Iron Man's...a 15-year-old black girl?

[Hydra009]

makes me wonder if in a decades time this whole 'pushing for more ethnic based superhero main character remakes' will be cast off when the marvel universe does another reboot.

Yeah.  Like the anti-hero 90s fad, we're smack in the middle of the "diversity" 10s .  I expect it to blow over as actually original new characters come into their own and this push for non-white, non-male variants of established characters ebbs away.

The weird thing about this is that Marvel already has a ton of diverse characters.  I could understand the push for female Thor if female superheroes were few and far between.  But they're not.  They're huge proportions of the rosters of almost all teams and quite a few with their own comic.  Same with various racial minorities, though to a much lesser extent.

[Hydra009]

Seriously, who the fuck are these people ^, its like people dressing up as their fav superheroes at a convention.

The four to the left (two in the back and two in the front) are Medusa, Scarlet Witch, Winter Soldier, and Angela.  The first two have been in the comics for a long time.  The second two are fairly new.  Winter Soldier was introduced in 2005 and Angela was moved from Spawn comics to Marvel in 2014.

[Munch]

Yeah.  Like the anti-hero 90s fad, we're smack in the middle of the "diversity" 10s .  I expect it to blow over as actually original new characters come into their own and this push for non-white, non-male variants of established characters ebbs away.

Seem that is something I have no problem with, making new and established original characters, Yes you will have people wanting the same recognizable characters, but good creative minds are able to think up new characters that people can get invested into as well.

The weird thing about this is that Marvel already has a ton of diverse characters.  I could understand the push for female Thor if female superheroes were few and far between.  But they're not.  They're huge proportions of the rosters of almost all teams and quite a few with their own comic.  Same with various racial minorities, though to a much lesser extent.

Storm has been one of my favorite x-men characters since I started watching the x-men series in the 90s, she's a central character, and of African decent, with a great backstory. Bishop also was black american and I enjoyed him in the comics.
While having a few new characters would be something any company can do and make them well writen with a good writer, to just force ethnicity on reader at the expense of everything else just has the marvel executives screaming "YOU WILL ACCEPT THESE NEW ETHNIC CHARACTERS, YOU WILL!"
Makes me wonder if this sudden rush of changing characters out started when disney brought marvel.

[Munch]

The four to the left (two in the back and two in the front) are Medusa, Scarlet Witch, Winter Soldier, and Angela.  The first two have been in the comics for a long time.  The second two are fairly new.  Winter Soldier was introduced in 2005 and Angela was moved from Spawn comics to Marvel in 2014.

I know, I was being intentionally dismissive. Its more a case of when you think of a superhero team, you think of certain characters, not their replacements. When you think justice league, you think bruce wayne/batman, clark kent/superman, Diana/wonderwoman. When you think x-men, you think scott summers/cyclops, Ororo Monroe/Storm, Hank McCoy/Beast and Logan/Wolverine, and when you think avengers you think Steven Rogers/Captain america, Tony Stark/Iron man, Thor Odinson/Thor, and Bruce Banner/Hulk. Rosters might change over the years with characters coming and going, but people will always have a set amount of characters they think of with certain groups.

[Nonsensei]

The one thing I've never heard anyone explain is how these gender and ethnicity changes make the characters better. If this isn't being done merely for the sake of bowing to the diversity police, then what is gained from doing it?

[PickelledEggs]

The one thing I've never heard anyone explain is how these gender and ethnicity changes make the characters better. If this isn't being done merely for the sake of bowing to the diversity police, then what is gained from doing it?

I don't understand either. I can understand if it was once in a while, but it seems like every "passing of the torch" is a new gender/ethnicity and in this case, both. It seems, like you're saying a little too transparent that they are catering to the P.C. diversity police. I'm not against it, but it is getting old. Although I don't see it as unrealistic for the ethnicity to change as the gender.

Batman Beyond was a passing of the torch, but he was just a younger kid.

Iron Man is now a woman.... I don't get how you still have the name Iron Man... Technically it's iron woman. Iron girl? I don't know if they are actually sticking with the name and I don't know if it's just going to be for a few issues of the series. There are many things we don't know, just like we didn't know Captain America was apparently under mind control, (although, I predicted it). But like I am saying, we don't know if Iron Man is just taking a vacation and this girl is stepping in some way. She may have her own title. There are a lot of things we don't know yet.

[PickelledEggs]

Although.... while I would say an ethnicity change with a passing of the torch thing isn't really unrealistic at all.... I would say it is unrealistic if Black Panther all of a sudden was a non-black guy. I would even say if Black Panther passed the torch to a black girl, it would still be very realistic.

A very complicated thing. and it makes every one talk. I think that is why Marvel does it. It's such easy, free advertisement.

[PickelledEggs]

I don't see what the issue of a black captain america is either, although being that he is from the 40s and realistically he would be white, if there was a passing of torch thing where he passed it off to another, younger genetically advanced soldier, Captain america could be black, white, asian, whatever. Even male or female. It depends on how it's written.

[Shiranu]

I think people give the "PC crowd" far too much credit... comic books are saturated by cheap gimmicks, ridiculous plot holes, character choices that make absolutely no sense, changes to beloved characters out of the blue for the sake of it... that is kinda the whole comic book's shtick at this point. If it wasn't changing the gender or ethnicity it would be cop-out mind control plots, "omg he was evil but wasn't but really was but wasn't but was" and "omg he died! But did he really doe? But omg he died!".

Tl;dr - Comic book writers often call it in, and that has far more to do with these issues than some "PC or SJW crowd" infiltrating the entertainment industry. We only look at the good times and ignore just how often comics (and entertainment in general) just straight up fuck up.


