GalacticFork

Such a great outfit ruined by the helmet. Just give him a reinforced motorcycle helmet. It'd probably offer better protection and a better viewing angle. Poor Diggle. He uses a gun! How is he supposed to aim with that thing on this face? He deserves better.

Hmmm. When Heat wave finds out Snart isn't a ghost (ha!), won't he wonder later how Barry Allen is also alive (assuming he finds out)? The skating rink and pirouette thing was really random and the kind of thing you'd not see today.

Then why are you focusing about the his race? Just proclaim to be against character reboots. And considering this is about the Wally West in the Flash TV series which is in a universe very very very different than the DC universe, there would be hundreds of things to get through before you ever even reached the appearance of Wally. None of the characters from the series are the same people as in the comics.

@deitydeity:

A lack of business understanding seems to have clouded your perspective. Unless you are running a niche business, you do not "go after" a specific audience, you put out a product to appeal to the largest customer base. History clearly shows that in the 1930s the largest audience that had discretionary income to pay for comic books were white males. You can't apply today's socio-economic make-up to that time period. Once times changed and more diverse groups had more discretionary income, new characters were introduced to appeal to that audience.

You know, the reason white men had the most discretionary income back then wasn't some coincidence, and the exclusion of groups that weren't white men wasn't simply business. They are tied together. Similar to the idea that the victors write the history, the ones in power control popular culture and media. And these people are also affected by the perception culture and media put out. This is why propaganda works as well. Media in general pandered only to the white people, so it gives them a perception that that's all there is. Other groups are erased. So when new media is created, that idea is still there. It's why you can think of Jimmy Olsen as a character everybody can relate to.

As for the characters added, few women were added with a female audience in mind, but with their current male audience in mind, and many of the black characters were horribly racist. Because of the perception the creators had of the groups. So of course the audience didn't grow, not nearly enough to match the potential audience of those other groups. And as the socio-political nature of our society changes, this lack of growth has given culture a view of the medium.

@deitydeity:

The whole point of this is to show that changing the race of established characters today is a change for no other reason than PC pandering to "diversity" (which these days is more like homogeneity) and not because the change makes of any kind of business, cultural or common sense (in the narrative of the medium) when it is far more effective to introduce well written new characters (check any sales chart and you will see #1 issues sell quite well)

This is just incorrect. The companies noticed they weren't reaching other audiences in a way that reflected potential customers. They want to change that. And a good way is to show they recognize they exist and actually want them as an audience.

And to do this it has to be in a way they can recognize. Creating a completely brand new character, even well written ones usually fail, even white ones. How many of those #1 issues are from brand new never before seen characters?

@deitydeity:

Not sure where that was stated but it is completely opposite - no good business model seeks to exclude groups. As stated, groups were included as times changed (1941 - post America entering WWII and women working and making their own money - Wonder Woman. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened up new employment options for blacks - Black Panther - 1966).

I'm sorry... Are you kidding me? So I guess in your magical wonderland, black people were never barred from certain restaurants? And there are currently no businesses out there trying to get the right to exclude gay people? Can I move to where you live? Please? Businesses have a history of excluding groups. Women and girls make up 52% of the US movie goers, yet women still make up only 30 percent of speaking roles. If it was simply a matter of cold logical business models, it'd be pretty even right? Even favoring women. But it doesn't... Because we don't live in your magical wonderland. We live in the real world where the biases of the people in charge shape their actions, not simple business. The real world where white people only actually make up about 50% to 55% of the movie audience when they take up 76% of the speaking roles. The one where hispanic people make up about 5% of speaking roles but are 25% of the audience.

@deitydeity:

A lot of comic fans on here have a warped perspective of what is "known" and not "known" to non-comic book fans. Non-comic book fans know a handful of comic book characters - Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman and more recently the Avengers (movie) line-up. Minus the avengers, the others would be considered part of the cultural identity and guess what - regardless of what race you are, you know those characters as white males / female. You also notice that Marvel/DC are not changing those characters (to reference it again, Miles Morales is an example of the proper way of expanding the racial interest of a character - don't change the race, introduce a new character that is well written with similar / same powers) but instead changing the race/sex of minor characters (yes, Thor is a culturally a minor character, deal with it). Changing the race/sex of minor characters is most definitely PC pandering as it does not affect the company's big money makers (Batman/Superman/etc).

