Comic books are fun if you have the time and money to spend on them. –

I’m behind in my comic book reading by several, several issues. I subscribe to three books: “The Mighty Thor”, “Ms. Marvel”, and currently a new “Orphan Black” series. Now, I do read more than just those, like “Hawkeye”, “Thunderbolts”, and “Black Widow”. The world fo comic books and vast and

However, it is a slap in the face when someone makes the claim “No one wants diversity”. In an ideal world, the word diversity would lose meaning because we should no longer have to try to include people from different walks of life into the conversation and main stream media. Diversity should be a universally understood concept. Creating and pushing new female characters should no longer be considered political or trendy.

This all stems from recent comments made by Senior Vice Presidents of Sales and Marketing President David Gabriel:

"What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity. [...] We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against. That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked."

How about we look at the terrible story lines and arcs that have plagued the recent runs? Secret Wars was good. I waited for the new issues to come out across several different series. But, what should have been a great jumping off point for the comic book titan, was not.

We saw the re-introduction of Steve Rogers as Captain America, but there had to be a twist: Kubik (the living cosmic cube) has re-wrote his memories and his past and turned him into a member of HYDRA. Not only was it in poor taste, but it was a bit silly and too prolonged, especially considering that his best friend (Bucky) is currently acting as Kubik’s guardian after the Pleasant Hill arc.

Next, there is Civil War II, which was decent for a couple of issues, but the story became muddled and too much. Bruce Banner is shot by Hawkeye, Carol Danvers is a villain, and the Inhumans are unabashedly the good guys. There is no real moral dilemma. The original Civil War arc had that and more.

Tom Bacon wrote an excellent article about Marvel’s lack of diversity within the company. He also brings up the issue of legacy characters. These are characters who take up the mantle of another character, like Jane Foster in the role of Thor or Laura Kinney (X-23) as Wolverine. This a conversation that I have engaged in with others. Some people are for it; some people are very against it. I can understand the strong reactions to a story done terrible, but some of these are very decent.

I got in to collecting comics when I started reading the Jason. Aaron run of “Thor” when they introduced female Thor. I was excited to read it and collect them as they came out. I made a point of going to a comic book store in Birmingham in collect the missing issues that I could not find in my area.

I have read conflicting reports that say that female led books are actually leading sellers, so where does come from? Where they get the idea that books are not selling? It is a slap in the face as a female reader to hear that my gender, half of the population in the world, is not good enough to sell comics. How about we actually market to women? We enjoy the films, we enjoy the characters, and we matter too.