Minorities in comics?

What is your opinion on seeing more diversity in comics these days? More women, more indian, hispanic, black and asian heroes along with more gay characters as well. Im actually really digging it, as long as its not too forced or overplayed as their only character trait.

It's like anytime they do put in a minority character, fans that don't like it call all of if forced and token characters. Like what is a token character and what isn't?

@Osiris1428 said:

It's like anytime they do put in a minority character, fans that don't like it call all of if forced and token characters. Like what is a token character and what isn't?

O_O an entire team of white people and one minority makes said minority a token because it feels like they are there so they can say we're not racist

I say harsh stereotyping of characters also makes them tokens because it beats you over the head with what their nationality/sexuality in an abrasive way.

so many threads about this...

@EnSabahNurX said:

@Osiris1428 said:

It's like anytime they do put in a minority character, fans that don't like it call all of if forced and token characters. Like what is a token character and what isn't?

O_O an entire team of white people and one minority makes said minority a token because it feels like they are there so they can say we're not racist

I say harsh stereotyping of characters also makes them tokens because it beats you over the head with what their nationality/sexuality in an abrasive way.

So should they do that or should they just have all whites? Women are a minority (not in number, but in economic and voting power). Is Wonder Woman a token character? Why or why not.

if you want them then just read the new Blue Beetle....all of DC's minority characters are in it

@danhimself said:

if you want them then just read the new Blue Beetle....all of DC's minority characters are in it

Umm....no they're not.

@Osiris1428 said:

@danhimself said:

if you want them then just read the new Blue Beetle....all of DC's minority characters are in it

Umm....no they're not.

sarcasm.....nearly every character in the first issue was a minority...almost half of every speech bubble had a foreign language in it

@danhimself said:

@Osiris1428 said:

@danhimself said:

if you want them then just read the new Blue Beetle....all of DC's minority characters are in it

Umm....no they're not.

sarcasm.....nearly every character in the first issue was a minority...almost half of every speech bubble had a foreign language in it

*FACEPALM*

Yeah. That wasn't a problem for me though, I very much so enjoyed and I am not hispanic.

@Osiris1428 said:

@danhimself said:

@Osiris1428 said:

@danhimself said:

if you want them then just read the new Blue Beetle....all of DC's minority characters are in it

Umm....no they're not.

sarcasm.....nearly every character in the first issue was a minority...almost half of every speech bubble had a foreign language in it

*FACEPALM*

Yeah. That wasn't a problem for me though, I very much so enjoyed and I am not hispanic.

I didn't not enjoy it but I would have like it more if I didn't need a translator to read it....even if they had the little boxes saying what people were saying I would have liked that more

@texasdeathmatch said:

so many threads about this...

Yes.

If it sells, it'll be made. If it doesn't, it won't. No matter what the content.

I think the industry has come a VERY long way in representing all the races... Think about it. What exactly would be fair? Who exactly IS the minority?

Well, if the publisher is a company founded and based in the U.S.A who exactly are the minorities and how many characters in the comics should there be to represent each of the minorities..

For example, I'm Hawaiian. I admit I like seeing Hawaiian super heroes, but I do wish there were some with REAL power or higher power sets.. BUT... The percentage of U.S. citizens that are Hawaiian is less than 0.2%... Likely less than 0.1%. It's hard to say since Hawaiians are lumped in with all U.S. citizens of pacific island descent... SOOOOO... If Hawaiians constitute 0.1% of the population, should 0.1% of all super heroes be Hawaiian? Basically one in every thousand... Not many... But to be honest, that sounds perfectly logical.. If we assume people of all races have the same probability of gaining super powers...

On the flip side, how fair would it be if there were say 20 popular super heroes in the Marvel Universe... That would just be an unusually large number since there really aren't that many of us... I wouldn't mind it... LOL! but it wouldn't really be fair, would it?

But there ARE Hawaiian Super Heroes out there... Loa, Mettle, um.. that magic using guy that was in New Warriors.

