Worst SJW Changes in Comics

[Tazer That Evil, Yellow Bastiche Find all posts View Profile Close Tazer]

Yo.

can I add Spider Womans new costume to this list? while I didn't mind it too much, the reasonong behind its creation annoyed me.

and ya know, for that matter add in Batgirls new outfit too (altho I think her's was just an attempt at avoiding further tumblr rage.....) :/




Tazer

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

A while back, Green Lantern quietly became DC's diversity corner. It happened because there were several Lanterns, and there was the possibility of creating even more -- which Geoff did, after having been the very guy who moved Kyle aside to bring Hal back! And never mind that there were already too many of them.

Another factor was that GL was big enough to attract mainstream attention with this virtue signaling, but not as big as Superman or Batman, where it would have caused more resistance.

So we got a gay Alan, a half-Mexican Kyle, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz.

Was that COOL or what?

[Ωmega Man Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Ωmega Man]

Yeah Batman totally doesn't have the most diversity...

Nightwing - Romanian
Batwoman - lesbian
Orphan - Asian
Signal - African American
Batwing - African American
Renee Montoya/Question 2.0 - Hispanic
Knight & Squire - European
Chief Man of Bats - Native American
Nightrunner - Muslim/French
Mr. Unknown/Batman Japan - Japanese
The rest of Batman Inc. - various
Azreal 2.0 - African American
Batgirl, Spoiler, and Huntress - Additional females

For the record I don't think any of these caused ANY resistance. All six Earth GL's tied to the GLC could be minorities and they STILL wouldn't beat out the Batman family when it comes to diversity. About the only group of characters that could however....

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The new Legion of Superheroes by Bendis has also taken a big SJW turn. Several characters were recreated as people of color [Lightning Lad, Light Lass, Ultra Boy, Shrinking Violet, Karate Kid, Cosmic Boy], and many that weren't were revamped to look more alien and/or have powers that directly effect their appearance [Sun Boy, Dream Girl, Princess Projectra, Element Lad, Star Boy]. And the last time I checked Invisible Kid was still just floating speech bubbles with no actual character ever being drawn. I'm almost certain he'll be revealed as something other than Caucasian.

EDIT: ^^^ And while I don't agree with all of them, I can understand not wanting the Legion to be a bunch of white folks visually with only three or four appearing as minority characters. Dawnstar, Tyroc, Gear, threeboot Starboy, and Invisible Kid II were the only ones who were non Caucasian that come to mind aside from characters like Shadow Lass who was always blue skinned. Making Karate Kid Asian in the threeboot made sense, but it also seemed stereotypical. With Bendis' current iteration of the team I look forward to seeing more of his fire skinned Sun Boy, the four-armed alien Doctor Fate, and the teen Jon Kent. If diversity was a big deal with Bendis though... I don't see why he WOULDN'T use a character like Tyroc.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

You were off ignore before I signed in, so I saw your trolling.

Let's see DC push a minority Batman, the way they've pushed all those minority Green Lanterns. Or better yet, let's see them get rid of Bruce and put a minority member in his place. You know, like they did with Alan Scott and Wally West.

They wouldn't dare do that. A character has to be of a certain level of popularity before they'll do it. He needs to be popular enough that people will care, and that company will therefore get attention for its "good deed," but not so popular that people will get pissed off about it.

That's the game the company is playing. Wally turned out to be too high up, and the blowback they got about it forced them to ignominiously back down.

[Ωmega Man Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Ωmega Man]

Let's see DC push a minority Batman, the way they've pushed all those minority Green Lanterns....

Cruz was mostly featured in a team title, same as the gay Alan Scott. Baz originally showed up in Green Lantern but wasn't a featured co-star until Green Lanterns where he had to be paired with Cruz.

Let's see... appearing in another characters title? Check. Appearing on a team book? Check. Appearing in a title featuring other minority characters? Check.

And if you wanna claim they didn't push Batwing.... his monthly comic lasted 35 consecutive issues before being cancelled. Of the last three volumes of Blue Beetle, only one made it to issue #36. And Batwing didn't have to share the spot-light in his series like Baz and Cruz did in GLs.

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It's totally fine if you wanna keep hating on Baz and Cruz. However, stating false facts like DC's never pushed a minority Batman doesn't help your argument. Just in case you haven't been to a comic shop in years... DC also pushed a Chinese Superman [called Super-Man] as well as a Justice League China.

Of course DC wouldn't be stupid enough to replace Clark or Bruce long term. It's not because they don't have the balls... it's because those two characters sell more than one monthly comic each. Green Lantern at best has two monthly comics with additional appearances in JL books and is a lot less of a gamble to shake-up. If Hal was featured in GL, GLC, a new Showcase Comics, GL/GA, Emerald Knights, GLC Honor Guard, etc. on a monthly basis he would've been a lot less likely to ever get replaced.

