Take some time to think about who some of your favorite fictional characters are. For many, they exist in the wonderful wizarding world of Harry Potter, for others, they live in your favorite movie franchises. For me, they exist in comic books. Heroes like Static, Batman and Spiderman and friends like JugHead from Archie and Alana from Saga. But there is a problem in one of my favorite mediums. I notice a strong lack of meaningful diversity in this medium, particularly in the Superhero side of comics. I do believe every person of color should be represented in all mediums. It gives those kids role models to identify with, to inspire them to do great things. But when we are represented the way we are currently in comics, it feels like being thrown a bone. This issue pops up in the wake of the announcement of a Black girl taking up Tony Stark's mantle as Iron Man at the end of Civil War II.
At first, I was overjoyed at the thought of another character of color being brought to life to inspire other young black women to build their own robotic suit. Then I had time to sit with it and asked myself, "Do we need this?" Does overall diversity in most creative mediums need to be overhauled? Absolutely but, do we need to shoehorn diversity into these already established characters? My Batman will always be Bruce Wayne. Even though several others have taken the mantle, the Batman to me is Bruce Wayne, just as Clark Kent will be Superman, Jon Stewart will be a Green Lantern and Virgil Hawkins will be Static. These established charcacters are who they are, established. So when a comic hero I know is replaced with a person of color I ask myself, are you doing this for sake of the character or is it for sake of diversity? Why can't Miles Morales be his own Spider as opposed to Peter Parker's replacement? Why couldn't he be like Dick Grayson or Jason Todd who went from sidekick to heroes in their own right?
I'll never say we don't need more diversity in the space of these mediums, but I at least ask that if you're going to make these diverse characters, make it for the sake of the character, not for the sake of diversity. Why not make an Iron Woman? Instead of making Sam Wilson the "New" Captain America, why not just thrust the Falcon into the spotlight? Why not pull Black Icon, or Static back from their respective corners of the DC Universe? I understand that diversity is important, myself being colored and wanting nothing more than proper, widespread representation but please, do it in a more meaningful way that just making us replacements.
