The Motives of Race in Comics Unmasked
It’s been a little over a week since the end of the San Diego Comic Con and the theatrical release of Captain America and already the fine folks at the House of Ideas are continuing their PR barrage into our mainstream consciousness. Today, spoilers be damned, it seemed like every outlet, from USA Today to The Huffington Post to your parent’s Twitter, was abuzz with the latest major development from the comics industry leader. Are you ready for it? Are you sure? I’m guessing you’ve already read it somewhere… so I might as well spoil it for you (in case your parent’s Twitter hasn’t yet):
Spider-Man is black.
Did you read that correctly? Let me write it again. Spider-Man is black. No. Wait. That’s not entirely correct. Spider-Man is Hispanic. Strike that. My bad. Spider-Man is Blacktino. Actually, let’s be entirely accurate here… ULTIMATE Spider-Man is Blacktino.
So does it even count? If the big To Do is that Marvel changed one of their major characters, no, THEIR ABSOLUTELY NUMBER ONE MAJOR CHARACTER, to reflect a minority life style, and having done it within the alternate Ultimate universe (which seems like sticking your toe into the water instead of jumping in), does it even really count? Well, let’s talk about it.
Yes. And no. First, let’s talk about the Ultimate Universe. Then we’ll talk about the issue of minority characters in mainstream comics and then we’ll talk about whether or not race in comics is even the legitimate issue. Okay? It’s a discussion, and I’m not always the most eloquent or insightful, so please use the comments to voice your own objections, appreciations and opinions (or just call me something awful… it is the internet).
If a lasting and resounding statement is what Marvel wanted to make, the Ultimate Universe may not have been the best place to do it in. Introduced in September of 2000 to revamp characters chained down by decades of continuity, the Ultimate universe was offered as a fresh, modern take on classic characters, just as these characters were set to be modernized by Hollywood. And for a while it succeeded. I would know. I have every single issue of the Ultimate line leading right up to Ultimatum (even Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra… sigh). The first few story lines of Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man and Mark Millar’s X-Men and Ultimates are fresh. They’re awesome. They completely hold up today and did a great job of paving the way for Hollywood to see how to do these characters in this new decade right. Heck, Mark Millar even gave us Sam Jackson as Black Nick Fury first (although there wasn’t any mainstream fuss because it was Nick Fury… and The Ultimate Universe).
White David Hasselhoff Who?
For years, the Ultimate books were the top selling books in the industry and a fantastic way for a new fan base, invigorated by Hollywood, to be on the ground floor of their own storylines. Ultimate Spider-Man, debuted that September with an almost unknown writer joined with a popular Spider-Man artist, at #15 and sold almost 55,000 copies and has a Top 20 book ever since. For me, it was a great way to get back into the Marvel Universe while pinching pennies in college. Instead of buying 15 books a week to get the complete story, I only needed to buy 1. Ultimate Spider-Man, if not the entire Ultimate line, is still successful today. In that way, the introduction of Miles Morales is important. We got our Sam Jackson Nick Fury (and now we can’t get through a credit sequence without him) and this decision may pave the way for a big screen Spider-Man. Just during the writing of this essay I’ve discovered that Lawrence Fishburne will be playing Perry White in my boy Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel movie! See? The changes on the comic page matter, regardless of what Universe it takes place in. At the very least, the new character and September’s renumbering at #1 (10 years almost to the day!) will pave the way as a major jumping on point for new readers, no matter their color (which is a point I’ll get to later).
But this is Geekscape and we’re slaves to continuity here, and the Ultimate Universe is not the Marvel 616 Universe. Even when we thought the two Universes were being crossed over, all we ended up with was a half decade of Marvel Zombies. I think that on a sales and audience level, the Spider-Man change counts. As a fan who gave up on the Ultimate Universe at Ultimatum, caring only for the actions and consequences of the “real” Marvel characters? It doesn’t count. It’s M2. It’s Marvel 2099. It’s 1602. It’s Marvel Zombies. It’s a million Elseworlds tales that carry no real weight to a majority of fans. In effect, it’s NOT Peter Parker. It almost seems like this was the safest way for Marvel to make this move. Remember The Rawhide Kid turning gay? Yeah. Who cares. He’s stuck in the old west. What’s he going to do? Run around with the original Ghost Rider? He’ll never have any weight on the modern day X-Men or Avengers. Even seeing that people DO still read Ultimate Spider-Man, and that Miles Morales WAS introduced, the decision still feels like a safe call because he’s NOT a character that readers have been previously introduced to or have invested years of reading (and dollars) into. We have no investment in him, and Bendis, Axel Alonso and Joe Quesada have a lot of work to do to get the cynics among us on their side, regardless of his race.
