The Diversity Trap

It is an understatement to say that Marvel has revamped their characters. Most of the mainstays have been replaced with a more "diverse" version. Thor is now a woman, Captain America is black, Iron Man is a teenage black girl, the Hulk is an Asian teenager, but there's also a female version, Captain Marvel is a woman and Ms Marvel is a Muslim. There's a black, Hispanic version of Spider-Man. I'm probably forgetting a few in this list, also.

On one hand, this is nothing new. There was a fad in the late-80s and early-90s to replace heroes. Most of these were ones who could logically have a substitute like Iron Man and Green Lantern. All of these had similar story arcs. Something happened to the hero and he was replaced. The replacement was someone logical. The arc then followed the replacement through the growing pains of becoming a hero. The original hero never went far and the story also followed his recovery. Eventually the arc came to a climax where the hero regained his identity and the replacement took on a new identity (and got a his own comic book).

The classic example was when Tony Stark's drinking got the better of him and he spent months living in a cardboard box. His best friend, Jim Rhodes, took over the suit with the help of some ex-Stark employees. Eventually Stark recovered from his alcoholism and started building armor again. The two eventually came into conflict. This was resolved and Rhodes became War Machine.

Captain America gave up his identity after someone in the White House discovered that they government owned the trademark to his name. He called himself The Captain and started wearing a black and white uniform and carried a silver shield. A new patriotic hero was recruited and trained to be Captain America.

Similar things happened with Thor and, over at DC, Green Lantern. Eventually it worked its way up to Spider-Man, Batman and Superman.

This was a transparent ploy to get attention and improve sales. It always worked, at least for a while. And it gave insights into what it takes to be a hero.

This wasn't the only time heroes have had substitutes. Bucky took over as Captain America for several years.

But this time is different.

First of all, it's a lot more replacements and they've all happened at once. And it's not for a sales boost. According to several accounts, sales have dropped since Marvel started this. The point is not to sell more comic books, it's to promote diversity. And therein lies the trap.

Here's what I mean by a trap: previously the story arc was about the difficulty of becoming the hero. It made the character seem fresh by having a new person have to define what that character stood for.

But that can't be done with the new diverse characters because it implies that the original white men were better than the new versions. So, without training, the new versions start out better than the originals. For example, Thor has possessed his hammer for centuries. But as soon as Jane Foster became Thor, she could make it fly around in ways the real Thor never imagined. Bruce Banner was always one of the smartest people on Earth but the new one is even smarter and doesn't have his intellect clouded by being the Hulk.

This makes for uninteresting stories. There's no room for growth in the new hero.

Another twist is that, often the old hero is still lurking around but his stories only server to reinforce his unworthiness. The real Thor is still around as "Thor the Unworthy". He calls himself "Odinson" and is obsessed with regaining his hammer or getting a new one. Steve Rogers is still around but it turns out that he's been a sleeper agent in Hydra (meaning that he was a also a Nazi). There's also a creepy version of Doctor Doom as an alternate Iron Man.

Marvel is doubling down on this. They have a "Generations" series coming out where the new version meets the original. It's obvious that this will be used to prove that the new version is the superior one. Again, the diversity goal mandates that a woman and/or person of color cannot be shown to be inferior to a CIS-gender, white male.

Understand that I have no problem with diverse characters. I was a huge fan of Luke Cage, The Black Panther and others when they first came out. But replacing established characters with new diverse ones who are mandated to be better at the moment of their creation insults the reader.