The 2010 U.S. Census has the percent of African Americans at 12.6%... Sooo, should there be 12 or 13 for every 100 super heroes? That seems fair... Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the actually numbers were higher...

Storm, Black Panther, Red Falcon, Luke Cage, Prodigy, Idie, Bishop, Darwin, Captain Marvel (the one that turned into light), War Machine, Misty Knight, the new Ultimate Spider-Man, Gentle, Cipher, and I'm sure there are more...

How about Native Americans (I have no idea why Hawaiians are not considered native Americans but we are not....)

The 2010 U.S. Census has the percent of Native Americans (listed as American Indians) at 0.9%... So, for every thousand heroes should there be 9 native American super heroes?

Mirage, Thunderbird, Warpath, Shaman, Talisman, The guy that's part of the initiative who rides a Harley,

I honestly believe the comic industry is doing a good job in this area. Could it be better? Maybe, but you have to keep in mind, so many of these characters were put into place long ago. Super-Man and Batman came out in the 30s right? The odds of seeing a Minority then? Nil... The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the X-Men... These all came out in the 60s... They've become icons.. Fan favorites and you cannot simply do away with them, but there really is a good blend of races in comics now, I think...

gay mexican teen titan anyone??

combine 2 minorities to make a tiny minorities

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

@ZombieBigfoot said:

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

You're right in that this topic has been brought up a number of times... But to be fair, new people join Comic vine every day... They've found a forum where they can talk about comic books to others like them... And they think of a topic they would like to discuss and hear the opinions of others, but they are so often cut short by, "THIS THREAD HAS BEEN CLOSED AS IT WAS DONE THREE YEARS AGO..."

I, for example, would honestly like to have a discussion regarding Civil Liberties during the Marvel Civil War but I have no doubt it'd be shut down about two minutes after I post it because someone had a thread on it three years ago...

a couple months ago I got into one of those STUPID debates over a battle thing... And I actually met fanboys of Doomsday who believe he is more powerful than the entity of death itself... So, I posted a thread in the battle forum, Doomsday versus Galactus. And there were actually a couple of people who believed that Doomsday would eventually beat Galactus (no seriously, there were.) The thread got shut down because someone had done that battle about two years ago.. literally two years ago... Sooooo, basically, if someone in comic vine has discussed a topic at any time in the past few years, new comers aren't allowed to discuss it in here.

That seems counter intuitive... The new people should get a chance, shouldn't they?

I'm not disagreeing with what you said. You're right. If it's good it'll sell... I'm just saying, this thread was started by someone new here and there may be people out there who still want to talk about it...

Yep, they get a little crazy with the "this thread was made 1,000,000 years ago by a DINOSAUR" that it gets to be a bit non user friendly. And I like the percentage breakdown. Being that so many superheroes are in New York, I wonder if the editors will make it mandatory to draw the streets with more "minorities" because New York is one of those cities where the streets are just not homogenous with skin color anymore. Never will be again.

Go to main pageUSANewsWhites become minority in America

Whites become minority in America

permalinkemail story to a friendprint version

Published: 31 August, 2011, 22:36

Photo from http://www.hotvesti.ru/

TAGS:Children, Health, History, Immigration, USA,Culture

Eight of the largest metropolitan regions in America have seen a decline in the percentage of white inhabitants over the last decade, signaling a majority of minorities in some of the USA’s biggest hubs, including New York and DC.

New census data analyzed by the Washington Post reveal that non-Hispanic whites are now a minority in 22 of the 100 biggest urban areas in America. While metropolises such as Los Angeles, San Antonio and San Francisco have seen minority-majorities prior to 2010, now NYC, San Diego, Las Vegas and Memphis have witness the change firsthand, as Black, Asian and Hispanic populations in those areas outnumber that of white residents.

The data suggests that the population of whites shrank in only 42 of the 100 cities profiled, but every single one of the metro regions saw an overall decline in the percentage of whites per capita.

