"MARVEL HAS PLANS TO INTRODUCE OPENLY LGBTQA+ CHARACTERS TO THE MCU" - Joblo.com

[tenbones]

Looking at the OP title, I don't think that it would be a problem to introduce LGBT characters into the MCU. The problem is that they are changing the established continuity of the characters into social justice parodies - that is what the customers do not like. I doubt that a significant segment of the MCU customer gives a shit if LGBT characters exist.

More importantly - just how important IS IT to get into the sexual lives of Marvel characters in the first place? In the second place - they have very LGBT characters in Marvel, because rather than create compelling ones, they instead chose to morph/replace existing ones into LGBT and expected the public that is not largely LGBT to simply say "YAY!"

I say thee NAY.

And the proof of it is how they did it. Look... I'm Asian but I'm not screaming for Asian-representation. I don't *require* it. I *like* good characters, I don't give a fuck what race they are if they're *good* characters. I want *good* things. Make them *good*. What Marvel has done is give us lame caricatures injected into the place of established characters.

*That's not good*. I want *good*. Whereas they have Asian characters they oddly don't want to touch. Shang-Chi? Hello? Think of how good a Shang-Chi movie could be (and think of how it would sell in China!) Most Americans have no fucking clue who the Master of Kung Fu is... but they didn't know who the fuck Ant-Man was either. My point is they could do it. The reason why they don't do it? For the same ironic reason they didn't let Bruce Lee star in the Kung fu TV show. They don't think an Asian lead could carry a movie.

I think that's silly today - but whatever. They're come to their senses once a bean-counter realizes they could kill it China alone.

[Christopher Brady]

It's going to bomb.  Because the main demographic of movie goers don't care about superheroes or action films.  Most of these women only care to see Helmsworth, Pine, Downey Jr. and Hiddleston prance around on the screen, preferably shirtless.  They drag their boyfriends to go with them, which works because for most of the men they just want to see action and explosions.

This will effectively cut their viewership in half as now the boyfriends and other men will simply come to watch hot women prance around in moderately tight costumes, while the their girlfriends will go to their rom-coms and other movies that have their favourite male actors prancing around.

[David Johansen]

Okay, funny but I think not really accurate.  Kate Bishop is an entitled rich girl with a bow and arrows who started calling herself Hawkeye without permission after he died and when written well, they are really funny together.  Storm has been conflicted about her leaving Africa to join the X-Men since the 1980s famine relief issue.  The Red Skull changed history with a cosmic cube to make Captain America a Hydra agent and it only lasted a couple years.  I don't really know America Chavez but she was really fun in Ultimates which sadly got cancelled though they did get to fight the original Ultimates in the last issue.  Other than that I mostly agree with you.  Go read Matt Fraction's Hawkeye series some time and you'll learn to love / hate Kate Bishop.  She's really one of those characters you aren't supposed to like or it wouldn't be so much fun to watch her failures.  Also, an entire issue from the point of view of Pizza Dog using ideograms instead of words.  Great book.

[danskmacabre]

I'm not that bothered really. I'm getting a bit tired of Superhero movies anyway, so the SJWs can have it..  heh

[Spinachcat]

Don't be surprised if there is a gay character and it's shown in the film, it's filmed in a way to where is can be easily edited out to be marketed and shown in those countries.

THIS is exactly what Hollywood does.

They do many different modifications for many different countries. What plays in the USA isn't what is allowed elsewhere so scenes & tidbits often get removed.

[Mike the Mage]

I'm a hardcore Cap fanboy, and this is the biggest understatement of the century.

Me and my wife love Cap so much that we had our wedding cake in the form of his shield. To turn him on his head like that really really really annoys the fuck out of me.[/nerdrage]

[Ratman_tf]

Me and my wife love Cap so much that we had our wedding cake in the form of his shield. To turn him on his head like that really really really annoys the fuck out of me.[/nerdrage]

I can understand that. But comics are so goofy. Characters flip from villain to hero at the drop of a hat. Continuities get written and re-written and then retconned back. Seeing cap say "Hail hydra" was just a Superdickery moment for me.

[tenbones]

I can understand that. But comics are so goofy. Characters flip from villain to hero at the drop of a hat. Continuities get written and re-written and then retconned back. Seeing cap say "Hail hydra" was just a Superdickery moment for me.

This is precisely because Marvel has had inconsistent Editors in Chief. The Golden Era of Marvel which reaches its zenith in the mid-late 80's - most of those storylines and what people consider in terms of what these characters solidified into came under the hand of Jim Shooter. A lot of people thought Shooter was a total tyrant. I maintain that Shooter is one of the most influential, and best EiC's comics has ever had. Shooter wanted all writers to understand and stay within certain confines on each character. He maintained a strong and steady hand guiding the stories, which naturally made him a lot of enemies.

If you're interested in the details of that era, check this out.

http://rsmwriter.blogspot.com/2016/06/jim-shooter-second-opinion.html

[jhkim]

For those who suggest that the problem is changing established characters into LGBT  -  I find that strange considering how frequently characters change in the comics. There are tons of changes as well as outright retcons. Notably, there is this -

I've said this before - you CAN do Social Justice as a real theme in comics. It's been done for DECADES and done with real moral consideration. I present to you the ultimate example: Magneto.