And it’s a shame, because Marvel can have both. They have established characters in the 616 universe NOW, with years of fan investment behind them, that can be used to explore minority issues. In my conversation with Axel Alonso last week, presented in last week’s Nerd Rage, he told me that his favorite Marvel U character is Shang Chi, the Master of Kung Fu. And I love that character as well, Axel! But honestly, how much of that character resonates with Asian audiences and how much of it just resonates with fans of Kung Fu? Does Shang Chi say anything about the Asian experience or is he just a stereotype made easier to swallow by Western main stream depictions? Isn’t it about time that he and other minority characters be fleshed out a bit more to break from their ‘sploitation origins (like Luke Cage and other major black characters have)? Seems as good a time as any.
If you like Kung Fu movies, then you’ll like me. They even draw me to look like Bruce Lee.
If Marvel wants to pave the way for their characters to resonate with a wider audience, by casting the spotlight on characters dealing with minority issues, shouldn’t they actually deal with those issues as much as they deal with the latest villain or mega-company crossover? Casting characters in minority roles just isn’t enough. Having Northstar make a cameo appearance during a major X event doesn’t do a whole lot to convey what that character is really about. Put these characters and their lives front and center. Are these complex social issues even the responsibility of all-age comic books?
How can they not be? Superman is an immigrant. The X-Men are the ultimate pop-metaphor for race relations. As the embodiments of our modern mythology, and as mainstream commentary on our own social fabric, it’s integral. These have to be human stories set against an epic backdrop or they lose their resonance with us. Ulysses, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America all have to have their families taken away from them. It’s what gets them to work for us. But that also means allowing us to know have invested in these characters as they undergo these major changes and overcome these life obstacles. Why not take a minority character we already love and give them the spotlight, or make THEM Spider-Man or Captain America? Can you hear that? Right now, Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns are yelling “we’re putting Cyborg on the Justice League”!
It can be done, and I’m also not saying that the Miles Morales stories in Ultimate Spider-Man won’t be great. But I’m saying that these kinds of changes can be done with characters that we already care for and are familiar with, who aren’t just going to disappear when the alternate universes no doubt fold back in on themselves once retailers fold. The spotlight of diversity can be cast on characters familiar to us as well. In my recent conversation with Joe Quesada I talk about how good at reinvigorating lower-tier characters he and the writers at Marvel currently are. One of the most satisfying moments I’ve had in recent reading was Jason Aaron’s depiction of Kitty Pryde in the second issue of Schism. While saving a complete look-alike of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from his own defective sentinels, and while convinced that the X-Men have sent their female members to the rescue in order to embarrass him, Kitty throws in the fact that on top of all of her saving him she’s also Jewish. The high concept action of the moment wasn’t back-burnered in order to make a point. That’s just who Kitty Pryde is. She’s youthful. She’s bold. And she’s Jewish! On top of that, we’ve grown up loving her. And hopefully, new readers will one day get the same satisfaction out of Miles Morales.
Kitty Pryde – Jewish American Hotness
But the point of the examples is (and I sometimes get bad at staying on track so help me out in the comments), that it is never really about race or loud statements. It’s about the characters. It isn’t about what they are. It’s about what they do. Which is really at the heart of the last, and main, point of what I’m saying.
Why do we care about race? Is giving the mantle of Spider-Man to a black-hispanic character really about representing a growing minority audience or is it about paying a form of reparation for not having done it sooner? Or for having the majority of the Avengers or the Justice League (of America!) appear white and straight? As I’m about to argue, none of that is necessary in comics, which makes the big To Do about Miles Morales even more confusing. Comics has had an integrated cast of characters for decades. They just seem to have some trepidation with placing them closer to center stage. And I don’t know why.
According to the 2008 Census Bureau, 80% of America is still white. And how representative of that is the comic book reading audience? In defense of Marvel, on those grounds, if this was about sales, numbers and PR, wouldn’t it be safer to have done nothing and just say “fuck the 20%, let’s go for the white majority”?
And that’s what leads me back to the point I’m trying to make, a point that comic book readers, I believe thanks to stories like the X-Men, Superman, Wonder Woman, Shang Chi and even Captain Carrot and the mothafuckin’ Zoo Crew: Race DOESN’T matter in comic books. The 80% white majority doesn’t CARE what race your characters are and we haven’t for a very long time! We have a black Nick Fury! There’s a Green Martian running around with the Justice League (which now will have a black guy who ISN’T John Stewart). We’ve always known that Professor X was right and Magneto was a dick. When it comes to reading about mutants, aliens, monsters and superheroes, we’ve all long since become color blind.
What says diversity more than this?
