Welcome To My Nightmare

Before we begin, I want to direct you all to check out Erik “Savage Dragon” Larsen’s column at CBR.com where he touches on a similar topic. Great minds think alike!

Welcome back to the next installment of the Minority Report. I suspect this one will end up being rather short as I have an unexpected medical situation and will need to turn in early so I can get to the sawbones on time tomorrow. Welcome to MY personal nightmare. I freakin’ hate going to the doctor. Bunch of money-grabbing pharmaceutical salesmen the whole lot of them. Been to an ER lately? I went about four years ago when I sliced my thumb open like a banana and as I’m standing there bleeding all over the receptionist’s counter all she wanted to know was if I have my insurance card. I could have been a hemophiliac for all she knew (those are people who have a hard time forming clots to stop bleeding, if you didn’t know; I believe Hulk Hogan is one as a matter of fact). And before that my last doctor wouldn’t give me an antibiotic without a visit, and couldn’t schedule me in sooner than 6 weeks. I had influenza. I was either going to be dead or healthy in six weeks. So this is my first official doctor’s visit in 8 years or so, and I swear if he taps my knee with that stupid little hammer I’m gonna kick him square in the nuts.

So I wanted to spread the wealth a little and talk about minorities other than African Americans. And I’m having an even harder time coming up with a list of Latino/Asian/Native American characters from Marvel and DC (as always, for ease of research, I’m only concerning myself with the Big Two). There doesn’t seem to be any pre-existing list like I found for the black characters. So here’s what I came up with, only heroes and only Marvel and DC:

DC (20)
Shiva (well, she’s working with the Birds of Prey, and we’re desperate here)
Katana
Blue Beetle (the new one, aka El Escarabajo Azul. Please note I don’t really know Spanish so if that’s not the right translation, just deal with it on your own. Muchas gracias, amigos.)
Grace (Outsiders, I don’t know what the Hell she is, so I figured it might be safe to put her here too)
Vibe
Dr. Light IV
Mirage (Teen Titans)
Bushido (Teen Titans)
Black Condor (maybe? I can’t find much on his origin, just that he was recently killed, in which case it doesn’t much matter, does it?)
Batgirl (Cassandra Cain, also as Kasumi in Justice League Elite)
Fire
Monstergirl (Young Heroes In Love)
Maya (Justice League Europe, Asian-Indian)
Owl-Woman (Global Guardians)
Rising Sun (Global Guardians)
Thunderlord (Global Guardians)
Fever (Doom Patrol)
Nudge (Doom Patrol)
Manitou Raven and Dawn (Atlantean, but traditionally drawn with Native American overtones)
Legion of Superheroes probably has a couple—Karate Kid comes to mind—but I’m not taking the time to go through all of them and in the 31st century, most of those characters don’t even come from Earth. Hopefully they come from someplace more enlightened.

Marvel (40)
Firebird
Living Lightning
Thunderbird (all of them)
Dani “Mirage” Moonstar (Notice that both Marvel and DC have minority Mirages? What’s that tell you?)
Silverclaw
Ronin/Echo
Darwin (Secret X-Men from Deadly Genesis, so I’m told)
Sway (see Darwin)
Sunfire
Sunpyre (Thanks Jim Trabold!)
Forge
Psylocke/Revanche (more on this in a week or two)
Kuan Yin Xorn (possibly, depending on where you look)
Magma
Shen Xorn (Brother of other Xorn)
Karma
Sunspot
Jubilee (though I don’t think anyone wants to claim her)
Wraith
Dust (New X-Men)
Feral
Rictor
Hisako Ichiki (student at Xavier’s School For Getting Perpetually Blown Up)
Surge IV
Wind Dancer
Rockslide
Indra (New X-Men)
Kidogo (New X-Men)
Snowbird
Shaman
Talisman
Shang Chi
Big Hero Six (Sunfire’s horrible miniseries team, the only other character of note was Silver Samrai, but since he’s most often a villain we’re not counting him here.)
American Eagle
Wyatt Wingfoot
Angel Salvadore (Morrison’s X-Men, which, like The Ultimates, I tend to not count)
Sabra
Arabian Knight
Arana
Jolt
Radioactive Man

That’s all I got time to come up with right now. I’m sure you, my intrepid readers, could come up with a few more. But lets do the quickie number crunching: 60 or so non-black minority characters. That’s less between all the other non-Caucasian cultures than we came up with for the blacks. Some of these characters are dead–Arabian Knight might be, Black Condor pretty much is unless they’ve already resurrected him in 52/OYL continuity, and American Eagle might be dead as well. Angel Salvadore lost her powers in House of M and I can’t see any real reason that she’d ever be used again short of Grant Morrison returning to the X-Men (and I for one hope that never happens). I didn’t include in my totals the Big Hero Six, since Sunfire is the only one that should count and the others will likely never see print again. Likewise for the Legion of Superheroes–they have minorities but they’re largely from planets not called Earth. Several of the Alpha Flight people may or may not be around anymore either, until someone else gets the bright idea to resurrect the team nobody knows what to do with again.

