We Need To Talk About Marvel’s Far-Left Stance

Okay, guys… This is going to be one of those articles. The type that a lot of people on both sides of the debate just aren’t going to get to the end of before scrolling down and posting an angry comment to either call me a mysoginistic mansplaining rapist or a liberal SJW bitch. It’s something that’s difficult to read about, because it’s never easy to hear that there might be something politically wrong with the hobby and/or company that you love so much, but regardless, it’s an important conversation to have. It’s likely not one that’s going to be able to change anything at the company itself, since their political agenda appears to be deeply embedded into most of their writing staff at this point, but by bringing this up I hope to actually initiate a civil conversation about it. Because let’s be completely honest here – as far as politics and agendas are concerned, the far-left side dominates the argument, and everyone that disagrees with their statements is labeled as being alt-right even when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

At this point, you’re either bracing yourself for an uncomfortable article, or are completely and utterly confused about what I’m talking about. If it’s the latter, let me back up a bit and explain. This all started at the turn of the decade, when the first Amazing Spider-Man movie was in early development. Sony was looking to cast its new Spider-Man (a role that eventually went to Andrew Garfield, for what felt like fifteen minutes), and much to everyone’s surprise, Community actor Donald Glover also auditioned for the part. “So what”, those of you who haven’t seen Community may be asking. Well, the thing is, Donald Glover is black. There was a real chance for us to have our first black Peter Parker, which, of course, ended up not happening (in no small part because of producer Avi Arad). But the idea planted a seed into writer Brian Michael Bendis’ mind, who decided to create his own black Spider-Man, a brand new character to replace Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe, which is an alternate world not connected to the main Marvel universe.

Thus was born Miles Morales, who is, to this day, one of Marvel’s most popular characters, with appearances in cartoons, games and more comics than one can count (he’s even getting his own animated movie late next year). Miles has been an astounding success, and Marvel suddenly realized that audiences were craving new and interesting characters that weren’t just the same white folks we’ve had for 70 years. And, of course, they were absolutely right, a point further proven by the introduction of the new Ms. Marvel in 2013. Instead of the blonde, white, traditionally beautiful Carol Danvers, the new Ms. Marvel was an awkward, nerdy, easily excitable Pakistani-American teenager raised in a traditionally Islamic family. The book was written by G. Willow Wilson, a woman who not only has a fun and quirky writing style that’s very suitable for a character like the new Ms. Marvel, but is also a Muslim herself and as such has a deep understanding of the faith. People ate it up, me included. Why? Not because it was pandering or because it was “inclusive”, but because it was good. It was a good story that was fun to read and had memorable, relatable characters. Many called Ms. Marvel the modern-day Spider-Man.

But then, all of a sudden, Marvel got the wrong idea out of this. The message that they should have inferred is “Hey, imagine that, good comics sell a lot of copies, and if they just happen to star characters of color, that’s even better!” Instead, the message that they ended up running with was “Every book must now star either a woman or a man of color, and it must also blatantly pander to far-left activists, or else it will absolutely fail, period!” Never mind the fact that probably the single most well-received book in the last 5 years, Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, starred a duo of a white man and a white woman, we need our minorities and our pandering, or else we just can’t sell comics, dammit! From then until the present day, the overwhelming majority of Marvel’s classic characters have either died, gone undercover or turned evil in order to be replaced by newer versions which are women or of color (or women of color). Here’s a small, yet sadly incomplete list of these changes:

• Captain America was replaced by Sam Wilson (the Falcon), his black sidekick, who currently wields the Vibranium shield. For a while, Steve Rogers was old and brittle, but he was recently rejuvenated and is currently evil and serving HYDRA.
• Iron Man is comatose. His replacement is a black girl called Riri Williams that just woke up one day and decided to make herself an Iron Man armor, no explanation given. Also, Doctor Doom is apparently going to be using an Iron Man armor at some point, maybe. I don’t know.
• Thor became unworthy of his hammer during 2014’s Original Sin event. It was picked up by his love interest Jane Foster, who is now Thor. The original Thor is calling himself Odinson and was away from comics for over two years, having only recently resurfaced with a different hammer.
• The Hulk is dead, killed by Hawkeye. He has two replacements – Amadeus Cho (an Asian teen) and She-Hulk (who is now gritty and serious instead of light-hearted like she has been for over 35 years).
• Hawkeye is now underground following the Hulk’s death. Kate Bishop is the official, publicly serving Hawkeye.
• Captain Marvel is now evil following the events of Civil War II, where she put Tony Stark in a coma. Ms. Marvel quit the Avengers over this and started her own team.
• Wolverine is dead. He’s been replaced by two people – Laura Kinney (X-23), who is the official Wolverine, and Old Man Logan (who is just sort of there and goes by the name Logan).
• The Vision is retired from active service following the end of his solo series last year. His daughter, Viv Vision, is his successor in Ms. Marvel’s new superhero team.