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

What is your opinion on seeing more diversity in comics these days? More women, more indian, hispanic, black and asian heroes along with more gay characters as well. Im actually really digging it, as long as its not too forced or overplayed as their only character trait.

i hate how all the asian characters are all japanese, not hating on japanese but there are other asian cultures . all spanish characters dont look like they are (ceclia reyes looks black not puerto rican if she is half or mixed im not sure) or are mexican and speak spanglish (which is highly annoying) either do that < speaking like this but you can see what is being said> or have the dialogue in spanish and have it translated in a dialogue box.

there are few female characters i like unless they are strong , not in terms of power but in terms of chracters i.e. not made to be a sexual device or made to be pretty much useless. female characters have either been knockoffs of male counterparts or just been seen as eye candy . but i do read and like certain female characters : wonder woman , psylocke, batwoman x-23 , etc . though last 2 can seem hypocritical to my last statement but i mean in terms of their origins (supergirl , what if superman was a girl? ) that kinda mentality . females i dont like so much : emma frost ,too sexual in my eyes and her attitude goes toward the im a bitch deal with it kinda thing. is that what women see as their voice or somthing they admire? another is starfire just there to be gawked at , if you are suppossed to be some kick-ass warrior woman y are you only wearing a small piece of spandex? if a smart enemy punched her in her obvious target area(s) she is down along with charcters like that (powergirl.. ) when boys are young they look up to spider-man , batman , etc and say thats what im gnna be when i grow up do girls see power girl emma frost and say yeah im gnna have my boobs pretty much popping out and act stuck up and arrogant? this is my opinion . if someone can say its not like that or SoA its ____ that makes so-n-so appealing by all means have at it

i hate how all the asian characters are all japanese, not hating on japanese but there are other asian cultures . all spanish characters dont look like they are (ceclia reyes looks black not puerto rican if she is half or mixed im not sure) or are mexican and speak spanglish (which is highly annoying) either do that < speaking like this but you can see what is being said> or have the dialogue in spanish and have it translated in a dialogue box.

there are few female characters i like unless they are strong , not in terms of power but in terms of chracters i.e. not made to be a sexual device or made to be pretty much useless. female characters have either been knockoffs of male counterparts or just been seen as eye candy . but i do read and like certain female characters : wonder woman , psylocke, batwoman x-23 , etc . though last 2 can seem hypocritical to my last statement but i mean in terms of their origins (supergirl , what if superman was a girl? ) that kinda mentality . females i dont like so much : emma frost ,too sexual in my eyes and her attitude goes toward the im a bitch deal with it kinda thing. is that what women see as their voice or somthing they admire? another is starfire just there to be gawked at , if you are suppossed to be some kick-ass warrior woman y are you only wearing a small piece of spandex? if a smart enemy punched her in her obvious target area(s) she is down along with charcters like that (powergirl.. ) when boys are young they look up to spider-man , batman , etc and say thats what im gnna be when i grow up do girls see power girl emma frost and say yeah im gnna have my boobs pretty much popping out and act stuck up and arrogant? this is my opinion . if someone can say its not like that or SoA its ____ that makes so-n-so appealing by all means have at it

My opinion remains unchanged since the last crop of threads: diversity is good for comics because monotony is boring. Add new characters, establish them in team books, then give them a shot at a solo title. And don't forget the non-white established characters you already have. There are lots of characters out there who could hold a title of their own with the right creative team. By Grabthar's hammer there should be a John Stewart solo title (although I like that he and Guy have a title together in the new 52).

I think minorities are good when it's just a part of who they are and there's no big deal made about it unless it's needed.

So, say, black superhero in the 40's will probably not be as accepted as the white guy because of the time period. So a period piece comic with a black hero would need that context. However, a black superhero nowadays shouldn't just be dealing with drug dealers and talk like he's a rapper, he should be talking like how the writer would write any other character and have 'real' quirks (maybe he likes classical instead of rap or something) that make them stand out. Besides, he could beat down other villains too. So in the later example he/she's black and they have interests that aren't stereotypical, so their race isn't defining their character as much as they are attempting to show something different.

