Onefinemess

In which I take stock of what Marvel’s minority characters and writers have been to up recently.  Looks like I skipped ’08 & 09, so this one may stretch back a bit further than January 10. Here’s my take on ‘07.

Marvel is down to zero ongoing series with black writers as far as I know. Reginald Hudlin was involved with the Black Panther ongoing to various degrees (writing & scripting) until mid 2009, IIRC.
Greg Pak is still there.
Marjorie Liu (of Taiwanese descent, according to wiki) was hired recently (2009?) and has racked up some decent comic credits since then.  She was a fiction writer first (and still is), focusing on urban fantasy/romance – I’ve examined her books in the stores and I just couldn’t bring myself to read one. I may still… eventually, just because she shows such serious chops as a comic writer.

Note: I can’t keep track of all the pencillers, letterers and inkers, so I won’t go into that unless they are a big name draw or something.
Note: I also can’t keep up on every miniseries that comes out, so please let me know if you find anything that you think should be on the list, for better or worse.

Avengersland

• Luke Cage is still running a team of Avengers, and his daughter (with Jessica Jones) has miraculously not been killed, retconned or hyper-aged! Truly a miracle (I think there’s a storyline coming up with Danielle getting kidnapped though… so, fingers crossed that nothing weir happens to her). Not to mention that Luke & Jessica (one of the few black male/white female pairings that I can think of in mainstream comics right now) are still together!
• Luke Cage is also running a second team & book (so he gets a second bullet point!): Thunderbolts. This new version is something like a cross between the original and Ellis/Diggle incarnations, and looks decent so far.
• Shang-Chi is popping up in a few issues of Secret Avengers.
• War Machine & Falcon still pop-up regularly in Iron Man & Captain America, respectively.
• War Machine is also a member of the Secret Avengers
• Black Panther had a couple of really strong arcs, ending in the Doomwar limited. But that left the whole mini-Pantherverse in limbo… so I’m not going to call it a win. Plus, they just killed the Panther God (who is evidently female?) over in Chaos War… (but we know it won’t stick. STILL!)
• Also, the mantle of the Black Panther was passed to T’Challa’s rarely mentioned (before the current series, was she mentioned at all? You got me… the internet says it looks like she was created in 2005.) sister, Shuri.
• Blackpantherdevil: Look, I get what they’re trying to do, I really do. They want to graft some of Daredevil’s audience on to Black Panther like they did with Hulk->Hercules, and while I love the BP character and think he is totally deserving of that audience… THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT. Hercules made sense, given recent continuity in the Hulk line & the tie to Amadeus Cho. This makes no sense in any possible world. BP abandoning his wife and country in their hour of greatest need to watch over some goddam tiny corner of New York which already has a metric ton of superheroes? No. No. No in any possible world. Bad play Marvel. [Note: This is in reference to Black Panther taking over the Daredevil title & number and running around Hell's Bathroom or whatever DD's suburb is called.]

• 

  The Young Avengers

• Patriot is still with the Young Avengers, whenever they appear. Still kind of (?) with the new/young Hawkeye.
• After making him the Sorcerer Supreme, and a failed solo book, Doctor Voodoo just got offed a month or two ago. Instead of Doctor Strange…. and now his brother is a bad guy? Ugh.
• Hazmat, a new Japanese-American over in Avengers Academy
• Mettle, a new black (black father, white mother – from Hawaii!… wonder where they got that idea?) character, also in Avengers Academy. Unfortunately, his entire body was turned to… metal. So you really have no idea what his ethnicity is from the visuals. I think there’s a TV-trope style name for when this happens.
• Reptil has moved over to Avengers Academy.
• Wiccan and Hulkling, Marvel’s one of Marvel’s few named gay couples (Richtor/Shatterstar have a more dubious status these days), continue to appear whenever the Young Avengers do. Wiccan has a major arc in the current mini.
• Victoria Hand (whom I totally forgot was gay because she hasn’t had any kind of romantic involvements on panel since she was introduced… is a regular in the New Avengers supporting cast.

Spidermanland

• Arana is now Spidergirl, and I think she’s getting her own book again soon.

Hulkland

• Amadeus Cho has co-headlined with Hercules for a while, had a limited series or two, and is currently in the Chaos War limited. I have no idea where he is off to after that – but it better not be limbo! Also, he still has one of my favorite comic book girlfriends.

Xland

• Karma got her leg cut off and got an ugly cyborg leg. In the world of Marvel-tech…she got an ugly ass cyborg leg. She even comments on how ugly it is, yet it’s what she’s stuck with. And she still has no love interest. I think she had one several years ago who got killed? Or something.
  

  Seriously.

• Storm still pops up whenever in X-Men/Uncanny and is a lead in Astonishing, but no plot arcs for her lately.
• Gabriel Cohuelo, a Mexican with speedster powers is one of the new mutants highlighted in Generation Hope
• Idie Okonkwo, a Nigerian with fire/ice powers is another new mutant highlighted in Generation Hope
• There may also be a new Japanese mutant in Generation Hope, but it has yet to be revealed if he is a hero or villain
• Jubilee is in the middle of a major new plot arc (and getting a limited with Wolverine next year to continue it) about becoming a vampire. Cheesy as that is, it will keep her on the page as it gives her powers again and (except for Peter David writing X-Factor with Rictor & Dani Moonstar over in New Mutants) the x-writers tend to ignore the depowered.
• Blade popped up in the X-Men for an arc.
• Armor is still one of the leads in Astonishing, and turns up elsewhere as well.
• Indra was recently featured in an arc in Legacy.
• Northstar is still technically an X-Man, but hasn’t been around much. He’ll be featured in a 4-5 issue arc starting this month in a mini-team of Dazzler, Storm, Pixie, Him & … someone else, I forget. There was a backup story in one of the compilations about his relationship with his boyfriend as well.
• Anole appears frequently on panel, if rarely in a main role, and was on a mini-team in a recent Legacy arc with Rogue, Magneto, Indra & Loa.
• Graymalkin, a relatively new (2009) gay character, was in a few panels… Which is a shame, as I see a lot of possible meat on his story bones.
• Cipher, a new black character (2009), was absent from all but a handful of panels. Also a shame, because she came with some kind of mystery that was never addressed before Young X-Men was cancelled.
• Dani Moonstar still co-leads the New Mutants, and still has no powers. They are definitely going for the depowered-80s-Storm-badass thing with her, and it’s getting there as far as the working thing goes, but I wish she had SOME kind of powers.
• Rictor continues to be a lead in X-Factor, and his relationships with Shatterstar & Wolfsbane are central to the plot of the series. Which you should be buying because it’s the best X-Book out right now.
  

