield, and with Steve back now it makes sense to do it. Marvel just want a black Cap, it's that simple. X-23 calling herself Wolverine, why not call the book X-23? Why not make Amadeus the new Rick Jones and have him and Hulk go on adventures like those two used to? It'd be even better because Amadeus is genuinely a genius and there are so many story possibilities if you put Banner and Cho together. Why aren't these characters being pushed out there on their own merit rather than being shoved into a role they have some association with? Marvel are just forcing diversity down their readers throats and it's pissing me off because they're going about it all wrong. Hell, I'd read the [frick] out of a Falcon series. I love Sam Wilson's character and to see him do things as Falcon, the identity he truly belongs to, would be awesome. Instead, Marvel are worried a Falcon book won't sell, so they made him Captain America to give it some appeal. There are much better ways to diversify. Putting characters into roles they don't need to adopt is not the best of these.

I'm not gonna get started on Sam Alexander as Nova, we'll be here all day.

I agree about the Avengers teams, they're all a mess. The reason that the main Avengers team is the way it is is because of diversity again. Three teenagers: a black-Hispanic kid, a Muslim kid and a white suburban kid; followed up by a white man, a black man, a white woman and an android. Of those characters, three of them have a long history with each other. Iron Man, Captain America and Vision have established relationships. The others don't, and the writer of that series acts like because they're a team they instantly have a rapport with one another. All the quips and jokes fall flat and the dialogue doesn't sound natural, at least to me, because these characters don't really know each other and they're not being given the chance to get to know one another.

A-Force is another product of the diversity thing but mainly it's Marvel being afraid of feminists. Basically every leading female superhero is on that team and it's because Marvel want to show that they're really forward-thinking by creating a team where women stick with women and don't need men to help them ever. That's pretty backward, because it's basically self-segregation, but God forbid Marvel realise that.

You don't seem to have researched any of this. You refer to Amadeus Cho as "the Chinese guy" at one stage in the first paragraph of your own ideas. How am I supposed to take your opinions and ideas seriously when you don't even seem all that invested in them yourself. Google is right there. I can't tell whether or not English is your first language, but you write well enough that I think it is by default. Seriously though, you need to give an air of knowledge if you're going to start pitching your ideas on how Marvel should proceed with its characters.

And I'm sorry but anything that involves more existing characters taking up new mantles is just a no-go. Why can't that Avengers team you're pitching be Falcon, Thor (Jane, because you have later plans for Thor I see), War Machine, X-23, Hulk (Bruce Banner), Amadeus Cho, Ms Marvel (still Kamala 'cause she is decent but they could do with renaming her) and Hawkeye as Atlas like he was back in the nineties? They're the same characters, the only difference is the names.

Why shouldn't the story of the Avengers be a tragedy? Basically every superhero story in human history is a tragedy. Jesus, there's a famous saying: "Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy". Heroes need tragedy because tragedy is what makes them stronger. Superheroes without tragedy is like horror without suspense. It's boring. We don't want to see heroes be happy and hopeful all the time, never experiencing anything to quell that optimism. I'll quote the Green Goblin in Raimi's Spider-Man: "If there's anything they love more than a hero, it's to see a hero fall. Fail. Die trying". We read about superheroes because we enjoy seeing them suffer greatly and still come at life screaming in tragedy's face.

Why have the core Avengers team be so fragmented? Why make the core Avengers team the one that has heroes that are off running tech empires or global threat prevention organisations? That doesn't make any sense. That's just the Defenders. The Defenders were originally a non-team that came together whenever it was totally necessary because they were too powerful to exist a single unit ALL the time. If they had, people would've been terrified.

I like the idea of the war of the villains. Yeah it'd be cool, but what would these alliances be, what would the betrayals be, who'd be backstabbing who? You once again say the possibilities are endless: Give us some of them! I want to hear your ideas, not just your daydreams that literally every comic book fan has on a daily basis.

I think Marvel need to embrace the classic characters again, as you do. Though I don't think they should stop at the Avengers. Bring in the Invaders and the All-Winners Squad, and y'know what? Make at least one of them a massive racist, but keep them a superhero. Imagine that. A superhero that genuinely represents the popular opinions of the era they were created in. That'd be ballsy as [frick] after all this forceful diversity. Imagine Toro, the original Human Torch's sidekick, calling Sam Wilson a [racial slur] and seeing no issue with it. Imagine all the other heroes being totally disgusted by it. Imagine Cap and Winter Soldier trying to defend him, trying to explain to him that things are different now and he just sticks to his guns and keeps believing in segregation and all that other horrible stuff America used to force on black people. That'd be a better plot point for Civil War II done properly. Tackle the very relevant issue of freedom of speech and progressive vs regressive values. I'd love to see Marvel embrace history like that and it'd be refreshing after all the neo-liberal bullshit we've seen in comics lately.

