# Diversity in Marvel Comics
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 13, 2017, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364 "2017-04-13T07:50:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 9
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/161 "2017-04-21T05:25:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> You mean the one where the guy made a joke about it being like the scene where Penny first walks into the comic shop on TBBT? If so, yeah, I thought that was setting the bar for “unsafe” very, very low, too.
Why do I get the sense you’re not a woman…
---
### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/162 "2017-04-21T09:25:34Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> Huh, I didn’t see that one as an overreaction. I tend to agree with [this take.](https://diaryofacomicbookgoddess.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/the-misogynist-mashup-of-rosie-the-riveter-and-the-facehugger-from-alien/)
Same here. Unless the company has a whole line of shirts featuring a wide range of iconic figures getting “facehugged”, the selection of Rosie the Riveter looks very deliberate and intended to send a very specific message.
---
### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/163 "2017-04-21T10:22:10Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> Same here. Unless the company has a whole line of shirts featuring a wide range of iconic figures getting “facehugged”, the selection of Rosie the Riveter looks very deliberate and intended to send a very specific message.
Yes, “You Can’t Do It!”
Good point though that there’s always the possibility they “facehugger” everyone. Not too likely, however. And why would you wear this particular shirt, anyway?
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/164 "2017-04-21T12:01:29Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Why do I get the sense you’re not a woman…
I refuse to believe that all women would feel “unsafe” over such a mild comment. Either the woman lives in constant fear over everything, or she is using “unsafe” in a different way than I mean it, as “fear for my personal safety.” Did she _really_ think that comment was a sign that the guy might intend to rape or kill her? (Or maybe she means “unsafe” in the special snowflake sense of “be exposed to ideas that I don’t agree with”.)
---
### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/165 "2017-04-21T12:07:49Z")
How about “aggressive, hostile, misogynystic”? And what are the “ideas” here? A desire to roll back a century of progress in women’s rights?
---
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/166 "2017-04-21T12:14:13Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> special snowflake sense
Well that’s a giveaway.
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/167 "2017-04-21T12:23:21Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> How about “aggressive, hostile, misogynystic”? And what are the “ideas” here? A desire to roll back a century of progress in women’s rights?
You’ve got your sub-threads crossed here. That was a response related to the mention of the TBBT-related joke (which you mentioned first) not the t-shirt (as you seem to be referencing to.)
---
### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/168 "2017-04-21T12:34:32Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> You’ve got your sub-threads crossed here. That was a response related to the mention of the TBBT-related joke (which you mentioned first) not the t-shirt (as you seem to be referencing to.)
Ohhh…okay. But didn’t you dismiss the T-shirt as well?
---
### Author:  [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/169 "2017-04-21T12:36:00Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> I refuse to believe that all women would feel “unsafe” over such a mild comment. Either the woman lives in constant fear over everything, or she is using “unsafe” in a different way than I mean it, as “fear for my personal safety.” Did she _really_ think that comment was a sign that the guy might intend to rape or kill her? (Or maybe she means “unsafe” in the special snowflake sense of “be exposed to ideas that I don’t agree with”.)
…yes: she means it in a different way that you mean it. Its as simple as that. And not in that “special snowflake” sense either.
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Well that’s a giveaway.
Indeed.
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/170 "2017-04-21T12:57:13Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> Ohhh…okay. But didn’t you dismiss the T-shirt as well?
Yes, I did. But it wasn’t addressed directly in that comment. I’ll stand by the opinion that someone who attempts to get someone in trouble over the t-shirt they choose to wear is a busy-body drama-monarch that needs to get a fucking life.
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/171 "2017-04-21T12:58:52Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#):
>
> Indeed.
Head over to the pit and visit the anti-SJW thread and you’ll find a few posts by me there, too–it isn’t like I’m trying to hide anything.
---
### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/172 "2017-04-21T12:59:18Z")
We’re talking about someone working as a retail cashier, right? Not just a customer? Would it also be OK for them to have a T-shirt of Martin Luther King Junior being lynched?
---
### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/173 "2017-04-21T13:05:21Z")
My first thought on the facehugger/Rosie shirt was that it was just geeky for the sake of being geeky. And that might have been the only thought, on the part of a person who bought the shirt. But yeah, on thinking about it some more, that can’t have been the artist’s only thought. There was some reason he (and yes, I’m assuming the artist was male) chose Rosie the Riveter. There are many other choices he could have made, which would have some more innocuous artistic interpretation. If you have Mr. Spock getting facehugged, then that’s just a mash-up of two unrelated science fiction worlds (bonus points if you also fit in references to Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Doctor Who in the same image). If you have Cookie Monster getting facehugged, that’s a joke, an absurd juxtaposition of the innocent and the shocking. But Rosie the Riveter? She exists pretty much entirely as a symbol of female empowerment. What message could you possibly be intending by that image, other than the horribly misogynist one?