I could go on and on and on about this, but I believe that I’ve made my point quite clear – the characters you love are gone, replaced by people you may or may not care about. If you don’t care about Riri Williams and just want to read about Tony Stark, well, too bad, you can’t. At least not until he comes out of that terribly convenient coma. Marvel seems physically incapable of understanding that a big part of the reason why Miles Morales and Kamala Khan were such big hits were because they weren’t shoved down reader’s throats. We didn’t get the message “Ooooh, you’re gonna take these characters and you’re gonna like them whether you want to or not!” If you didn’t like Miles, you could always go back to the main Marvel universe and read the adventures of Peter Parker – he was still there. If you didn’t care about Kamala Khan, Carol Danvers was still around doing her own thing, and you could pick up Captain Marvel and find out what that was. However, right now, if I want to read about Bruce Banner, I can’t. If I want to read about the Vision (and let’s be honest – his series was the best Marvel comic of 2016, so why would I not want to), I can’t. True, Marvel is very slowly and gradually trying to phase in the old characters back once we’ve had sufficient time with the new ones (with both Steve Rogers and the Unworthy Thor getting their own series), but they may not necessarily be what I want to read about. I don’t want to read about Captain America being a supervillain. That’s not fun for me. If I want to see Steve Rogers being Steve Rogers, I’m better off just watching the movies, which, surprisingly, are doing a much better job being faithful to the comics than the comics themselves.

But of course, it doesn’t stop there. Admittedly, Marvel (and, by extension, DC, but we’re talking about Marvel here) has had a huge problem with diversity for most of its history, and while I personally believe that the way to fight it is to create some new characters that are diverse rather than to suddenly change established characters to suit your definition of diversity (example: creating Ms. America as a gay woman good, suddenly changing Iceman after 50 years to make him gay bad), if this was the only problem with Marvel’s political propaganda, I wouldn’t have cared. I’m serious – I would have complained about it on the Internet like everyone else, and I would have still shouted Bendis’ name to the heavens in rage like I often do, but I wouldn’t have written this article. No, the reason why I’m writing it is because the far-left leanings of Marvel’s writers and editors go way beyond reasonable and into straight-up offensive territory. I’m serious. Don’t believe me? Okay, how about we do a Top 5 Most Offensive Far-Left Things Marvel Put In Their Comics Recently? Right here, right now? Come on, join me for a bonus round, let’s go!

5. Mockingbird cover tells people to ask her about her “feminist agenda”

Cover of “Mockingbird #8” 2016

Okay, this one’s very low on the list because it’s not THAT offensive, it’s just really, really stupid. I mean, how out of touch with reality can you possibly be? Like it or not, comic books are primarily read by men, so stamping a big “WARNING: THIS COMIC CONTAINS HUGE AMOUNTS OF FEMINIST AGENDA” sticker on the front cover is practically a death sentence. Not to mention, third wave feminism has been notably controversial, and for every well-informed, intelligent and logical feminist like Christina Hoff Sommers there appear to be five more that do stuff like get a software developer fired because he made a joke in private to his friend about “big dongles”.

4. An issue of Thor compares readers to a misogynistic supervillain

Panels from “Thor #5” (2014)

I believe this one requires little explanation, but just in case, here it is. The guy attacking Thor here is Carl Creel, the Absorbing Man – a notably dumb supervillain whose last prominent appearance was in 2012’s Captain Marvel, where he showed up for the sole reason of being the most misogynistic person to have ever lived, calling Captain Marvel “Captain America’s secretary” and making remarks such as “wouldn’t catch me getting’ bossed around by no broad”, all in the span of two pages. Well, apparently, if you don’t like the fact that Marvel keeps switching out the characters you love for newer, more diverse models, this is who you are! Marvel are saying it clear as day – if you’re not a fan of the new Thor, you hate women! This is you! Enjoy it!

