Iceman’s Gay, Thor’s a Lady, and Captain America’s Black: The Constant Culture Shifts of Comics Continue; Reason, 11/6/15

Scott Shackford, Reason; Iceman’s Gay, Thor’s a Lady, and Captain America’s Black: The Constant Culture Shifts of Comics Continue:

"Thor has recently lost his hammer, and it has been picked up by occasional romantic interest Jane Foster. Captain America is no longer blond bohunk Steve Rogers. Former sidekick Sam Wilson, who is African American, has taken his place, abandoning his codename of Falcon. Ms. Marvel is now the name used by Muslim Pakistani-American teen Kamala Khan.

It’s easy to dismiss this all as a marketing ploy. Well, yes, it is, but superhero comics are a popular culture form of entertainment that partly lives or dies based on successfully understanding its audience and marketing to them.

And it’s absolutely not new. Marvel has made gestures toward cultural diversity for ages. Comic fans know full well that part of the metaphor of the X-Men—mutants whose powers originate from genetic abnormalities—was about cultural diversity, civil rights, and fear of the “other.”"