1) The two Thor films combined made a total of a billion dollars. So when the announcement of a woman wielding the hammer, the general population knew who was being talked about.

2) They didn't change Thor's gender. Jane Foster is a different character wielding the hammer, and Odinson is still around. Seems closer to what they did with Miles than what's being talked about in this thread. Weird you brought it up... Though in Mile's case, they killed off Peter Parker in his universe.

3) The reason people know these names is because they reach beyond comic books into other media. TV shows, and movies. I didn't say anything about being "part of cultural identity." Do you really think the Flash, Arrow and Supergirl would only be watched by comic fans?

4) So changing anybody but those four is automatically PC pandering... That's really specific.

@deitydeity:

Which is bad/lazy writing. The formula for super-heros (or in fact any literary hero) remains unchanged. They are supposed to represent the best in people and what the viewing audience aspires to be. This is why Superman / Batman / Wonder Woman have been so successful for so long. Super-heros are not supposed to need someone else as a mentor - they do it on their own or in the framework of a team. This is also the reason why historically - when there were good writers for comics - you got an established hero and perhaps an origin story. There did not spend time showing the hero becoming a hero as they understood that undermines the entire concept of the hero. Homer didn't spend time showing how Odysseus became the man he was or him having some "mentor" but started right off with him as the hero. It worked in 800bc and it works today. This is of course where you point out numerous, "successful" comic books which dealt with heros as they became heros but "successful" is relative as it is only within the realm of the comic book fan base, not the general audience (which is what the PC pandering is supposed to attract).

Wow that was silly. There are stories beyond the monomyth. And I find it highly ironic that you're calling deviating from a formula "lazy". This is a TV drama, they want people to empathize with the character, they want her to be a person. Not simply a symbol.

Besides, what do you think Alfred is to Batman? Especially in the most recent movies. A trusted confidante and adviser, sometimes serving partially as Bruce's conscience. Gee. And in the Flash TV show, Barry has Joe. Part of the reason the Supergirl series even exists is because of the success of the Flash and Arrow. And BOTH of those show the heroes' origins. Unless you're suggesting Flash and Arrow only have a comic book fanbase. Which would be interesting for the Arrow, because it has a 45% female audience, and the flash has 20% African American audience.

In the case of Wally West in the comics, the character is changed regardless. With the new 52 he was completely recreated. This is whole different Wally West long before you even get to a physical description. These kinds of re-imaginings happen in comics sometimes. And these would be the time to change a race as well. It's not like they just changed his skin ink between issues of an ongoing story and never mentioned it. It wasn't going to be the same Wally as on those posters and figurines anyway. It is a new character with the same name. So, let me ask you this, if they re-imagined Wally West with the New 52 with the same demeanor, but a white skin-tone, what would your complaints be?

As for the Wally West in the Arrow, it's a completely different medium, and part of a universe with huuuuuge changes to characters. You have Killer Frost and Vibe as Barry's BFF scientist sidekicks.. You have one of the Speedies changed to Oliver Queen's sister. So the whole universe is different from the universe the Wally West of old, so he was always going to be "no longer Wally West" in the way you meant above. And when creating a whole new universe, you don't have to be beholden to the time when other races were ignored.

@serpinethegreen: How is changing them unfair exactly? This implies the characters are supposed to be white, or had a reason to be white, and only a small minority are being changed. Heck, 1 of the 3 flashes in this case. That's still two whole white male Flashes on the show. And are you saying the other ethnicities won't accept them? Or the white people won't accept them?

@serpinethegreen: They aren't doing "the same to white people" There are tons and tons of white characters. There is no shortage. But answer this, how many of the characters today would not be white if back in then they didn't just default to white guy? There'd be a lot more people of color than there are now.

