Minority Report

The Glad...Happy Birthday Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The Sad...Alex Toth has died at the age of 78 drawing or writng at his work desk.
Matthew Clark, artist on Outsiders, had a heart attack at the age of 35 and was diagnosed with diabetes. I "hear" he been released from the hospital. I hope he will be well.

Now, on with the show...

The New York Times has outted the new Batwoman as being a lesbian before she's even become Batwoman. The article goes on to say how comics seem to be diversifying their hero populations with Power Man (Cage will always be Power Man to me...) becoming a prominent member of the New Avengers, the new Blue Beetle being hispanic, Storm and Black Panther about to get married, the new Atom is going to be Asian, and give me enough time, I'm sure I can come up with many more examples.

BUT

I found it amusing the Judd Winisk said, "I'm glad we're at the point when they're being rolled out without flourish." The New York Times reporting to the world that comics are adding more minorities in their pages isn't flourish?

I know what he means though. It wasn't like DC's Milestone imprint which pretty much segregated the now minority characters into their own domain. Not that I'm criticizing DC for it...they probably wanted the new heroes a chance to shine without being washed away by the slew of established heroes running around.

I just don't understand the need to say, "Look...look...they're trying. Good show, chaps."

Minority characters have been introduced successfully. Marvel's second Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, enjoyed an extended stay as a primary member of the Avengers and even was Chairman of the team for a while. The previously mentioned Storm is one of the most popular X-Men ever. Northstar was possibly the first superhero outted as being homosexual and there's evidence that he was always homosexual from when John Byrne first started the Alpha Flight series.

There are few instances where the character being a minority was a main selling point and he/she was successful, key exceptions being Black Panther and Power Man.

The problem? It's not really that we say, "Hey, look...she's gay. What do ya' know..." It's the tendency for writers to overstereotype minorities. There's a subtle line between a character who is realistic, and one who is stereotypical. Bendis writes Power Man well, but the day he has him suggest to Tony Stark, "Yo, Tones...We need ta' bling up dis here Quinjet...Put some spinna's on it or summin'!" Then you've gone too far.

I guess I hate seeing these articles because I'm afraid that some writers are going to see that character as only a minority. "Well, Batwoman...she's a lesbian, right? So, with that in mind I want to..." Some writer might be thinking right now, "You know, Blue Beetle being Hispanic is great. But we need people to know immediately that's he's Hispanic...So, we'll give him a poncho...yeah, and a burro that the scarab transforms as well, and it becomes a flying burro which breathes fire. Blue Beetle can call it the 'Refried Belch'! And that sombrero idea has potential!"

Oh, and as for the minorities list...add Ultimate Colossus and Ultimate Jarvis, both homosexual.

Oh, and the Mother of Champions...ewwwwwww....

And Seven Deadly Brothers? Rip-off...Totally a reimaginging of Marvel's The Collective Man.

None of that means that the characters will suck. They may not. I was enjoying Blue Beetle enough, but something had to be dropped and the Beetle unfortunately hit the cull.

Finally, I would like to wish Kevin Eastman a happy birthday, offer my condolences to Alex Toth's family, and wish the best to Matthew Clark.