Escapist News Now: Avengers Now Adds Diversity

Recommended Videos

Escapist News Now

New member
May 10, 2013
481
0
0
Avengers Now Adds Diversity

We have a plethora of news today! From the new character's in the Avengers, Telltales Walking Dead updates, and a brand new trailer for Fatal Frame 5. Get your fill of comics, zombies, and horror news right here!

Watch Video
 

Jacked Assassin

Nothing On TV
Jun 4, 2010
732
0
0
I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Give me all female X-Men & maybe even stop referring to them as X-Men. Give black Fantastic Four. Especially a Neil deGrasse Tyson version of Mr. Fantastic. A black Dare Devil instead of a black King Pin. And make sure Miss Marvel is still called Miss Marvel despite wearing Captain Marvel's outfit. Or let Miss Marvel stay Miss Marvel & some other female could be Captain Marvel.
 

Basement Cat

Keeping the Peace is Relaxing
Jul 26, 2012
2,379
0
0
Escapist News Now said:
I'm sorry for forgetting that I'm a news journalist and not Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation.
Mind your language.

"Way more Mother-(censored)--diverse."

I've been around the Escapist. I've never heard a Newsie use vulgarity like your just did upon this site's News Reports.

No.

This is a Site P.G. 13 Site.

Back when I was an Escapist Moderator I had to deal with REAL B.S. brought on by Contributors whose content produced "FECES STORMS!!!"

You, Sir, are not a Tier 1 Contributor.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!!![footnote]Brought to you by the Babysitters who don't appreciate Contributors making the Mods jobs that much harder.[/footnote]
 

Remus

Reprogrammed Spambot
Nov 24, 2012
1,698
0
0
Burnouts3s3 said:
Wait. On female Thor, isn't that Torunn, Thor's daughter? Or is it actually Thor but female?
Thor somehow becomes unworthy so it's a different person wielding the hammer. Who, nobody knows.
 

bdcjacko

Gone Fonzy
Jun 9, 2010
2,371
0
0
Copper Zen said:
Escapist News Now said:
I'm sorry for forgetting that I'm a news journalist and not Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation.
Mind your language.

"Way more Mother-(censored)--diverse."

I've been around the Escapist. I've never heard a Newsie use vulgarity like your just did upon this site's News Reports.

No.

This is a Site P.G. 13 Site.

Back when I was an Escapist Moderator I had to deal with REAL B.S. brought on by Contributors whose content produced "FECES STORMS!!!"

You, Sir, are not a Tier 1 Contributor.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!!![footnote]Brought to you by the Babysitters who don't appreciate Contributors making the Mods jobs that much harder.[/footnote]
Ok, good I am not the only who thought dropping an M'F bomb was uncalled for. It comes off unproffesional in a news wrap. Yatzhee and Jim can cuss because they aren't don't a news wrap.
 

bdcjacko

Gone Fonzy
Jun 9, 2010
2,371
0
0
Remus said:
Burnouts3s3 said:
Wait. On female Thor, isn't that Torunn, Thor's daughter? Or is it actually Thor but female?
Thor somehow becomes unworthy so it's a different person wielding the hammer. Who, nobody knows.
I heard some theorizing it could be Angela, but she is standing right beside Thor.

(Sorry if I got her name wrong)
 

Ratty

New member
Jan 21, 2014
848
0
0
RatGouf said:
I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.
Dr. Strange is in it and he's an old white dude[footnote]He was a rich old white dude as well, as a hot shot surgeon who would only treat the wealthy. Until his hands were ruined in a car accident and he wasted all his money on booze to drown in self-pity. Then he learned about a magical healer in Tibet called "The Master" and...[/footnote], always has been. They did try (briefly) to replace him as Sorcerer Supreme with 70s blaxsploitation character "Brother Voodoo" but yeah that didn't work out.
 