Did it occur to you the reason most readers are white males is because that's who the publishers only cared about since the beginning of comics? You start in the 30s, make overwhelmingly white guys. White guys read it. And this continues for 80 years. You are mixing up cause and effect. They didn't start out diverse and focus when it was all white guys. They started going after white guys and never looked back. This 80 years of only pandering to white people is why it's mostly white people.

@deitydeity said:

As has also been researched (again Google it) race changing that is claimed to be an effort to engage new/different readers but is actually just PC pandering consistently fails to accomplish its "stated" goal. Many people will now bring up Harley Quinn as an example of successfully appealing to new female readers but one anomaly does not a trend make. If companies truly want to expand their audience they can do it with well written new minority characters (ie: Miles Morales) as opposed to changing existing characters which accomplishes nothing more than alienating not only fans (resilient to change) but casual viewers as well (call it racism if you want but it has more to do with relatability).

Actually both are a good strategy. As mentioned, the whole infrastructure of comics is built on excluding other groups. Eighty years of exclusion isn't going to change over night. Other groups know comics have excluded them. But some of the big names are known outside of comic circles. Having the mantle of a big name hero change to a group that's been excluded, or alter the appearance of an existing character shows a commitment, and if they stick to it, show an attempt to change the exclusionary infrastructure. People know these names, so this information will reach more people than new character nobody knows created 10 minutes ago... It won't reach these people because they are not the historic audience who has been pandered to since the 30s, so they won't be looking as closely at random new characters. And if the comic fails, people will just say "Oh, these don't sell." As more attention is drawn from other groups who are seeing that maaaaaybe comics aren't just pandering to white guys as much, then they can give it a try, and if they keep it up (because it won't be an instant change, it took over 80 years to get to this point), then they'll be more likely to catch the new characters.

@deitydeity said:

For clarification - one of the worse offenses of this is Jimmy Olsen in the new Supergirl TV show. Jimmy Olsen was created for a very specific reason - he is the audience. He is an average guy (looks, physique, etc.) with a decent job who looks up to Superman in awe and wonderment making him insanely relatable to the reader and someone we "see" Superman through. In the TV Show Jimmy is a 6 foot plus, muscular, attractive black guy. That pretty much throws relatability for 99% of the population right out the window and prevents people from "seeing" Supergirl through his eyes as a force of awe and wonderment. A lot of this has to do with not only PC pandering but poor/lazy writing however that is another post entirely...

OK... by your standard, actually, about 50% of the population wouldn't relate to Jimmy, since he's male. So then taking white men, that'd be roughly 30% of the US population. Then you'd have to remove white men above 6 feet as not being able to relate to Jimmy. Physically fit white men. Larger men, smaller men. So what percent of the population is that?

But seriously, this is my point, your description and perception of Jimmy isn't making him relatable to the audience, it would be closer to defining the audience.

Also, Jimmy's role isn't to look in awe at Supergirl, he's more mentor and confidante, sent as a trusted friend to Superman. He's grown in his role. This change in role really has nothing to with him being black. A less fit (I suppose, I don't see it as a huge factor) black guy could have still have portrayed a younger less experienced Jimmy. And a white guy could have played the new mentory Jimmy. So you should focus more on that than him being black.

Most of these characters were created in a time when the publishers and designers didn't care much about creating characters that weren't white. The "blank template" would be a white guy, then they'd change details as needed, so if there was "no reason" to make a character non-white, they'd just be white because that was the default property in the (metaphorical) dropdown box.

So really, there was never an actual reason for the characters to be white. You may think "trying to be pc isn't a good reason" to make a character black, but i don't think "nobody gave a crap about other ethnicities" was a good reason to make a character white back in the day.

Yeah, Franklin, you get right on that.

Man, that was a train wreck after the great beginning with Wade. It's like the creators decided "Ha ha! I got it, Deadpool's tagline is 'merc with a mouth', sooooo how about we remove his mouth altogether! Wa ha ha ha!!"