(and yes, I’m aware that the woman in the iconic “We Can Do It” poster is not canonically Rosie the Riveter. But that name and that image are so inextricably entwined in our culture that there’s no point in separating them)
---
### Author:  [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/174 "2017-04-21T14:37:11Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Actually one of the very few comics I follow currently (came for the hype, stuck around for the stories/characters. It is on the lower level of “taking itself seriously.”)
>
> But for some hard numbers, issue #1 was in [24th place at 50,286 copies sold](http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2014/2014-02.html). The most recent issue was in [119th place at 19,327 copies sold](http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2017/2017-03.html). So it looks like you are right about comic buyers liking the idea.
Comics very often see a drop in sales after a #1 issue, so by itself that’s not surprising. On the same list I see that the _Star Lord_ comic was in 176th place with 12,761 copies sold. He’s a white male character with more name recognition than Ms. Marvel, given the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I don’t think ‘diversity’ is a good blanket explanation of sales figures.
One more comment for context, at the moment DC is generally on an upswing in terms of sales and Marvel on a downswing. Some of this may just be DC improving after undoing a lot of its problematic new 52 stuff, but it’s a competitive industry and one succeeding tends to take away sales from the other.
Lots of comics fail for lots of reasons. From what I’ve read from the set of industry commentators who would generally default to cheering for ‘diversity’, the recent Marvel additions were a bit of a mixed bag, mostly coming back to the core quality of writing and possibly editorial mandates. The new Wolverine and the new Thor, for example, are thought to have been introduced more organically in the stories and thus had relatively good receptions, whereas the new Iron not-a-Man abruptly appeared in the story with very little narrative preparation. The perception was that there was a sudden editorial mandate for ‘diversity’ for the character and that the story suffered for it.
So it appears ‘diversity’ is neither a kiss of death nor a panacea that cures all low sales ills. It all comes back to whether the stories are any good, which is as it should be.
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/175 "2017-04-21T14:39:44Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> We’re talking about someone working as a retail cashier, right? Not just a customer? Would it also be OK for them to have a T-shirt of Martin Luther King Junior being lynched?
Showing a real person being lynched (be it a “good guy” like MLK or a “bad guy” like Mussolini) is pretty seriously bad taste. A t-shirt featuring [kick-ass space ninja white supremacist chicks fighting a muscular MLK terminator](https://33.media.tumblr.com/5a27a309a784cdc1a38b42105a52e387/tumblr_nfh626UPsS1s3xjm7o1_1280.jpg) would be more cool, though.
---
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/176 "2017-04-21T14:47:04Z")
> [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](#):
>
> One more comment for context, at the moment DC is generally on an upswing in terms of sales and Marvel on a downswing. Some of this may just be DC improving after undoing a lot of its problematic new 52 stuff, but it’s a competitive industry and one succeeding tends to take away sales from the other.
Also possibly influenced by DC [having lower prices than Marvel](https://moviepilot.com/p/marvel-comics-sales-figures-freefall-why/4225617). (FWIW, my prime comic buying years ended around the time when prices went from 75 cents to a dollar per issue.)
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/177 "2017-04-21T19:24:48Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> I refuse to believe that all women would feel “unsafe” over such a mild comment.
Oh, it has to be _all_ women?
> [@](#):
>
> Either the woman lives in constant fear over everything, or she is using “unsafe” in a different way than I mean it, as “fear for my personal safety.” Did she _really_ think that comment was a sign that the guy might intend to rape or kill her? (Or maybe she means “unsafe” in the special snowflake sense of “be exposed to ideas that I don’t agree with”.)
Or maybe some middle ground between “rape” and [sigh] “special snowflake”:rolleyes:. Crazy, I know…
---
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/178 "2017-04-21T22:53:17Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> It’s like… imagine meeting a guy with a Hispanic name and dark skin, and immediately launching into a “Welcome to our country! Let me tell you all about our American ways!” And the guy you’re talking to was born in Pasadena. Even though you mean well, you’re still being kind of an asshole by assuming that the guy’s not American. That’s basically what the dude in that anecdote was doing when he talked to that girl. Even if he was being nice about it, he was still treating her like an outsider, just because she was a girl.