@Vance Astro said:

@ZombieBigfoot said:

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

This isn't true.Selling comics has nothing to do with whether it's good or not.

Sorry. Was attempting to delude myself for awhile there..

@Timandm said:

@ZombieBigfoot said:

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

You're right in that this topic has been brought up a number of times... But to be fair, new people join Comic vine every day... They've found a forum where they can talk about comic books to others like them... And they think of a topic they would like to discuss and hear the opinions of others, but they are so often cut short by, "THIS THREAD HAS BEEN CLOSED AS IT WAS DONE THREE YEARS AGO..."

I, for example, would honestly like to have a discussion regarding Civil Liberties during the Marvel Civil War but I have no doubt it'd be shut down about two minutes after I post it because someone had a thread on it three years ago...

a couple months ago I got into one of those STUPID debates over a battle thing... And I actually met fanboys of Doomsday who believe he is more powerful than the entity of death itself... So, I posted a thread in the battle forum, Doomsday versus Galactus. And there were actually a couple of people who believed that Doomsday would eventually beat Galactus (no seriously, there were.) The thread got shut down because someone had done that battle about two years ago.. literally two years ago... Sooooo, basically, if someone in comic vine has discussed a topic at any time in the past few years, new comers aren't allowed to discuss it in here.

That seems counter intuitive... The new people should get a chance, shouldn't they?

I'm not disagreeing with what you said. You're right. If it's good it'll sell... I'm just saying, this thread was started by someone new here and there may be people out there who still want to talk about it...

The thing is I'm just so sick of the diversity issue. After the fan backlash to the Miles Morales fiasco(which alone turned me off of the book), whenever I hear 'diversity' and 'comics' in the same topic title, I groan. Yes, they should be able to, but my point is I think we comic readers need to stop worrying about diversity. We should like the character for the character, not have to worry if he/she's insertracehere, insertsexualityhere, etc.

@ZombieBigfoot: The thing is I'm just so sick of the diversity issue. After the fan backlash to the Miles Morales fiasco(which alone turned me off of the book), whenever I hear 'diversity' and 'comics' in the same topic title, I groan. Yes, they should be able to, but my point is I think we comic readers need to stop worrying about diversity. We should like the character for the character, not have to worry if he/she's insertracehere, insertsexualityhere, etc.

Couldn't agree more... In the comics, being a super hero or villain isn't about one's race, sex, or creed... We've overcome. We now hate all races equally so to speak... (Yes, that was supposed to be funny.) So let's sit back and enjoy the ride now...

Let's all just completely stop trying to think up more diverse concepts and ideas to make comic book characters more interesting, let's instead make more of them gay or from a different ethnicity so people can "relate" to them. Because I haven't met a lesbian alive who couldn't relate to Batwoman, and all of my Black friends can totally see where Black Panther's coming from...

@Dracade102 said:

Let's all just completely stop trying to think up more diverse concepts and ideas to make comic book characters more interesting, let's instead make more of them gay or from a different ethnicity so people can "relate" to them. Because I haven't met a lesbian alive who couldn't relate to Batwoman, and all of my Black friends can totally see where Black Panther's coming from...

Yes, all of my black lesbian friends really have the lowdown on so many characters... However, my Androgynous Lithuanian atheist friends feel like there's no one in comics for them to relate to... I feel bad for them.

@Dracade102 said:

Let's all just completely stop trying to think up more diverse concepts and ideas to make comic book characters more interesting, let's instead make more of them gay or from a different ethnicity so people can "relate" to them. Because I haven't met a lesbian alive who couldn't relate to Batwoman, and all of my Black friends can totally see where Black Panther's coming from...

Yes, all of my black lesbian friends really have the lowdown on so many characters... However, my Androgynous Lithuanian atheist friends feel like there's no one in comics for them to relate to... I feel bad for them.

