Carol Danvers has been Captain Marvel since 2012-they are referring to the very popular Kamala Khan.
No, new since 2013. The character introduced in 1968 was Carol Danvers, who now goes by Captain Marvel. Kamala Khan is an entirely new character, with a different background, origin, and power set. She’s an entirely original character. She just uses an existing (but, at the time, unused) name. Maybe you don’t read a lot of comics, but this is actually pretty common. They’ve done it with Batman, Superman (regrettably), the Flash (a lot), Robin (also a lot), Blue Beetle, Captain America (and not just the Falcon), Green Lantern, Wolverine, and a whole host of others. Were all of those stunt casting, or is it just when the replacement isn’t a white guy that you have a problem with it?
Who has inherited the mantle of Ms Marvel, a character which has been around since 1968. Danvers is now Captain Marvel.
There have been many superheroes who have passed the powers and names on.
Yep, the way to win debates is calling the other guy a racist, here in Cafe Society. Nice move.
I am done with you guys. I dont like a comic, and you call me a racist.
There were no powers passed on. Totally different skill set, and they didn’t even meet until the end of the world.
If you just didn’t like the comic, fine. But you’re dismissing it as stunt casting, without explaining what makes Kamala Khan different from the hundreds of other times they’ve introduced a new character under an old hero’s name. The only difference I can see is that she’s a Muslim. What difference are you seeing, that makes this any different than when they replaced Hank Pym with Scott Lang in the Ant-Man suit?
I haven’t been picking up Thor, but there’s some neat visual design on the new Thor.
(And I’m old enough to remember Beta Ray Bill, and I’ve read the early Larry Lieber Thor stories; so I’m not thrown by a new person becoming Thor.)
Ms. Marvel does pretty well, I think. I like the art, and while one of the arcs so far was maybe an issue or two too long, it’s mostly pretty fun.
And of course Kelly Sue DeConnick & David Lopez did amazing work on Captain Marvel.
Now, if you’re reading only Marvel comics with Captain America, Spider-Man, the Hulk, or Iron Man, yeah, those probably do suck.
I hear *Silk *is pretty good.
As far as the accusation of pandering goes, the part that I don’t like is not that she is a female member of a religious and ethnic minority, it’s that she’s also a member of the most obnoxious branch of fandom, the Real Person Shipper.
I also actively dislike the Inhumans and Marvel’s efforts to shove them into the spotlight and think the lone member of her Rogues’ Gallery is awful, but her being one of those people who would upon meeting a celebrity tell them that she writes fanfiction about them and ships them with other celebrities is not something I find endearing.
OK, so the question is: why not? Have they tried to make a better connection between them? The only case I can think of is putting the Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury and Agent Coulson into the comics. It seems dead simple to convert at least part of the movie audience.
Step 1: have at least one comic series that is recognizably coherent with the movies. (Doesn’t have to fit intertwined perfectly. Just have recognizable characters in roughly the same state as the latest movie.)
Step 2: keep that comic continuity free and episodic, with maybe some short, 3 or 4 issue arcs, but easy to jump into. AND put good writers and artists on it. You want this to sell people on comics, not be disposable.
Step 3: give away an issue with each movie ticket, or each blu-ray sale. (Free comic book day is great, but you have to already be a comic book geek to know about it, and have to find a store on your own.)
Step 4: at the back of the free book, say “want more? here’s a link to a comic shop locator and/or our subscription service.”
Boom! Gateway drug.
As Fenris said, you reboot to simplify, not make things more inscrutable…
DC: hey, let’s make one of those pseudo-reboots we half-ass every ten years or so. We restart most characters from scratch, except we sort of leave Batman continuity alone, but not really. Fans love that crap.
-52 is gigantically successful
Marvel: You know what we should do? That. We should do that.
Was Nu52 actually successful, though? DC lurches around desperately more than Marvel does.
NU52 was a huge hit (IIRC–I don’t have the sales figures) for about 4-6 months, but that may largely have been the fact that they started release day e-comics at the same time. (In other words, it may have been the distribution, not the content).