[Michael Heide Heide Finition Find all posts View Profile Close Michael Heide]

And if you wanna claim they didn't push Batwing.... his monthly comic lasted 35 consecutive issues before being cancelled. Of the last three volumes of Blue Beetle, only one made it to issue #36.

We should mention that those 36 issues of Batwing (including #0) were split evenly between David Zavimbe and Luke Fox. These were two separate attempts trying to make Batwing happen, they just didn't relaunch with a new #1.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

Kyle was popular with anime and manga fans too, but if it had been revealed he was part Asian and he immediately started speaking their languages it would've been just as out of character. It didn't turn me away from the character like the big Iceman controversy though. What's even more insulting than shoehorning Kyle to meet some minority quota in DC? When people in his supporting cast who don't have Hispanic backgrounds start using random words to help with the shoehorning. I give you example A:

I never viewed it as insulting or out of character. Have you ever seen those 23 and Me commercials? People can and do find out that their heritages are different, sometimes strikingly so, than what they previously knew. That has an impact on some people and they might feel the need to explore that part of themselves. As humans have become more mobile over the last century, cultural blends have become more and more commonplace.

The Latino/Latina fans with whom I've spoken (granted, a small group) were excited about the reveal. As for his supporting cast occasionally using Spanish, I always chalked it up to running mates influencing one another, ala Ermey inspiring Kilowog to start calling everyone "Poozer."

[Ωmega Man Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Ωmega Man]

It was insulting because at this point Kyle had never even spoke Spanish himself. And I'm fairly certain Jade hadn't either. He found out about his heritage literally in print a month or two before that Secret Files and Origins issue. I know people can learn a new language fairly easy, I'm trying to pick up more Spanish myself because half the people I work with speak only that language. The problem for me and I'm sure at least a few others is that there was no in-between. Kyle went from something like Freddy Prinze Jr. [somebody who always spoke English and generally viewed as white by anybody that looks at him] to Mario Lopez over night.



Freddy Prinze Jr. was who I always looked at for reference when drawing Kyle. I wanted and hoped he'd play the character for years. Then after the reveal about Kyle's Mexican heritage... nothing needed to change in my mind visually or with his dialogue. Prinze was part Spanish himself! However what we're getting now is Kyle speaking more Spanish like he'd been doing it for years, and as Heide mentioned... clutching pearls in stereotypical fashion.

Has Kyle spoke any Gaelic lately? Because his Irish heritage was part of his character long before Judd Winick came on board with the Spanish heritage stuff. It's not right that one side of his history is completely pushed to the side in favor of something targeted at a minority or in Kyle's case minorities. Winick at that point in his career was most famous for appearing on MTV's Real World, and wrote a book about his friendship with a gay Spanish guy called Pedro & Me. He basically just started writing from what he knew and inserted an additional gay character [like there weren't plenty of those around Kyle's building already] and got a GLAAD award, then from there inserted Kyle's Mexican heritage. It would've made just as little sense to have Kyle start speaking fluent Spanish back then as it does now. Winick knew this, he's a somewhat capable writer, and Kyle was essentially the exact same character he always had been for the rest of his volume of GL. The only time his heritage had even been brought up after Winick's run was when he used his father's last name 'Vasquez' when infiltrating the Black Circle. Tom King however comes in claiming Kyle is "a popular Spanish character" like he'd been speaking Spanish and doing stereotypical Mexican stuff for years.

In his original run under the pen of Marz, Winick, and Raab, and hell even Grant Morrison using the character in JLA.... Kyle never spoke a word of Spanish. Kyle Rayner was never a popular Spanish character. He was a popular character with the Spanish tacked on afterwards because it's the only way DC could make him relevant. Prove me wrong.

EDIT: And as far as everything else the character has appeared in, I don't think his Spanish heritage ever came up when he was in GLC or HJ&theGLC. I never finished collecting New Guardians, so if Kyle was speaking Spanish and clutching pearls in that then forgive me for not being completely up to date with my reading. I'm sure the sales from his run of GL beat anything he had on New Guardians though.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^Yeah, it's not so much a problem that he discovered a new aspect of his heritage and embraced it, but it feels like a retcon. I suspect he's not even supposed to be Irish anymore and certainly no one is mentioning it. Plus King's view of Kyle (in HiC) implied that he grew up saying rosaries in Spanish. At that point, they've moved from a story twist to a pandering retcon. But at least they didn't get silly enough to change his name to Rodriguez or something.

[Michael Heide Heide Finition Find all posts View Profile Close Michael Heide]

He once went undercover under the name Vasquez. That's his father's retconned name.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

He once went undercover under the name Vasquez. That's his father's retconned name.

That sounds familiar. Forgot about that. That really is a retcon.