@Timandm said:

@ZombieBigfoot: The thing is I'm just so sick of the diversity issue. After the fan backlash to the Miles Morales fiasco(which alone turned me off of the book), whenever I hear 'diversity' and 'comics' in the same topic title, I groan. Yes, they should be able to, but my point is I think we comic readers need to stop worrying about diversity. We should like the character for the character, not have to worry if he/she's insertracehere, insertsexualityhere, etc.

Couldn't agree more... In the comics, being a super hero or villain isn't about one's race, sex, or creed... We've overcome. We now hate all races equally so to speak... (Yes, that was supposed to be funny.) So let's sit back and enjoy the ride now...

I got the joke myself. Though you know that all of this is a product of the ridiculous amount of P.C. in modern society. It's gotten to the point where most of us can't make a comment or do a certain thing without people picking it apart and calling us things we aren't because of said speech/actions. Plus, there have been attempts at diversity that have worked out very well. Look at Batwoman. She's openly lesbian, and is still one of my favorite characters in not only the Bat-Family, but in the DCU as a whole. But yes, we don't have much choice but to sit back and watch.

@Dracade102 said:

@Timandm said:

@Dracade102 said:

Let's all just completely stop trying to think up more diverse concepts and ideas to make comic book characters more interesting, let's instead make more of them gay or from a different ethnicity so people can "relate" to them. Because I haven't met a lesbian alive who couldn't relate to Batwoman, and all of my Black friends can totally see where Black Panther's coming from...

Yes, all of my black lesbian friends really have the lowdown on so many characters... However, my Androgynous Lithuanian atheist friends feel like there's no one in comics for them to relate to... I feel bad for them.

It must be hard to find Atheists in comics when gods are throwing cars at each other and kicking down buildings every other day...

I guess my Androgynous Lithuanian Atheist friends are just hosed then... Maybe the comic industry could create a a universe for each underrepresented niche, like my androgynous Lithuanian atheist friends...

Well to be honest, in the Marvel and DC univserse the only minorities are black and gay people.

No Mexicans and Indians for a reson, God/Evolutions never created any of those things.

@DeathpooltheT1000 said:

Well to be honest, in the Marvel and DC univserse the only minorities are black and gay people.

No Mexicans and Indians for a reson, God/Evolutions never created any of those things.

um... I can't tell if you're joking or not... I hope you are...

@Timandm said:

@DeathpooltheT1000 said:

Well to be honest, in the Marvel and DC univserse the only minorities are black and gay people.

No Mexicans and Indians for a reson, God/Evolutions never created any of those things.

um... I can't tell if you're joking or not... I hope you are...

No, i am not.

Think we need more women taking top superhero spots. Women with good characters and value and at least serious powers.

we also need way more diversity in story ideas, fresh takes on superhero mythos and people from different backgrounds and walks of life. Indian, Arabic, Australian aboriginal, Latino etc

@DeathpooltheT1000 said:

@Timandm said:

@DeathpooltheT1000 said:

Well to be honest, in the Marvel and DC univserse the only minorities are black and gay people.

No Mexicans and Indians for a reson, God/Evolutions never created any of those things.

um... I can't tell if you're joking or not... I hope you are...

No, i am not.

um... Okay... So, no Mexicans or Indians you say? Even though I listed several of them earlier? Okay... Well...

I could add more, but this should make the point... Thunderbird (Whose brother was Warpath), Dani Moonstar, Shaman, Talisman, Toro, Forge, and Zorro... And you say there are NO Indians or Mexicans?

Please note, There are other latin super heroes, but you specified Mexican...

...

@Timandm: Thank you for the spaniards in this one, i mean real mexicans, not spaniards cliche that are called mexicans.

I mean people from India, sorry my bad.

@ZombieBigfoot said:

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

This isn't true.Selling comics has nothing to do with whether it's good or not.  

@DeathpooltheT1000: I wondered for a moment if you meant 'from India' but... Okay.. First off, Torro and Zorro are both Mexican, from Mexico. There are others whose names allude me at the moment, but I know there are more Mexican heroes.