That said, Fem-Thor is still bad ass and makes perfect sense.

[Hydra009]

Iron Man is now a woman.... I don't get how you still have the name Iron Man... Technically it's iron woman. Iron girl?

Iron Woman is Pepper Potts, so the name is anyone's guess.

Batman Beyond was a passing of the torch, but he was just a younger kid.

See, that one actually made sense.  It's decades in the future and Bats is too old for the night life.  A successor makes perfect sense.

There's another good one where Tony Stark "dies", with a funeral and everything, bequeathing the Iron Man armor to his longtime pal, Jim Rhodes.  Jim becomes the new Iron Man for a while until Tony comes back to life - which came as quite a shock to Jim, who geniunely thought he was dead for good.  Jim Rhodes storms off and does his own thing as War Machine - different personality, different way of doing things, different name, etc.  He's not stepping on any toes.  In fact, the contrast between the two characters really helps highlight some of Tony's qualities.  That's a good way of passing the torch.

But lately, a lot of the marvel attempts at passing the torch seem really poorly thought out and seem more like hamfisted publicity stunts or marketing gimmicks than something that you could expect something to organically happen from the established continuity.  "Okay guys, here's my idea.  There's a new Hulk and this one is Totally Awesome!  He has a fauxhawk.  Pretty cool, right?  Also, he's asian and really good at math!  This comic's gonna sell like hotcakes!"

"Let's do yet another Iron Man variant.  Which permutation haven't we done yet?  We've done black.  We've done female.  Oh, I've got it, black AND female.  Oh man, this is pure creative genius!  Speaking of, let's get real creative with the character design, we really need to differentiate her from Tony.  How about teen genius?  We've never done that before and it's worlds apart from Tony.  Looks good, but I worry, is it too progressive?  Oh, I know!  Let's give her this huge poofy afro-like hairstyle and big hoop earrings.  Perfect."

[Draconic Aiur]

Politically Correctness, ruining everything since it was created

[drunkenshoe]

The material at hand is basic, its usability is limited and they already exhausted it. There are few possible scenarios that work with superheroes. I think that's why they keep trying to change the characters in other ways. Gender and race are the easiest traits to change. Also they are always hot topics in the culture that produces them.

Creating an original character would be very risky. Esp. a female one. Iron man is probbaly the most suitable one to turn into a female as superheroes go, because he doesn't have any physical superiority, but intelligence and he builds his own physical super powers. Otherwise it is not convincing imo. Also as a fantasy role model for girls to take attention- I am guessing this is the whole goal as they mention a real life person as an inspiration- Iron man is a STEM character. He is a genius, he makes researches, builds, invents...etc.  She is a genius, she does the same. What girls needs to be encouraged about. No problem there.

Now the question is what kind of personal traits she will have? Similar to Stark or will she be a perfect maiden without any vice or abusing power? The latter would be the unconvincing bullshit. Imagine a fifteen year old -boy or girl doesn't matter- who can build their own Iron suit. She is still a teenager first.

They have to put Stark in the story and build a realistic relationship between them; an organic, convincing one and it would need to be full of conflicts and bumps, troubles between the two. (And story has a fertile ground for that) If they can make that realtionship good she could look real.

But if they are going to create a perfect girl with no mistakes ever, a teenager with a presence more emotionally mature than her father figure or adults around her, understanding and reacting to everything happens around her perfectly they shouldn't bother. It wouldn't take on either. It's bullshit. Not to mention boring. Being a genius  teenager and fighting with evil in an iron suit is something else, emotional maturity of the character and what a teenager goes through is something else.

If they create a real teenager character on the side, kids could relate to it. Story would be convincing and it would be different than others.

[Blackleaf]

I don't see what the issue of a black captain america is either, although being that he is from the 40s and realistically he would be white, if there was a passing of torch thing where he passed it off to another, younger genetically advanced soldier, Captain america could be black, white, asian, whatever. Even male or female. It depends on how it's written.

Captain America passing the torch doesn't really make sense. The whole point of the character is that he stands for "the American way." He's the "first Avenger" who fought Nazis in World War II. He's a white, blue-eyed, blond, Christian man with old fashioned values; basically a stereotype of 1940's America. If he passes the torch to a Black millennial, what would he preserve of the character? Maybe he could be a symbol of change, of the new America, but I could see that growing stale really fast. Especially given how everyone is basically ready to move to Canada after the next Presidential election.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you figure all they're doing is stunts then there's no problem. If we try to force them to have a internally consistent persona then all the reboots are violations of that rule.

In other words, whatever happens, happens. It's all to make money anyway.

[Munch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETNuFR6MFNE

I love the comics explained channel, since he usually has an unbias look at comic books as he explains it. Thats why its more of a wake up call when the host of the channel himself is grinding his teeth as just talking about marvels current All New All Different Marvel line.

to sum up, marvel is showing just how clunky their writing is, in claiming this marvel reboot is something new.. and different? And how you need to know about the previous marvel titles in order to understand what the fucks going on, meaning it isn't all new and all different, but a continuation in some alternate reality bullshit.

relatability and consistency, something marvel loses points on, when peter parker from what I shall now refer to as the real marvel timeline, was just a rookie reporter for the daily bugle, and struggling with everyday life while also being spiderman, stopping crime, and dealing with the consequences of his actions, he was relatable. When you have the x-men dealing with persecution of what they are by humans who see them as monsters because of their genetics, that is relatable. Having peter parker as a millionare who gets someone else to play his persona part time, isn't relatable.

And as consistency goes, they might be called the same characters, like peter parker or tony stark, but they are not the same characters we've all grown to love, something even the ultimate universe marvel got right.