Jacked Assassin

Nothing On TV
Jun 4, 2010
732
0
0
Ratty said:
RatGouf said:
I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.
Dr. Strange is in it and he's an old white dude[footnote]He was a rich old white dude as well, as a hot shot surgeon who would only treat the wealthy. Until his hands were ruined in a car accident and he wasted all his money on booze to drown himself in self-pity. Then he learned about a magical healer in Tibet called "The Master" and...[/footnote], always has been. They did try (briefly) to replace him as Sorcerer Supreme with 70s blaxsploitation character "Brother Voodoo" but yeah that didn't work out.
I feel sorry for Brother Voodoo since I like the video game character, Shadow Man.

Still a Doctor Strange who isn't a white male grabs my interest more than the original.

Edit
A rich white dude doctor isn't the same as a rich white dude business owner. That's like comparing Bill Goldberg to Ted Turner & declaring them to be the same when they aren't.
 

CaptainMarvelous

New member
May 9, 2012
869
0
0
This isn't diverse, it's the exact f*cking opposite. Look at it!

Powerful Magical Spellcaster archetype, 2
Asgardian battle maiden wth no nonsense personality, 2
Enhanced super spy with cyborg body parts used by a nefarious organisation to assassinate against their will, 2
Inhumans from that book nobody read, 2
Former thief turned superhero who's now inherited the legacy title of a founding avenger, 2

This is f*cking stupid, this is actively LESS diverse than the current Avengers line-up. The only character who hasn't got a carbon copy of themselves on the same team is Ultron "Superior Ironman"
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
Burnouts3s3 said:
Wait. On female Thor, isn't that Torunn, Thor's daughter? Or is it actually Thor but female?
This is actually hilarious on some levels. Basically Marvel realized that since they were getting so much attention with all the PC-ethnicity swapping and such that it would be a huge thing for their hype wagon to do it on a larger scale. What's funny is that a lot of these things have already happened before, but they didn't get much attention at the time. We've had several black versions of Captain America over the years (Battlestar, Patriot, etc...) and numerous men behind the mask when cap was indisposed, so really it's not really all that surprising. We've had numerous female versions of Thor as well, including the whole "Earth X" thing and the like. The thing about Thor is that as originally defined Thor was a sort of possessing entity, where a normal person could transform into Thor. Today people tend to forget all about Donald Blake, and others who have held the hammer, as well as bits like in "Infinity Gauntlet" about how when Thor was separated from his hammer in deep space he regressed into a normal human (stopped being Thor) and the host was dying until he got his hands back on the hammer and changed back. It seems more or less like someone remembered this, as opposed to the whole train of logic that created "Beta Ray Bill" as "Beta Ray Thor" where generally speaking being worthy to pick up the hammer should literally have made him Thor when he transformed (personality transfer and all) as opposed to simply giving him the powers, where he otherwise just pretty much remained Beta Ray Bill in a Thor suit. Furthermore during the whole "X-men In Asgard" thing Storm already replaced Thor as the God/goddess of Thunder, albeit briefly, so "Thor" was for about 15 minutes black and female. This is incidently part of the reason Ororo gives her attitude about being a goddess, it wasn't just the tribal role, but also having been given the role (albeit under control of some villains) briefly. She's one of the few mortals who can make that claim. :)

At any rate the big gimmick here is that they plan to just release the titles as "Thor" and "Captain America" as opposed to a title that makes the difference clear. They are not going to refer to this version as "She Thor", "Thor Girl" or a few other names, but just as "Thor". Just as Falcon will just be called "Captain America" while he holds the title. This will generate press, and of course sell a lot of comics as collectors run out to gobble up the series in hopes that at one time they will be valuable. The amount of time it will last will largely depend on how long the boom does. As a lot of Marvel fans will point out the whole "Milo Morales" Spider-Man series is perhaps the most popular comic few people actually read, it sells heavily because of collectors wanting the run before Marvel realizes that other than political praise nobody actually likes the character or the idea (right up there with the Sam Alexander version of Nova, people want Richard Rider), and of course the collector interest fades, which can then be re-kindled by the original hero coming back into the mantle one way or another (even death is not permanent) and that of course is another huge collector's boom. Basically explaining how Peter Parker returns to again be "Ultimate Spider Man" in the comics is an arc everyone is going to want to put in little plastic baggies and stuff in a closet along with the Milo Morales run so 20 years later they can say "this actually happened" and perhaps get some bucks for the whole set if they have more luck preserving their intact set than others (though like most collector exploitation, the whole problem is that when everyone saves this stuff nowadays, it means there is little value as anyone who would have an interest already has it, or enough people will have it on the market that prices will be low for new collectors).