3. Cops shoot at Ironheart for literally no reason other than that she’s black

Panels from “Invincible Iron Man #1” 2017

Oh, boy… This is just pathetic AND offensive, but then again, that’s just par for the course for Brian Michael Bendis, the writer of this story (yep, same guy that once created Miles Morales – how the mighty have fallen). And not only is it offensive to cops, it’s ALSO offensive to black people! Okay, so you need to remember that this is the Marvel universe, where Iron Man is a very established superhero that enjoys quite a lot of popularity among the masses. Maybe he’s never quite reached the level of his movie counterpart, but people know who he is and that he’s there to help. So when Iron Man shows up and takes out a bunch of villains wreaking havoc, there is literally no reason for the cops to be suspicious at all… Or is there?! Of course there is – that’s not Iron Man, that’s Ironheart, a black girl! Better shoot her in the head! Remember, black people: No matter what you do or how heroic you try to be, white cops are always just going to try and murder you in order to satiate their KKK bloodlust! That’s… How it happens in real life, right? Right? (Please, let me be right!)

2. Captain Marvel tells a Holocaust survivor he’s “that guy online that compares everything to Hitler”

Panels from “Captain Marvel #9” 2016

Oh, dear God… We’re getting into some “Please hold me, I’m scared” territory here, guys. I just… This is our main character. The protagonist of the comic, who has been building her case on profiling people based on the probability of them committing a crime and then jailing them without a trial, no, without them even coming close to committing a crime. The woman that we are supposed to root for, who has, at numerous points, caused the deaths or unlawful imprisonment of innocents while pushing her pre-crime agenda. And when Magneto (who, remember, spent a considerable portion of his childhood in a concentration camp and lost his entire family there) tells her that he knows exactly how her story’s going to end because he’s seen it before, she calls him “that guy online that compares everything to Hitler”. Wh… What?! Are you serious right now?! Are you even able to comprehend the sheer stupidity of this statement?! It’s like telling someone who lost family to 9/11 “Oh, I bet you’re one of those guys that claim fuel can’t melt steel beams, huh?” I mean, how out of touch with reality can you be? And the fact that this is considered a witty remark that shuts him up and not this ridiculously insensitive insult that should be called out makes me think that the writer actually BELIEVES that this is an appropriate response to a Holocaust survivor’s concerns. Jeeeeesus!

1. Whatever the hell this is

Panels from “Angela: Queen of Hel #4” 2016

No, guys. This is it. I’ve reached the end of the line. There’s nothing I can possibly say to even possibly explain this, because honestly, I don’t quite comprehend it myself. And before you ask, no, this isn’t some funny Photoshop meme someone made up. Trust me, I personally checked. So… Let me at least try to guess what the writer was going for here. She wanted us to really hate this guy, but assumed that we were too stupid to understand why his motives and words would be so offensive to an Asgardian, so instead of doing something that would actually be funny and just writing something that sounds completely innocent to us, but deeply offends Angela, his speech bubbles are literally replaced with some generic words that the average reader would find offensive… I think. I don’t know, I’m just guessing here. The other explanation is that this fella from Hel (Asgardian Hell) who has never even smelled Earth suddenly starts ranting about MRA’s and Israeli politics or something, and our ears were too sensitive to hear it. Whatever the case, this is the epitome of forced social issues in a comic that has literally zero to do with them.

Okay, these are just five of the most blatant far-left moments that I have personally encountered in the last few years, and trust me, there’s a whole lot more where those came from. They’re symptoms of a bigger problem, one that encompasses all of Marvel. After all, if it was just a rogue writer going around pushing their far-left agenda, that’s one thing, but all of those moments I mentioned have been written by a different writer, and then the editorial staff approved them and sent them off for publication, and not a single person involved with the process at any step of the way considered, say, telling a Holocaust survivor that he just likes to play the Hitler card on the Internet is in very, very poor taste. I suppose at this point it’s safe to assume that this is the stance the company wants to make – it’s intent to appeal to the far-left at the expense of literally everyone else. And trust me, people are taking notice, and they are leaving. That “feminist agenda” cover for Mockingbird? It made the comic sell so poorly that no more issues were ever printed. Comic book stores across the US are complaining about Marvel comics failing to sell. DC, who have recently launched their Rebirth initiative which sought to bring back a lot of classic characters and tones alongside fresh new ideas, have been regularly outselling Marvel while throughout history the highest selling comic books have always belonged to Marvel. Sure, a lack of compelling stories is to blame at least in part, but considering how popular the Marvel Cinematic Universe is right now, there’s no excuse for this kind of drought. The only explanation I can think of is that newer readers are alienated when they pick up an Iron Man book and find a teenage black girl inside the armor, while older readers really dislike being called misogynists for disliking the female Thor. Nobody wins, except maybe the far-left.

