Marvel has decided, very foolishly I must say, to assemble a team of remarkable, diverse super heroes who fight bad guys and social injustices. Sounds like a pretty cool team? Well, if you’re familiar with Marvel’s version of inclusion, you already know this is not what it seems.
In an attempt to create a new version of the superhero team The New Warriors. The new comics follow the old cast of The New Warriors, consisting of Night Thrasher, Firestar, Rage, Speedball, Namorita and Silhouette, mentoring the New New Warriors which feature new characters named Trailblazer, Screentime, Snowflake and Safespace.
And while there has been much backlash against the creators of the comic, there seems to be this idea of rebelliousness throughout their names—taking these words and flipping them upside down, so to speak.
This group of all-new characters were created by Emmy-nominated writer Daniel Kibblesmith (The Late Show With Stephen Colbert) and rising superstar artist Luciano Vecchio (Ironheart). As writer Kibblesmith explains, the point of the names was to take these words that are often seen as negative and adopting them and owning them. Kibblesmith saw this as a way of redefining the words so they can no longer be used to hurt people, so to speak.
But many fans have taken issue with Kibblesmith and Vecchio’s approach, specifically the idea of two white cis men at Marvel creating a black nonbinary character named “Snowflake.” Rightfully so, I’d say.
Many fans have noted that the concept of the characters came without any input from anyone who is a person of color and identifies as nonbinary. Although, the questions are… neat, perhaps it would have been best to have this comic written BY someone who is a nonbinary person of color.
Fans, I’d say, should rightfully be skeptical after the stunt the Russo brothers pulled off in Avenger’s: Endgame with their whole “first-ever-gay-character-played-by-a-straight-man-and-appeared-for-two-seconds” bullshit. Along with their whole “Ice man is gay, but now that timeline is erased and he’s straight again.”
If only people followed the Wiccan and Hulkling model, well, perhaps we’d have better representation all together.