Something sort of like this has actually happened to me. We were driving to the beach and stopped at a farm/market in the country.
One of the other customers started telling me about how I was welcome in this country and that I shouldn’t listen to bigots and stuff.
From my skin color, he assumed I was a (1) Muslim (2) immigrant (3) from the Middle East. In fact, I am an atheist-Hindu American citizen by birth whose parents are from India. So he was wrong in all counts.
Now this guy was harmless and meant well and I didn’t hold any of that against him, although I made a point of letting him know where I was born, surrounded by Midwestern corn stalks.
However, it was also quite disturbing in a way, because it showed that regardless of the fact that I am and have always been an American, there are people who will always assume that I don’t belong. And some of them might not be harmless slightly goofy guys mistakenly wanting to welcome an outsider.
No one will ever do that to a white person. That is the thought that rang through my head. A white guy who otherwise has a background much like mine will never be subject to that assumption. It’s disturbing. It’s alienating.
---
### Author:  [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2017, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/179 "2017-04-22T04:28:33Z")
> [@TYphoonSignal8](#):
>
> Thanks for this cogent summary.
>
> But if the consequences of \*Seduction of the Innocent \*wasn’t the trigger for the 1956 reintroduction, then what was?
>
> I guess what I am trying to do is draw an analogy between Disney’s (theoretical) editorial mandate for diversification, and what happened in 1956 when DC’s characters were all upgraded.
Late-Arriving Comic History Nerd Alert!
-Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent’s role in diminishing the comics industry has been somewhat overstated. Comics sales had been declining since the end of WWII and most publishers had been jumping from genre to genre trying to find something that would replace the massive sales of superheroes.
-Perhaps a bigger factor in the decline of comics were the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency chaired by Senator Kefauver in 1954. They were televised and were on the front page of the New York Times and focused on crime and horror comics. (Seduction of the Innocent was also negative towards superheroes). EC Comics (and later Mad Magazine) publisher Bill Gaines volunteered to testify and was a disaster by all accounts. He reportedly took extra doses of his anxiety medicine to calm his nerves before testifying. The Comics Code was established by the industry as a direct response to these hearings.
-DC Comics was one of the publishers LEAST affected by the Code. DC was a large company that published a lot of titles in a lot of genres. However, they didn’t publish crime comics and their horror titles were more in the “spooky ghost story” vein than Tales From The Crypt-style mayhem. Disney was one of two companies that didn’t sign on to the Comics Code. The other was Gilbertson, publisher of Classics Illustrated, that bane of English teachers.
-DC was also the one company that didn’t stop publishing superheroes, although they certainly published less than in the Golden Age. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were are continuously published, and thus didn’t need updating. Also, Superman and Batman were featured in several other titles (Action Comics, Detective Comics, etc), and these titles had backup features. Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Martian Manhunter, among others, had lengthy runs as second bananas in the 40s and 50s
-Comic book history can be a bit superhero-centric. Yes, the first appearance of Barry Allen as the Flash in Showcase #4 in 1956 was a pivotal moment in comics history, but the science-inspired hero revival in the pages of Showcase and The Brave & The Bold (DC’s other tryout title) only revived four heroes: Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, and Hawkman. And as DC was a very corporate, conservative publisher, they brought things along slowly. The new Flash debuted in 1956, but Hal Jordan as Green Lantern didn’t appear until 1959, and the Atom and Hawkman had to wait until 1961. The Justice League of America, featuring the new Flash and Green Lantern and the “old” Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter, first appeared in 1960.
-Everyone remembers Showcase and The Brave & The Bold for the superhero launches, but those titles also launched quite a few non-superhero characters that went on to their own features. Challengers of the Unknown, Rip Hunter: Time Master (Now on TV!), Adam Strange, Space Ranger, The Sea Devils, Cave Carson, and Suicide Squad.
---
### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2017, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364/180 "2017-04-23T05:14:50Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Showing a real person being lynched (be it a “good guy” like MLK or a “bad guy” like Mussolini) is pretty seriously bad taste. A t-shirt featuring [kick-ass space ninja white supremacist chicks fighting a muscular MLK terminator](https://33.media.tumblr.com/5a27a309a784cdc1a38b42105a52e387/tumblr_nfh626UPsS1s3xjm7o1_1280.jpg) would be more cool, though.
Politics aside… that art is horrendous and should be nuked from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364.md?page=8)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diversity-in-marvel-comics/784364.md?page=10)