So, what do I want about this? Do I want things to never, ever be political in comics? Do I want a cast of straight white males like before? What exactly do I want?! Well, um… None of those things, actually. Like it or not, comics have always been political. They’ve been political since Captain America first punched Hitler in the face, and if you take that element away from them, sequential art would suffer greatly for it. Similarly, I also don’t mind more diverse characters. But if you’re going to make them diverse, be sure to make them diverse, and by all means make them interesting. Riri Williams is neither. Just because she’s black doesn’t mean she’s not someone we’ve seen a million times in comics before – a quirky teenage genius that wants to do good because something bad happened to her. Making her Spider-Man, but black and without any humor doesn’t make her “diverse”. To be diverse means to be different. Kamala Khan was so perfect because she was not only racially diverse, she was also unique among the Marvel universe. How many superheroes write fanfics? If you’re going to be making a black character, don’t give them to a white guy to write (especially a white guy like Brian Michael Bendis, who clearly has no idea how the real world works) – give them to a black person, make the character unapologetically black, but at the same time don’t define them solely by their race. Show me how diversity can lead to new, different, exciting stories!

Luke Cage, the Marvel TV show about a superhero living in a predominately black neighborhood, received critical praise across the board. 

What I don’t want, however, is agendas. No matter who you are or what you believe in, whether you’re left-leaning, right-leaning, center, religious, atheist, a male, a female, there’s one universal truth: nobody likes to have agendas shoved in their face. Nobody. Having a strong female character who kicks ass and takes names is great! Having that strong female character consistently explain how she is literally better than every man in her life while fighting the personification of misogyny is not okay (looking straight at you, Kelly DeConnick’s Captain Marvel). The thing that Marvel seems incapable of understanding is that you can have an agenda without announcing it to the entire world from your soapbox. You can make gay, trans and minority characters and you can tell good stories with them without stopping the book to say “Oh, by the way, if you don’t like my version of Thor YOU SUCK!” At no point in his excellent Hawkeye series did Matt Fraction stop to say “Hey, you know what, if you don’t like the fact that I have a male and female Hawkeye, go screw yourself with an arrow,” because he didn’t need to. All he had to do was focus on telling good stories. Some of them focused on Clint, others focused on Kate, some focused on both, while others still focused on neither (one of the best issues follows Hawkeye’s dog on his own adventure), but they were always good, and nobody cared. Hell, at a few points an implication was even made that Kate was more talented than Clint and would surpass him sooner or later. That’s a very subtle way of empowering a woman that doesn’t involve her having to fight the most misogynistic guy in history in order to make her seem “strong” and “independent”.

But most of all, and this is very, very important, what I want is conversation. You might have noticed that the far-left have the terrible habit of finding rather nasty ways of silencing anyone who disagrees with them by immediately playing the sexism/homophobic/transphobic/hate card. That doesn’t help anyone, and it is the behavior of a child. Like it or not, we need intelligent, well-thought out conversation in order to make progress. We need to share our opinions and we need to listen to each other, even if Marvel won’t listen to us. That was my main reason for writing this article. I wanted to initiate that conversation in a safe and, hopefully, somewhat smart way. I wanted to outline my issues and invite others to share theirs without the fear of being shunned. Because, let’s be honest here, an article like this is absolutely going to get comments like “lol feminists ruined Marvel” and “lol look at this guy mansplaining diversity to us”, but that’s not the point. The point is to move away from them, to look beside the hate and the raw sewage spewed by both sides of this debate and to have a conversation about Marvel’s political leanings like mature individuals.

Because, let’s face it – judging by the sales, there is an obvious problem here. And that is a problem that needs to be solved in some form or fashion if we are to see a resurgence of Marvel as the market leader.