Browse the list again…go ahead, we’ll wait, I’m doing it too…yeah, DC has crap for minority representation. Their list of black heroes was also smaller than Marvel’s if I recall. And of their pitiful 20 or so minority characters, only Fire, Blue Beetle and Batgirl really stand out. Sure, if you read outsiders you know Grace and Katana, or if you were heavy in the old Justice League series prior to Morrison’s relaunch you might recall Vibe or Dr. Light. But they’re not at the same level of recognition as long time Leaguer and current Checkmate agent Fire, the new Blue Beetle and Batgirl. Looking at each of these briefly, I don’t know how obvious it is that Fire is Brazilian. She’s usually ablaze in green fire, so she looks as much a minority as Mr. Bones, the black guy with invisible skin. Blue Beetle only gets recognition because he’s got a new book and was visible during the Infinite Crisis. I’m willing to give him some time to develop as a character, but his book so far has been a huge letdown, and the odd jump to OYL for a character I assumed already was OYL was really perplexing. I find myself less and less interested in the OYL storytelling across the board, and my interest in the Blue Beetle book is already plummeting. And Batgirl, heck, I don’t even really know that she is a minority. They never illustrated her father as such, and I don’t recall seeing her mother drawn (which isn’t to say she hasn’t). Still, Cassandra has a certain ethnicity to her look that points to her as being something other than white, so I stuck her in there.

On the Marvel side, there seems to be more high profile characters, but I think in some ways that’s in part to the interconnectivity of all things X-Men I realize a bunch of you reading this might be in the 18-25 age group, and as such might not recall the original New Mutants as fast as I might. To some of you, Sunfire, Jubilee, Psyloche and Echo might be the only ones on the list you recognized. And even for old bastards like me there are people on both lists I didn’t know or recall until I started digging. I don’t read the current New X-Men book, for example, which appears to be very nicely diverse. I should hunt down some trades of that real soon. I think the ones that stick out the most here are the ones I just mentioned: Sunfire, Jubilee, Psylocke and Echo. Sunfire has been around a long time; as I mentioned a week or two back he debuted in the All-New, All-Different (All-Diverse) X-Men #1. Jubilee is an incredibly annoying character, way down the Mighty Marvel Coolness Chart on the Gambit end. Psylocke is actually a British woman trapped in a ninja’s body mostly because Jim Lee couldn’t draw her any other way and nobody after him thought to change her back. And I think Echo is somewhat high in visibility only because Bendis had such a high profile run on Daredevil where she was introduced and he made her the secret New Avenger. I’m sure there will be those who would put some of the Alpha Flight members or Thunderbird ahead of these four. Arguments could be made for them, certainly. In case anyone didn’t know, I’m the world’s biggest (and most critical) Thunderbolts fan but even I would admit that Jolt isn’t more obvious than Psylocke and Sunfire or even Jubilee.

Having digested the lists a little bit, what do we make of them? Do we think there’s less Asian characters, to pick one, because there’s less Asian creators? I’m not sure that’s even true: Jim Lee, Jae Lee, Pat Lee, some of the folks at Udon Studios, Whilce Portacio, the incomparable Andy Lee, Jimmy Cheung, Cliff Chang, Leinil Francis Yu, Kia Asamiya—lots of Asian creators. Most of them are illustrators though. Nothing wrong that, mind you! I got love for the artists too. But in a lot of cases, they draw what the writer tells them to. And the writers are predominantly white. And as such, they’re going to write from a predominantly white point of view. And there’s not really anything wrong with that, but it does seem to color the major comic worlds with a largely white palette.