But when they started hemorrhaging artists and writers because editorial was micromanaging stories–inconsistently–their sales dropped*
*George Perez, who’s generally considered one of the most affiable people in comics–I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about Perez’s ability to get along–quit DC with some pretty harsh statements.
Since you know a lot about this, sincere question: Is girl Thor actually referred to as Thor, or is she a super heroine with Mjolnir that stars in a comic book named Thor for continuity sake? Because I have no problem with pretty much literally no other superhero being made a woman, but continuing to call as female superhero “Thor” is kinda dumb. If she’s just someone who was found worthy of Mjolnir and they understandably didn’t want to go about re-branding the comic, that’s cool.
(I can’t wait for Marvel to release Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, it may be the first superhero comic I ever buy because it sounds amazing)
She’s actually going by Thor. The guy who used to go by Thor is now going by the name Odinson. They basically just suddenly decided that “Thor” is a title, which really makes no sense at all, and entirely at odds with the character’s continuity. It’s a really good comic overall, but that part was pretty dumb.
Beta Ray Bill, Thunderstrike, and Frog Thor were all sort of also “Thor” at different points. So, no, it’s not out of nowhere.
This is one of those “depending on the writer” things. In the early stories, Donald Blake became Thor by using the hammer’s power. Later writers decided that Thor should have been born the god Thor, and that got retconned. So he was the son of Odin and Gaea(!), who just got turned into Donald Blake for a while. :rolleyes: But the power of Thor is supposed to go to a worthy wielder of the hammer; that’s Marvel canon.
So, right now, the hero formerly known as Thor, son of Odin and Gaea, is going by “Odinson” and Jane Foster is Thor. And she* is* Thor, officiallly.
And of course, if you ask the Shocker, all those guys–all the Asgardian heroes–are “Thors” in the same sense that Bruce, Jen, Betty, and ol’ Thunderbolt are “Hulks.”
DrDeth: I don’t think you can argue that they didn’t add the new Ms. Marvel to be more inclusive. But calling it “stunt casting” implies that she’s just a token, that they did the bare minimum to get her in there, but then forgot about it. Instead, they’ve done a lot of good work with her, or so I’ve heard.
Which brings me to my other point: I fully understand why comics aren’t doing well. These stories all seem interesting to me. But the cost per entertainment ratio just isn’t reasonable for comics. You pay like $4 (last I checked) for a single issue that won’t even be a complete story or even complete part of a story. It takes at most 15 minutes to read, if you go slow.
In a world where you can by a 45 minute episode of a show for $1-$3, the pricing just doesn’t make sense.
(Plus, frankly, I liked the old, less realistic art. You know, cartoon art. And, while I said these stories interest me, the more fun stories of the past interest me even more.)
Wow… I gotta disagree (tastes differ and all that.) The improvement in the quality of art in comics is the single best thing to happen.
(The second best thing is the phasing out of exploitive ads, such as “Sell Grit” or “X-Ray Specs,” or “Charles Atlas bodybuilding.” Now the ads are good, honest, fair-play ads.)
(The third best thing is the death of the goddamned comics code authority, and some actual swear words now and fucking then, plus some honest depictions of violence.)
(of course, like most tokens this character was still problematic - of course the Muslim girl is in a burqa, and of course she’s got desert-based powers ! Cause Muslims live in the desert, duh.)
Well, being “first” is less important than being done well and being kept up. Sooraya hasn’t had her own series as yet. Kamala is the star and viewpoint character of her own series, and gets to guest-star (in Spider-Man and SHIELD so far) as herself, not just a small part of a group. So that is a big deal.
I really like this Marvel/DC analogy Linkara made a few years ago (I have no idea what DC has been doing since 2013 so take this as dated if it’s outdated. I’m mostly posting it for the Marvel bit)
(He also did a meaner one a year ago lambasting DC for making excuses about diversity here)