Superhero Comics 101

[eldargal]

Wonder Woman is savage, but cannot lie hehe.

[Mr Mystery]

Captain Marvel has narrowed down it's directors to one of two ladies.

Me, I favour her wot done Babadook. Because Babdook is a fantastic horror film based around mental ill health.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

[Gotthammer]

The Civil War Inside Marvel Studios

Iron Man 2 effectively ruined Jon Favreau's relationship with Marvel because they made him gear the plot towards selling the first Avengers movie. It's the same thing that made Joss Whedon walk away after Avengers 2 when he was made to shove tie-ins to 'Thor: Ragnarok' in Age of Ultron. Whedon's made a lot of his own mistakes, especially in Age of Ultron, but that's another story.
Edgar Wright publicly admitted his disillusionment with Marvel after spending 8 years in the development of Ant-Man only to have to endure several rewrites forced on him, eventually resulting in him walking away from the entire project.
More recently there's Ava DuVerney's decision to pass on directing Black Panther. DuVerney said quite plainly she would not have been able to "make it her own", and as a Black Woman, you can see why to make a film about a Black protagonist whilst at the mercy of a committee of primarily older, white men would be uncomfortable for her.

...


While [Agents of SHiELD] still makes mistakes, it's all relative, and it's perhaps gotten it about as right as Marvel has got it thus far (though, in context, I'll admit that's not saying much). Right now, the consensus from its lead, Chloe Bennet, is that Marvel "doesn't care".

...

but a romantic, gay relationship between Peggy and her friend Angie was something Marvel recoiled from; Angie was removed, new male love interests were introduced, the plot suffered, fan interest plummeted, and the show went under.

...

Marvel actually has a bad history with actors of color in general; Idris Elba (The Gatekeeper) was ultimately taken for granted and later described working for Marvel as 'torture'. Terrence Howard (The original Rhodey) had 7 million cut from his pay for Iron Man so Marvel could give more to RDJ, which is why he never returned for the sequel.

And if you have any doubts by this point it's actually the Big Boys at Marvel who are unlikely to support diversity just know that their CEO recently gave 1 Million to Trump's campaign for the White House. Yeah... that's where our movie ticket money went.

What happened with Agent Carter was the most blatant case of Gay Panic I have ever seen

Marvel realised that the viewers (And the actors for that matter) were shipping Angie and Peggy together and freaked the **** out, removed Angie from the show and immediately tried to shove some boring *** male love interests for Peggy down our throat and then brought Angie back for a dream sequence all about Peggy choosing which man she wants to be with as if to scream at the top of their voices ‘LOOK HOW NOT GAY THESE WOMEN ARE LOOK HOW STRAIGHT THIS IS’

And of course the show wound up cancelled come season two because amazingly, audiences didn’t want forced and uninteresting heteronormativity nor did they want to see screen time wasted on Peggy falling in love with some dull *** guy whose character was boring as paste

Let’s also not forget that the Agents of SHIELD TV show had absolutely NO references to Victoria Hand or Isabelle being lesbians on the show and then promptly killed both of them off and to date STILL hasn’t had ANY representation of lesbian characters or couples on the show and remains entirely heteronormative and cisnormative

Guardians of the Galaxy removed the lesbian couple from the team and the director, when asked about it by fans, admitted that he wanted to include them in the film and it was Marvel who said no to this idea
Over a dozen movies, four TV shows and numerous shorts and the only representation Marvel has given queer women in live action is three lesbian supporting characters in one of their Netflix shows that is safely tucked away and not really connected to the large MCU

[eldargal]

^Fortunately the CEO referenced, Perlmutter, was effectively removed from having any control over the MCU by Disney late last year and he is widely credited for being the driving force behind NO GAYS, NO WIMMINS, so hopefully things might be changing going forward.

[eldargal]

Also, meanwhile, in Marvel comics:

Transgender lesbian angel and cisgender lesbian angel canonically in a happy relationship

[Kirsten]

wow

[Mr Mystery]

Huzzah!

Pretty sure I've commented this before, but given how avant garde and progressive Marvel Comics has historically been, that the movie's haven't followed up is particularly sad.

[Erik Setzer]

I'm for *more* diversity, so I'm not saying this as a "defense," but it's probably worth noting Angela got dropped as a series due to lagging sales (granted, it's hard to purchase when it's not on the shelves of any of your local stores). And as much turmoil as there might be behind the scenes, the Marvel movies are making a load of money. So perhaps they know some of what they're doing... but who knows?

I don't think the majority of the Agent Carter audience hated "forced heteronormativity." Perhaps the majority of the LGBT audience, but that's assigning one group's issues with a show to everyone. The romance was probably a harming factor, but not because of "forced heteronormativity." Just because a relationship of any kind likely would have felt forced *and* ruined the independent nature of the character (because that's what relationships in shows tend to do, sadly, they just devolve into being an easy way to introduce cliched drama and give a character an artificial weakness).

Also... if they have to have a black person direct the Black Panther movie, does that mean they have to have white directors for anything with majority white cast or protagonist? So, if a good black director came along, you couldn't have them do it, because it's a story about a white person, right? No, that's stupid. Ditto the other way around. Jeez. I don't care the skin color of the person directing my movies, or their gender. Do they know how to capture a good story on screen? If so, give them the job. I mean, FFS, if the argument is that they would have done a better job because their skin color is the same, wouldn't that also apply to gender, so she shouldn't have the job anyway because she's not a guy? Yeah, see, that's a ridiculous concept.

I hope they get someone good to do the Black Panther movie. Loved the character in the movie, and I'm enjoying the comic right now. (Speaking of... I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there's a lesbian couple in the comic at the moment, too. Not sure if protagonists or antagonists, I think somewhere in between. Vigilantes, pretty much.) And Wakanda is just cool, with its blend of traditional dress and beliefs, and highly advanced technology.

Hopefully Carter will come back without any kind of forced relationship (audiences can ship whoever they want, because they will either way), and Angela will eventually find its way back as a series, and Black Panther the movie will kick ***, and Bobby Drake will be portrayed on-screen as he is in the comics (whenever he shows up again... haven't seen the latest X-Men movie, so I'm not sure he's in that or not).

Oh yeah... on the topic of Agent Carter, the actress apparently was pretty unhappy with the Steve-Sharon romance (such that it was) in Civil War, basically saying Peggy would be pissed that Sharon was hooking up with her guy and all. Seemed a bit peculiar. (I think she even suggested it was kind of like incest?) Especially as the Steve-Sharon pairing was around in the comics during the comic Civil War, ten years ago, so it's not like the movie writers just came up with the idea out of nowhere.

- - - Updated - - -

And at least Civil War the movie didn't KILL Rhodey. [intense glaring at Civil War II]

[Charistoph]

Another thing to consider with the Agent Carter series. This is based in the 40s and 50s. Women were just starting to break barriers. The thought of "colored" people doing the same was still "heretical" to the time as well. As for LGBT? No matter how bad any of them think today is (and it isn't really that bad, relatively speaking), people were lynched for being seen doing that type of behavior (unless you were powerful and in "the club").

It would be like doing a movie set in the South during the American Civil War and not having slaves on a plantation. It sucked and it was bad, but trying to rewrite history doesn't make you better. Trying to prevent it from happening again is what makes you better.

And at least Civil War the movie didn't KILL Rhodey. [intense glaring at Civil War II]

True. But also in consideration he was quite Cyborg by the Secret Invasion, so having body damage like that and relying on Starktech to continue is rather consistent.