One joke in some comics circles that shows up once in a while is what stupidly PC thing Marvel is going to do. If you've ever wondered why there have been a few pictures of Wolverine in a dress out there recently is one recurring joke is that as one of Marvel's most popular characters it's inevitable they will have to do something with him. One gag is the possible revelation that he's been a crossdresser for years, and while not gay (I mean this would be hard to recon without a huge universe reboot), will come out of the closet with his secret and insist on kicking butt in a fabulous wardrobe (the visual humor focusing on his height, and extremely hairy, stocky build). So far though Marvel has mostly just recycled their previous ideas for the most part, now that there is more attention on it.

I do have to admit that while I'd never support it in the long run, some other "ideas" like having Iron Man reveal himself to be a furry and run around in heavily armed crotchless fursuits and stuff would be funny... they could even sort of justify that as Iron Man has spent some time in kinky sex clubs like "The Hellfire Club" and I believe he was sort of under Emma's thumb for a while, to make it funnier they could always have he say she was surprised it took this long...

One that would be rather cold would be having Kitty Pryde confide in Majick that she's gay (to match the movie actress) and was secretly glad Colossus was buying into that whole "wait until I turn 18" stuff, and eventually provided an easy out by getting with that alien healer on Battleworld.... :)

Rest assured though, we will likely never see a white Black Panther.... though perhaps Steve Colbert's artwork (from his show) will actually be used briefly for a new Falcon. :)

I know, I know most of this is actually making light of the "serious political statements" but now that they are going full media-blitz with it, it's almost becoming a parody of the initial issues and attention.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
RatGouf said:
I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Give me all female X-Men & maybe even stop referring to them as X-Men. Give black Fantastic Four. Especially a Neil deGrasse Tyson version of Mr. Fantastic. A black Dare Devil instead of a black King Pin. And make sure Miss Marvel is still called Miss Marvel despite wearing Captain Marvel's outfit. Or let Miss Marvel stay Miss Marvel & some other female could be Captain Marvel.
Well the thing is that they introduced a new Muslim Ms. Marvel using that name, they made the original Ms. Marvel Captain Marvel to keep her around as well, and probably also to dig into DC by using the name more frequently. Not to mention that she is supposed to have received the rank of Captain (In Marvel people who call themselves "Captain" usually have a logic behind it, unlike DC where people call themselves Captain-whatever for no good reason at all. For example I've never understood why DC's "Captain Marvel" is a "Captain" when he's the result of a mystical force thrown into a young boy. To say nothing of Captain Boomerang and others... the original Marvel version of Captain Marvel was an alien called Mar Vell who was a Captain in the Kree space force).
 

Queen Michael

has read 4,010 manga books
Jun 9, 2009
10,400
0
0
Iron Man did have drunken sex with an Apple Store. It's Tony Stark; what did you expect?
 

Queen Michael

has read 4,010 manga books
Jun 9, 2009
10,400
0
0
BigTuk said:
Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.
They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.
 

bdcjacko

Gone Fonzy
Jun 9, 2010
2,371
0
0
BigTuk said:
Queen Michael said:
BigTuk said:
Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.
They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.
Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

It's the same prejudice I tells you.
Yeah, where is Big Bertha?
 

gargantual

New member
Jul 15, 2013
417
0
0
BigTuk said:
Queen Michael said:
BigTuk said:
Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.
They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.
Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

It's the same prejudice I tells you.
Good point. If Bob Richards from Tekken can supposedly learn to use weight gain to his advantage and form an entire fight style around it, then Marvel can definitely write up substantial junk science for a crimefighter of their own. The fascination wouldn't be their appearance, but how agile the hero is despite their stature.