To cap off, I think you need to edit the living hell out of this piece and elaborate more on some of your points. Hope you respond, there are things I really wanna hear your opinion on.

Thing is, none of them represent our world. They represent a different galaxy, a different universe, not this one. In Middle Earth, there are Orcs, Hobbits, Elves and humans. In Star Wars there are humans, Wookies, Ewoks, Mon Kalamari, Twi'Leks, Hutts and a whole host of other alien races. Diversity means something different in each of those universes. To portray it any differently would be dishonest. Those realities don't represent this one, so why the hell should they conform to our ideologies and beliefs, or our concept of diversity? It doesn't represent real demographics because in the majority of the cases you've just presented, it doesn't have to. Star Wars had Lando, Harry Potter had characters that were black, Indian, Irish and all sorts of other races and ethnicities and they were all named characters from the books too. Harry Potter also had freakin' giants, goblins, centaurs, dementors and a shit tonne of other fantastical creatures that made up the wizarding world. It's not meant to represent our world, it's meant to represent its own.

The Inhuman royal family are some of the most powerful characters in the MU. Karnak can find the flaw in literally anything and know exactly how to exploit it. Give him enough time to look at a building, he'll know exactly where to hit to make the whole thing just crumble. Black Bolt can shatter cities with his voice. Medusa's hair is more than ten times stronger than she is and is capable of reaching incredible distances as well as volumes. If she wanted to, she could suffocate an entire room in a matter of seconds. Gorgon can shatter planets by stomping his feet. Crystal has total control over the elements and can exploit them all simultaneously. Triton can maintain a telepathic link with every from of marine life he sets his mind to, on Earth or otherwise, and his skin is totally impenetrable to withstand oceans deeper than Earth's. He could delve to a million fathoms and still be completely fine. Lockjaw can teleport any number of people to anywhere in the multiverse. Inhumans are much more heavily powered than mutants.

Dust isn't stereotypical, she's a representation of a genuinely religious Muslim woman who believes in wearing the Burka. Kamala is more of a moderate Muslim, the kind that live in western society, and I think it is a big deal that she's a Muslim because Marvel have the chance to put a message across about extremism and stereotyping that they aren't exploiting to the best of their ability.

I don't know what you mean by stories not being needed and just being "interesting and thoughtful" or "interesting and not thoughtful". Could you explain that a bit better?

The difference between Steve getting old and Batman dying is exactly that: one gets old, the other literally dies. Steve carried on as a superhero after getting old, why didn't he just keep the Captain America mantle?

Saying racial slurs in the USA isn't a punishable crime because it goes with freedom of expression, which is in the US constitution.

Sam wouldn't be playing the victim, he'd be acting as an opinionated and independent individual that believes in the progression of society and when he's confronted with someone whose ideology clashes with his, he wants to defend HIS ideology. If the story were more of a Captain America event than a crossover event, I think it'd work a lot better.

I'm not really saying one is wrong and one is right, I'm saying one is a great way of passing the mantle to another character (Batman to Robin) and the other is a bad way of passing the mantle to another character (Cap to Falcon). Cap didn't take Falcon in initially so he could train him and ensure the world would always have a Captain America. That's the ONLY reason Batman has a sidekick, is so he can train that sidekick to eventually go off on their own and fight for justice and eventually take up the mantle once Bruce is gone. Cap becoming old and telling Sam to be Captain America just felt so stupid to me. At least with Bucky it was the fact Cap had died and Bucky was actually a major part of Cap's legacy. Falcon had since become his own hero, doing his own thing. You can't just hand him the mantle of Captain America, especially with Steve still being both alive and able-bodied. Batman retired from superheroics when Dick took over as Batman. There was a genuine need for a new Batman. With Steve just getting old and carrying on as Commander Rogers, there was really no need for him to do that, He could've just stayed calling himself Captain America.

i havent read the ultimate's or the new ant man so are they any good? in regards to an event for the mandarin i have a pretty good idea for that. a while ago a bunch of people on here came together to try and make a online alternate universe for marvel, dc and i did iron man and also come up with a big avengers cross over event which the mandarin would have been the main villian. personally considering the mandarins power set i think he should be a much larger threat than he has been in the comics.
i did an article about it if u like the idea let me know
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/comics/the-oau-what-could-have-been-a118696

Weird that people who like comic books (more images than words) write small novels as comments.