He's a super-minority within a minority (a Jewish mutant) - actually lived through Auschwitz and persecuted by the actual Nazis. He's been on the receiving end of a genocidal pogrom. Then he discovers his powers and is faced with the awful understanding of what drives men's fears. He creates his own brand of Identity Politics - he sees Mutants as a separate racial stock than homo sapiens - homo superior. And he falls to the lowest common denominator, that ultimately these two races will clash out of fear of one another. Initially he fights to bring down the system - and realizes the tide of numbers is against him (after getting his ass handed to him repeatedly). Then he goes after claiming his own land for his own kind (the S. African Apartheid analog Genosha) which he begins like SJW's do - to enact the very things he himself has raged against: persecuting the non-mutants, ultimately genocide. It's been pretty much rinse/repeat ever since.

That's notable to me because it is several major retcons. Magneto was only rewritten to be a Holocaust survivor by Claremont many years after the character was created. Another retcon made him the father of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch by his wife Magda. (They were originally the children of Django and Marya Maximoff, then later made the children of Whizzer and Miss America). He was implied gypsy like Magda was rather than Jewish, and named Erik Magnus Lensherr. A much later retcon made him Jewish with the real name Max Eisenhardt.

The arguments made here suggest that if someone wanted a social justice plotline about the Holocaust and persecution, then they should have created a new Jewish character rather than retconning Magneto.

More importantly - just how important IS IT to get into the sexual lives of Marvel characters in the first place? In the second place - they have very LGBT characters in Marvel, because rather than create compelling ones, they instead chose to morph/replace existing ones into LGBT and expected the public that is not largely LGBT to simply say "YAY!"

I say thee NAY.

Regarding the first part - Nearly all of the major Marvel characters have extensive plotlines about their romantic connections - Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy (and later Mary Jane), Reed Richards and Sue Storm, etc. Heck, even the Thing has a girlfriend (Alicia Masters). The romantic plotlines have been incredibly thick particularly in some series like the X-Men.

As for the latter - comic characters change all the time. Many of the iconic characters have a ton of changes since their first appearance - keeping a few key details at best.

Changes and retcons are tricky, and can often be bad - but comics in general can often be bad, and sticking tediously to bad material can also be bad. I'm not familiar with any comics characters being rewritten to be LGBT. I've heard of a few - Northstar, Iceman, and Valkyrie - but haven't read about the comics in question. So I have no particularly yay or nay for any examples at this point, but I disagree with the principles of "romance isn't important in comics" and "don't change existing characters".

[Ratman_tf]

Changes and retcons are tricky, and can often be bad - but comics in general can often be bad, and sticking tediously to bad material can also be bad. I'm not familiar with any comics characters being rewritten to be LGBT. I've heard of a few - Northstar, Iceman, and Valkyrie - but haven't read about the comics in question. So I have no particularly yay or nay for any examples at this point, but I disagree with the principles of "romance isn't important in comics" and "don't change existing characters".

How about "Don't change existing characters according to some activist ideology. Don't try to ram social justice down our throats, at the expense of story."

[jhkim]

How about "Don't change existing characters according to some activist ideology. Don't try to ram social justice down our throats, at the expense of story."

That's what Magneto was, though. I agree with tenbones that he was changed for social justice reasons, as part of an ideology - starting with Claremont in the 1980s.

All stories have ideology in them. The question is about doing it well rather than doing it poorly.

[Ratman_tf]

That's what Magneto was, though. I agree with tenbones that he was changed for social justice reasons, as part of an ideology - starting with Claremont in the 1980s.

All stories have ideology in them. The question is about doing it well rather than doing it poorly.

I'd agree with you. I think the call to have no politics or ideology in entertainment is not productive.
I do think the latest spate of activist entertainment is terribly done, sacrificing story for ideology.

[ArrozConLeche]

That's what Magneto was, though. I agree with tenbones that he was changed for social justice reasons, as part of an ideology - starting with Claremont in the 1980s.

All stories have ideology in them. The question is about doing it well rather than doing it poorly.

I'm with you in principle. I don't particularly have a problem with making a character gay if it's plausible from their back story. I can see why some might be annoyed with Iceman's handling of it and if it's as silly as tenbones described it, I might roll my eyes and not buy the comic (as opposed to exploding into nerdrage about it).

I also have no issues with a character being rebooted as a person of a different gender, race or sexuality. It's cooler when they are original (like when Superman died and all these interesting replacements came up), but rebooting and changing a character radically can be interesting too.

Captain America being a nazi is pretty stupid, though.

[jhkim]

I'd agree with you. I think the call to have no politics or ideology in entertainment is not productive.
I do think the latest spate of activist entertainment is terribly done, sacrificing story for ideology.

What are you classifying in the latest spate? Personally, among films, I pretty well liked Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Get Out - along with Coco and Moana. Those are the ones that first come to mind as big-budget entertainment with an activist spin. I was so-so over the last Star Wars movies, but I'm not much of a Star Wars fan.

I'm not a big reader of most mainstream superhero comics these days, so I have no opinion on most of those.

[Ratman_tf]

What are you classifying in the latest spate? Personally, among films, I pretty well liked Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Get Out - along with Coco and Moana. Those are the ones that first come to mind as big-budget entertainment with an activist spin. I was so-so over the last Star Wars movies, but I'm not much of a Star Wars fan.

I'm not a big reader of most mainstream superhero comics these days, so I have no opinion on most of those.