What about socio-economic opportunities? I heard a little factoid on the radio the other day: “What is there more of in America than McDonalds, Wendys and Burger King combined?” Answer: Chinese restaurants. Kinda sobering considering how damn many McDonalds there are alone, much less Wendys and Burger King. I think this points to how integrated Asians have become in American culture. There are Chinese restaurants in the inner cities, in the suburbs and in the affluent neighborhoods alike. I would take that to mean there are Asian people (not strictly Chinese–I know a number of ‘Chinese” restaurants in my town are actually owned and/or operated by Thai and Vietnamese people, and Japanese Steakhouses and Sushi bars have been gaining in popularity in the Midwest lately—thank goodness!) living in all of these areas, and by in large their economic situations are also rather wide-ranging. And certainly don’t misunderstand me–I’m NOT saying if you’re Asian and live in America you make Fried Rice and Egg Rolls for a living! My sister is Korean and works as a teacher. I’ve known Asians who work in medicine, law enforcement, computer science, clerical, retail, and banking. If we think a lack of Asian comic characters comes from a lack of Asian interest because Asians aren’t buying books, it probably isn’t any different than the situation I touched on with the African Americans last week. There are those that have money and those that don’t. There are those who live within easy access of comic shops and those that don’t. And there are those who just don’t care about superheroes.

I don’t profess to be an expert on Manga comics–far from it. Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku might be the extent of it for me. But I do know that there’s a lot broader scope to Asian comics than there is in the United States. We’ve got superheroes…and more superheroes. There’s a couple of slice-of-life indy books like Strangers in Paradise (which I’d love to get into one of these days) but by and large it’s all costumes and powers. Manga runs the whole gamut from romance to historical fiction to several subgenres within “fantasy” to horror to science fiction to sports and beyond. Other than arguably Gatchaman (G-Force/Battle of the Planets) or Ultraman, I can’t think of any traditionally American-style cape and cowl Manga comics. Asian Americans or Asians who immigrated here when young probably read the same Batman and X-Men stuff everyone else does. Asians who have come here after being exposed to Manga oversees or who, like Americans, have gravitated towards Manga out of interest in their own culture’s offerings or just curiosity probably favor the Manga. Would the read a Marvel comics featuring Sunfire and other Asian characters? My guess would be not if they’re not reading Marvel already.

The same can be said for the Latino readership. I know there are comics in Mexico featuring superheroes and luchadores. I love lucha libre (Mexico’s Pro Wrestling style)! I’d love to get my hands on some lucha comics (and NOT “Mucha Lucha!” or anything else that demonstrates ignorant American tinkering). The closest thing I’ve come across is a lucha-themed crime noir comic called Sonambulo, which I highly recommend if you can find it. I don’t think economics pay that a big of a factor in any one particular culture’s access to comics. At least not personal economics—if you live in a neighborhood that has trouble supporting grocery stores and schools there’s probably not much cause for comic shops no matter how rich you are. I think the biggest problems are apathy and competition.

The Big Two–and by extension all comic publishers–don’t do near enough to market their wares to people who DON’T already read comics. They don’t advantage of comic related movies to draw new people in. They don’t take advantage of their own storylines to create characters to attract minority readers, with the possibly exception of the New Blue Beetle which is boring me to tears already. And they in no way appeal to the increasingly large segment of the population who can’t be bothered to stop for a moment and just read something. Obviously, I’m not talking about you guys and gals, because you’re reading this very column right now. But there are lots of kids and young adults (and probably even old adults) who simply don’t like to read. Why bother? Television, videogames, the Internet—there are so many more immediate methods of entertainment. Reading requires work on their part. Imagination. What the Hell would they want to do that for?

American comic companies, like the country itself, have to evolve. They have to recognize the need not only for diversity within the pages of their products but within the ranks of the consumers who buy them. And I shouldn’t have to tell them this. I have to assume they pay people good money to research target markets and demographics. And yet they cater to the same mostly white longtime comic buyers, the ones who are aging and starting families and finding that life sometimes requires sacrifices, and money for comics loses to money for food, shelter and medicine every time. They also need to diversify the subjects of their comics. Couldn’t they draw a few readers of Manga in if they offered similar products themselves? And wouldn’t a few of those new readers venture over to the Avengers and Teen Titans as well? Marketing will be the next big topic I’ll get to sometime next month. Heh. This wasn’t quite as short as I thought it might be.

Up next: YOU! I’ve heard from a bunch of you and I want to hear from a bunch more! Tell me I’m wrong! Tell me I’m right! Either way, tell me what YOU think and why! And I’ll post them, along with my comments, in the next week or two. It kinda depends on when I get my responses back on a short informal survey I sent out to a few random people. Either the survey portion or the letters will run in the next two weeks. And while I compile those I’ll be working up my marketing rant and trying deperately to get my work situation fixed. I desperately need a day job.

Welcome to my nightmare.