Above: the white males of the original 1963 Avengers line-up.  They are almost the same today, except they killed the tiny female character seen at the right. 

I make this post with a disclaimer: I do not read every book that Marvel Comics puts out.  What I’m about to say comes from something of an outside standpoint. 

I read, and I wish for the life of me that I could find the quote, Joe Quesada, Marvel’sEditor-in-Chief, quoted as saying the publisher didn’t back down from doing things to characters based on race or gender… otherwise you would be hurting your ability to tell stories.  I agree.  When it comes to writing characters, their backgrounds feed into their stories; they do not section you off and rarely should they completely define you.  But, from my vantage point, Marvel is full of bologna.  Yes, Marvel has made leaps and bounds in their portrayals of diversity in the past– but we’re past the point where “Star Trek” is giving us the first interracial television kiss.  Diversity should be the norm, and nothing we have to conjure up.  Sadly, the writers of Marvel can’t even imagine a world where even males and females are remotely equal.

Continue reading ‘Marvel’s Diversity Problem’