I'm officially scared for my children's future...

The Ms. Marvel comic is not bad (although - I'm sorry - Kamala Khan is a likable character, but I think her powers are stupid) but all the Marvel titles have gone all-in on the "diversity" virtue-signaling. Any new supergenius tech wizard introduced in the Marvel Universe pretty much has to be a teenage black girl. There's hardly an iconic white dude Marvel hero who hasn't been replaced by a female and/or non-white incarnation. Patriotism can only be expressed by immigrant families. Captain America is so embarrassing (so white! so male! so pro-America!) that the most recent storyline has him literally becoming a Nazi, and the clamor from fans to make him gay (or at least, not give him any female love interests so fans can write slash fiction about him that isn't contradicted by canon) is strident and demanding.

As for the OP in which a college professor opines on the social relevance of a comic book character - on one level, yeah, it's pretty stupid. (Do you follow @realpeerreview on Twitter, rob? They find academic papers that will make you much more scared bout your children's future.) On the other hand, pop culture has often been the subject of academic study, so when there's periodically a clickbaity story about a "Beyonce Studies" professor or a college class studying Harry Potter or whatever, I mostly laugh and shrug. I assume most non-STEM college degrees nowadays are worthless anyway.

I tend to agree. I was never a huge fan of Marvel comics (their movies are good, though) because, even though they're usually illustrated and colored beautifully, their characters just aren't as interesting to me as some of DCs.

They also rip off too many DC characters (or characters now owned by DC). Thanos is a rip off of Darkseid. Quicksilver is a rip off of The Flash. Hawkeye is a rip off of Green Arrow (who was a rip off of Batman). Captain Marvel (Marvel) is a rip off of Captain Marvel (DC), who is now called Shazam because of the obvious rip off.

But, when it comes to their recent push of diversity, I think it's well-intentioned but ultimately stupid. They take long-established characters, and suddenly turn them into a minority for "reasons." So, Hulk is now Korean. Thor is now female. Captain America is now black (and, as Amadan pointed out, original Cap is a sort of Nazi). Iron Man is now a black teenage female. Ice Man is suddenly gay (after decades of having straight relationships).

Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, is half-black/half-hispanic. Spider-Man was really the only Marvel character I really loved as a kid and when they introduced Morales, it bothered me a bit. Not because of the diversity issues, but because Spider-Man is Peter Parker, not a character whose mantle has been passed down to others. So, I felt like the uniqueness of Spider-Man was being diluted by introducing Morales. However, Morales is actually a pretty cool character and his costume is pretty bad ass. And, Peter Parker is still alive and still the main SM, and there's also a history of having a Spider-Woman (I think it's Gwen Stacy now), so it's fine.

DC has not been immune to this, either. There's now a Muslim Green Lantern and a Hispanic female Green Lantern, but that doesn't bother me because the GLs have never really been just one person, but a diverse group (personally, my fave is Kyle Rayner but I also like John Stewart). I kind of like Jessica Cruz (hispanic, female GL), but her origin story was a bit weird and handled poorly. Not Geoff Johns best writing, imo. But, Simon Baz (Muslim GL) is just a shit character with a really stupid-looking costume design and they've never done anything to make him interesting. 

However, they've also introduced a Chinese Superman, which is just dumb AF. Can you not write a cool, original Chinese character?

However, DC did one of the stupidest character changes that I've ever seen where they changed a character's race. They didn't take a superhero and pass the mantle to someone else, like Marvel has done (stupidly, in most cases). They took an established character, Wally West, who is widely regarded as the most popular Flash of all time, and changed him into a black teenage kid, just because Iris West is now black on the CW. But, Iris is still white in the comics. They came up with a dumb, convoluted "by marriage" excuse for it, but it was still stupid. Even his introduction was dumb in that his origin is slightly racist. They introduce a black teenage character, and the only way they feel they can do it is by having him arrested for graffiti. 

If they'd created an entirely new character (like a Miles Morales), and had him then become the new Flash, that would have been pretty cool and they could've done a lot with it. But, no, they took the most beloved character in the franchise's history and changes his race for no good reason and, not only that, introduces him as a racist stereotype.

This was so dumb that thankfully Geoff Johns fixed it last year in Rebirth and brought back the original Wally West. Now there are two, which is confusing, but at least the real Wally is back.

Anyway, my point is, that by taking long-established characters and just arbitrarily making them black/female/gay/insert-minority-trait-here, it implies that the comic book writers aren't creative enough to invent a new, compelling minority character that can be popular. In a way, it's the soft bigotry of low expectations. It simultaneously implies that not only can a minority character not be created to be interesting and compelling, but that readers are so racist they wouldn't read it anyway.

That is patently false, as Blade is one of the most badass characters ever.  John Stewart was cool as Green Lantern. I've never been Black Panther fan, but only because I'm not a huge Marvel fan, but his character seems pretty cool too and I'm looking forward to the movie. Sam Wilson is already a cool character as Falcon; he doesn't need to also be Captain America.

So, creating compelling minority characters can be done, but Marvel just seems too lazy to even attempt it. They, instead, capitalize on the "minority as marketing ploy" gimmick and take a huge character and just make him/her into a minority for the controversy and temporary sales boost. 

Yeah, I also think Marvel's characters, historically, have been better, and they both have a history of ripping off ideas. Marvel used to be hands-down better - they were treating superheroes as actual people while DC was stuck in the juvie Silver Age. Nowadays, they're both very hit or miss.

Marvel movies are definitely better, though. DC keeps trying to go grimdark, and DC characters should not be grimdark! (Except maybe the Batman, but the Christopher Nolan Batman needs to lighten up if he's going to work with the Justice League.)

Well, when I was growing up, the only place I had access to comic books was the grocery store and the only comics they carried with the big ones (Hulk, Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, GI Joe, Transformers, etc.) that also had cartoons/toys out at the time. There were no comic shops in my little redneck town and none opened until I was in high school. I'd never even heard of Blade until he showed up on the Spiderman cartoon in the early 90s.

That has fuck-all to do with the racist conspiracies you seem to see everywhere and 100% to do with lack of access.


No, in other words, they should stop using diversity as a cynical, money-grabbing marketing ploy and, instead, give it some real attention by being more creative with their writing.

I often wonder if you are capable of presenting an argument that isn't a total strawman or otherwise totally based in disjointed, fallacious flotsam.

I suspect the majority of fans cooing over Kamala Khan are about as white as all the Spidey fans.

I think few people object to reimaginings of classic heroes which sometimes involves recasting them in a different race or gender. Likewise, most fans are happy to see more characters who aren't white dudes.

When you know, with 100% certainty, that every single reimagining/new character will have a much-touted "diversity" angle, it does tend to foster cynicism, however.