That is why we love comics. Race never really mattered here. I’m a half-Mexican kid who looks and sounds white. Growing up in Texas and playing outdoors, I would tan pretty darkly. I once had someone curse at me and call me Indian during a blacktop basketball game. I’m not blonde and went to Ivy League schools so I’ve had people assume I was Jewish. The race issue has always been a barometer for people’s cursory and stupid assessments of each other. And it has plagued mass media since it’s inception. It took The Hollywood Shuffle IN THE 80’s to convince Hollywood that black audiences could be a presence in theaters. Ten years later Jackie Chan, probably the most famous actor in the world, is a mainstream U.S. star. We have yet to have a major hispanic leading star be a presence for over a few years. But comics have been integrating for decades. More than any other medium, I’d argue that the comics industry seems to get what’s REALLY at the heart of America’s most divisive rifts:
It’s about rich versus poor. It’s not about black and white. Those modern day divisions are just the results of socio-economic filtration caused by centuries of the rich doing their best to stay richer while the poor continue to be reamed by a system put in place by the rich. That’s a grotesque oversimplification but it works with comics well because the medium itself lends to that oversimplification. It’s easier to draw an afro or change the color of a character’s skin than convey a shrinking middle class falling into poverty. With comics, like with the news or Hollywood, it becomes a stripped down horserace and the majority of the work plays towards the obvious. You’re either rich or your poor.
Daredevil was raised by a poor single father and his greatest enemy is the wealthy Wilson Fisk. Sounds like Peter Parker, Aunt May and Norman Osborn. Or Superman, Ma Kent and Lex Luthor. Batman’s rich as hell. But do we see him using the resources of Wayne Enterprises to destroy Lex Luthor’s resources before he uses them for evil? Nope. He’s busy punching guys in the face one by one. Danny Rand is super rich yet his best friend is black so Luke Cage lives in an apartment in Harlem (but now the government has endorsed the two of them so they can live in the same place… which the rich guy paid for). How did they even meet!?! Is anyone in comics middle class at all? How do these poor Robin Hood figures continue to come into contact with the power elite?
It’s fantasy, but it’s also the pure and cathartic representation of struggle and perseverance. This is what mainstream superhero comics are about and why they, for the most part, have sidestepped the hurdles of race that larger mediums like film and television have tripped over. As comic readers, we are the poor, the ugly, the unpopular and we fantasize about being our own agents of change. We want to be Daredevil taking down The Kingpin or even better, we want to be Batman and have our choice of infinite toys. Even in the case of the metaphorically race driven X-Men, they’ve been liberated by a rich benefactor who accepts them because he is one of their own. It’s still about overcoming economic limitations at least as much as it is social ones. Each member of the X-Men was screwed before Professor X came along. We read comics because we want to be liberated from our own physical, mental and financial limitations.
Robin Hood, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Daredevil. It’s all about that financial ladder.
And that’s why it’s a shame that we’re really making a big deal about Miles Morales now. Not because it’s the Ultimate Universe and has a built in safety net of “not really counting” (because it does). Not because it’s a new character being introduced to take the brunt of being a controversy lightning rod (because it’s not controversial (unless you’re a racist idiot). It’s because the biggest tool of the rich used in it’s division of the poor is this topic of race. As comic book readers, we are better than that and have been since the medium’s inception. The comic book, like Jazz (or Ragtime before it), is a purely American medium developed by the poor so that they could express themselves amidst the rich. As long as the rich, and sadly I’m looking at you, Disney owner of Marvel, keep us talking about blacks versus whites versus red versus Captain fucking Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew, we won’t be talking about how the minority of THEY are screwing the majority of US. As long as we’re talking about Miles Morales and how insane it is that he’s Spider-Man (it isn’t), we won’t be ignoring our physical differences, picking up our pitchforks, and uniting to force some real social change in this country. Already, internet racists, having already been failed by an underfunded education system and a divided cultural upbringing, are making Miles Morales a race issue in comics when it’s never been. It’s hardly even a comics issue!
Let’s remember. We are the majority. As readers, we are Daredevil, Superman and black/hispanic/white Spider-Man. Some of us are Batman and Iron Fist, who even though they are rich and could find crime much more effectively in a multitude of different ways, like to slum it like poor people and hang with a friend from Harlem and punch robbers in the face. If we don’t like the stories, our hesitance to pay for them becomes our pitchforks. That’s all that matters here. And so far, we’ve only accepted comics because they have represented our perfect society, keeping the overall focus on the poor versus the rich and not the blacks versus the whites or the reds or the yellows or the Zoo Crews. Don’t let the controllers of these messages create an issue out of nothing.
Because besides, it’s probably all going to get ret-conned one day anyways.
And Axel Alonso, if you’re reading this, I have a great story that tackles complex socio-economic issues. It’s a Cannonball mini-series that illustrates how Sam Guthrie and the rest of the Guthrie children became mutants because their poor, unrepresented, West Virgina coal mining parents became addicted to smoking MGH and gave their kids powers. It’s like Harlan County, USA meets… uh… okay. It’s a shit idea. I’ll think of something else (CORRECTION! My friend Jeff Winstead, who’s grandparents are from Harlan, corrected me on Facebook that Cannonball is from Kentucky and not West Virginia (so it really IS like Harlan County, USA! Thanks, Jeff!).
Disagree? Agree? Good. Because this is just the beginning of this conversation. My arguments, points and examples aren’t full proof and I am a victim of my own rambling mind. So please add your own voice to the discussion (that’s what Geekscape was built for) and maybe one day we’ll find a common ground!
