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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
For a franchise built on exploring racism, the X-Men have a rather poor track record when it comes to characters from marginalized groups. The whitewashing of the aforementioned Bobby da Costa, the cartoonish depiction of people with mental illness (though this isn't exclusive to the X-Men comics), the frequency with which poc are killed off or put in limbo, Bishop's Face–Heel Turn, the stereotypical depiction of Kenyans in Storm's origin and the Betsy/Kwannon debacle that took three decades in real time to undo.
Wait, why does Kraven's wiki page list him as having "Ultra Instinct"? Is that a thing outside of Dragon Ball?
What, moving your body automatically on instinct without thinking about it? That's a thing that's possible in Real Life.
As for Marvel POC I want to see in the movies, I've always wanted Silverclaw
to get her own film.
Just that version IIRC.
My issues with certain characters aside, Latinos really do get the short end of the stick when it comes to actual heroes. Even Freedom Force, a Jack Kirby parody of the Silver Age, had a Latino hero as one of the main characters.
X-23 was Ambiguously Brown in X-Men Evolution (which is were she debuted). To her page on this site
her features were based on those of the girl who modeled for the reference shoot as a thank you. You could portray her as latino and/or First Nations. It's weird watching the show and then coming to the comics where she is depicted as a pale-skinned brunette.
Isn't Slingshot/Yo-yo latino? Or is that only in AoS?
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.Yes
It was a weird thing but I guess people can’t be non biological family in the x men books, a series that dips into found family a lot
Forever liveblogging the AvengersEven so, Sarah Kinney wasn't exactly dark skinned herself, so Laura being pale isn't really a problem in my eyes.
I think the whole 'X-Men are bad at representing social issues' gets a bit overblown at times, honestly.
Sure, it's not a perfect analogy, but it's not supposed to be either, it's just an allegory. It's still set in a world with gods, aliens, magic, flying people, super strong kids, uber advanced science, fictional countries and more.
I think Black Panther has been far more problematic at times.
Edited by Forenperser on Jun 5th 2020 at 7:56:19 PM
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianIf I were retconning things, I'd probably have it that similar to Jessica Alba's character in Dark Angel, she was a combination of various races as part of engineering a Super-Soldier. Which yeah, I know has its own Unfortunate Implications. But it would be a good way of explaining any difference in appearance from Logan / a reason to cast a non-white actress.
Edited by Hodor2 on Jun 5th 2020 at 3:23:58 AM
"We used frog DNA. For some reason that got us a really hairy T. Rex so the scientist in charge used her own DNA instead."
Although damaged DNA was the handwave for why X-23 was a female clone. The DNA sample had a fucked up Y chromosome. So might as well lean further into it.
Edited by Bocaj on Jun 5th 2020 at 5:30:46 AM
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI think the X-Men movies have done a poor job of representing social issues because (among other things) there’s something rather tone-deaf and grating about writing the X-Men as a metaphor for minority groups and then repeatedly having the lead characters be overwhelmingly white. Yes, there’s Storm, but in the first place she’s only one character and in the second place she never got very much character development in any of the movies, compared to Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine, Mystique, and Jean. Even The Gifted TV show was centred on a middle-class white family.
I didn’t really pick up on it as an issue for a long time, but I’ve seen quite a few people online frustrated by it and I can see why.
If Marvel does something with the X-Men they should focus on different characters and have a team with more black, Hispanic, and Asian characters in leading roles.
Edited by Galadriel on Jun 5th 2020 at 7:15:17 AM

Definitely seems like something X-Men should cover if hasn't happened by that point. Giving the spotlight to the marginalized and underrepresented is one of the best uses of that brand.