  Countdown to defenestration: 3...2....

• Daken, half Japanese son of Wolverine, and of the few Marvel characters shown on panel being intimate with males and females (Mystique & Rictor being the others?) and who is written so well by Marjorie Liu & Daniel Way that he’s almost interesting, still headlines a series. I just can’t get excited about a “son of Wolverine”, but I have to admit that Marvel is doing some interesting things with the character. For one, I think he’s technically a villain (he doesn’t save anyone, and everything he does is for his own gain) – so his series (which has been running a few years now) is about a villain using everyone he comes across. He has no redeeming moral values or likable character traits typical of a hero. The way he uses his sexuality as a weapon is definitely some new-ish stuff for Marvel – and he’s being (co) written by a minority woman. Lots of stuff going on there.
• Bling! had an arc in X-Men Legacy.
• Darwin has continued to be a regular in X-Factor for the last couple of years, but it looks like he is out next issue. He is one of the few characters that I feel Peter David never quite got a handle on what to do with him. He was basically a blank state to start with, so there was lots of room to work, and I do think David did a good job with what he had but just… never quite got there. He needs an central arc or two.
• Monet, she of the ever shifting skin color, is still with X-Factor.
• Dr. Kavita Rao continues to be a strong supporting character in Uncanny as a member of the “science team”. She just injected herself with a virus though so hey… what happened last time someone did that?

Other places in the Marvelverse

• Misty Knight was in the last Daredevil event, and headlining a new Heroes for Hire series as well. UNFORTUNATELY, her baby with Iron Fist was revealed to be some kind of bizarre “ghost pregnancy” as a result of his crazy chi powers WHICH IS THE LAMEST THING EVER. Because how awesome would it have been for Power-Man/Iron-Fist to both be fathers of biracial children? COME ON MARVEL! I was so looking forward to my kids having a DaughterofPowerman/SonofIronFist buddy book! Seriously Marvel, I call fucking shenanigans! Please fix this with some kind of magical chi-baby or something.
• Black Tarantula & White Tiger (who should receive some kind of award for having those names and being neither white nor black!) were featured pretty heavily in Daredevil over the last few years. Tarantula in particular has had a nice character arc running. Tiger just got possessed and evil so who knows.
• Over in the Ultimate universe, Ultimate Black Panther (who is mute?) was around for a bit, Ultimate Blade is in the current avengers arc and there’s a new black hawk-like dude named Derek Morgan in the nascent Ultimate X-Men in the new Ultimate X book…which I think hasn’t had an issue since Derek was introduced in June or so.
  

  Yo Yo, punching Ares & co.

• Nick Fury’s Secret Warriors introduced several new characters to Marveldom, most of them the children of older villains or heroes. Among them:
  • Eden Fesi : An Australian Aborigine associated with Gateway with similar teleportation abilities. Last I saw, he got shot in the chest and passed out… hopefully he’s not dead (already! :( ).
  • Yo-Yo Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican super-speeder who has already lost bot her arms (ouch!) but had them recently replaced with bionics (and not ugly ones like Karma’s).
• The Blue Marvel, after having what I thought was a nice introduction mini-series, has turned up in a few of the compilation comics. I like this guy and his story. I hope he continues to pop up and someone works him into an ongoing somewhere. Working him into the yearly mega-crossovers would have been nice, but I haven’t seen that happen yet.

…..and there’s other stuff I missed or forgot. At least I hope there is. This are just the ones I could remember.

It’s also worth noting that DC finally gave the new Batwoman an ongoing (after some really great stuff in Detective), so they now have a comic being headlined by a gay woman.

Also, DC put out Milestone Forever this year, which was a return to the Milestone Universe (and actually brought most of the characters over into the DCU proper, but only Static has had a reoccuring role since – he was/is in the Teen Titans) from many of the original creators.

Wow! This took a lot longer to put together than I was expecting, I was hoping to have it up two weeks ago.

Tags: Amadeus Cho, Anole, Arana, Armor, Black Panther, Black Tarantula, Blade, Bling!, Cipher, Daken, Dani Moonstar, Darwin, Derek Morgan, Doctor Voodoo, Eden Fesi, Gabriel Cohuelo, Graymalkin, Greg Pak, Hazmat, Hulkling, Idie Okonkwo, Indra, Jubilee, Karma, Luke Cage, Marjorie Liu, Mettle, Milestone, minorities in comics, Misty Knight, Monet, Northstar, Patriot, Psylocke, Reptil, Rictor, Secret Warriors, Shang-Chi, Spidergirl, Static, Storm, Victoria Hand, War Machine, White Tiger, Wiccan, Yo-Yo Rodriguez

This entry was posted by onefinemess on Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 at 10:38 am and is filed under Comics, pullbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.