As for Indian... Yeah, that's a tough one. Dr. Rao is the only Indian character I can think of... She's a member of the X-Club and the developer of the infamous "cure" for mutants.

@Timandm: Bishop is actually an Australian Aborigine and the Native American guy you were referring to earlier is Jason Strongbow. *smile*

@Timandm said:

@ZombieBigfoot said:

Ugh, can we just get over the minority hill already? Getting tired of hearing people bring this topic up. If it's good, it sells, regardless of race/orientation. Otherwise we're not encouraging effort and good writing, we're encouraging the belief that diversity sells regardless of quality. Anything seem wrong about that?

You're right in that this topic has been brought up a number of times... But to be fair, new people join Comic vine every day... They've found a forum where they can talk about comic books to others like them... And they think of a topic they would like to discuss and hear the opinions of others, but they are so often cut short by, "THIS THREAD HAS BEEN CLOSED AS IT WAS DONE THREE YEARS AGO..."

I, for example, would honestly like to have a discussion regarding Civil Liberties during the Marvel Civil War but I have no doubt it'd be shut down about two minutes after I post it because someone had a thread on it three years ago...

a couple months ago I got into one of those STUPID debates over a battle thing... And I actually met fanboys of Doomsday who believe he is more powerful than the entity of death itself... So, I posted a thread in the battle forum, Doomsday versus Galactus. And there were actually a couple of people who believed that Doomsday would eventually beat Galactus (no seriously, there were.) The thread got shut down because someone had done that battle about two years ago.. literally two years ago... Sooooo, basically, if someone in comic vine has discussed a topic at any time in the past few years, new comers aren't allowed to discuss it in here.

That seems counter intuitive... The new people should get a chance, shouldn't they?

I'm not disagreeing with what you said. You're right. If it's good it'll sell... I'm just saying, this thread was started by someone new here and there may be people out there who still want to talk about it...

Amen dude. Nicely put

@jrock85 said:

@Timandm: Bishop is actually an Australian Aborigine and the Native American guy you were referring to earlier is Jason Strongbow. *smile*

YES! Jason Strongbow! That's him. It's been bugging me.

I didn't realize Bishop was Aborigine, but he does have that look. (Which I guess he should...)

@Timandm: Mexicans that came from the Spaniard Cliche, is really weird to find mexicans that are not spaniards.

I mean the mexican cultura and way to see the life is not the same that the Spanish one, heck i have evn seen mariachis dancing flamenco in movies.

Yeah, Raj should be worried about that and not about J. Jonah Jameson Jr.

If you want to see the way to do minorities in comics right look no further than the last Blue Beetle volume. It was absolutely perfect there. We saw Jaime's culture and family life but none of it seemed forced at all. He was a superhero who happened to live in El Paso TX, not a superhero who was created to fill some quota. If I remember right there wasnt even that big a deal made about it when it first happened, and if there was it was nowhere NEAR Miles Morales levels, where it seems like the only reason they made him half black 1/2 hispanic was to sell books.

The argument that "race and diversity don't matter, only good comics do" is crazy to me. They both matter. Of course comics being good is the most important thing, but I'd rather have a good comic that is diverse over a good comic that is completely homogeneous. 
 
I really don't see how you could argue against that.

@Lonestar88 said:

The argument that "race and diversity don't matter, only good comics do" is crazy to me. They both matter. Of course comics being good is the most important thing, but I'd rather have a good comic that is diverse over a good comic that is completely homogeneous. I really don't see how you could argue against that.

WELL SAID!

so true

There has to be a market for minorities first of all, I can honestly say that most likely most comic book readers are white males so no point in giving them a black superhero.

@Jnr6Lil said:

There has to be a market for minorities first of all, I can honestly say that most likely most comic book readers are white males so no point in giving them a black superhero.

Cause white male readers would never be interested in reading about a black super hero?

So, no white male wants to read about Storm? John Stewart? Black Panther? Luke Cage? The New Spider-Man? Really?