REY I’M HERE TO BRING PROOF OF GENDERFLUID LOKI BC I DIDN’T READ ALL OF AGENT OF ASGARD 3 TIMES IN A MONTH TO NOT BRING OUT THESE SCREENCAPS WHENEVER I CAN
Sometimes the help you need isn’t the help you want. Call 1-800-273-8255 if you’re thinking of suicide.
This comic meant a whole lot to me. It was sincere in its depiction and treated the issue through the eyes of a grounded person. Not some godly hero saying everything is better than it seems, but a person trying his best before bringing her somewhere who can actually help.
re: last gifset i mean yes and good and i would die for zendaya but the spiderman reboot only exists because andrew garfield was vocally campaigning for a bi peter parker and for michael b. jordan to play mj and sony responded by firing him and signing a licensing agreement with marvel which explicitly contractually obligates marvel to portray spiderman as heterosexual and white
ok this seems to be getting notes outside of my circle so i’m going to add some more context to this
so in a july 2013 interview with entertainment weekly, andrew garfield said that he’d been discussing the possibility of a bi peter parker with marc webb, the films’ director, and matt tolmach, one of the producers. this was just a little over a year before the amazing spiderman 2 was released. choice quote:
Recently, he says, he had a philosophical discussion with producer Matt Tolmach about Mary Jane or “MJ” to fans. “I was kind of joking, but kind of not joking about MJ,” he tells EW. “And I was like, ‘What if MJ is a dude?’ Why can’t we discover that Peter is exploring his sexuality? It’s hardly even groundbreaking!…So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?”
Garfield even has an actor in mind: “I’ve been obsessed with Michael B. Jordan since The Wire. He’s so charismatic and talented. It’d be even better—we’d have interracial bisexuality!” The star has clearly suggested a sexually flexible Spidey to his director, Marc Webb, as well. When EW later mentions the idea to Webb, the director says, “Michael B. Jordan, I know.” Oh, so he’s heard this too? “Uh, are you kidding?”
so, in andrew’s own words, he was “not joking” about this, and michael b. jordan was not just a random suggestion andrew threw out during an interview – he’d actually discussed the possibility with the director.
Spider-Man‘s Andrew Garfield recently said that the superhero’s sexuality is open to interpretation, and he named you as someone he’d want to play his gay lover in the film, should Marc Webb choose to go that route. No thoughts on that, but I am a fan of Andrew. He’s a talented actor, I admire his work, and I’d definitely love to work with him in the future. He’s a funny guy–he’s got a sense of humor and I love people that won’t take themselves too seriously all the time, so it’s cool for him to come out and say how he felt or joke around or whatever. It was fun, I laughed at it.
it’s worth noting that one month prior, in june 2013, it was announced in the hollywood reporter that shailene woodley, originally cast as mary jane, would have all of her scenes cut from spiderman 2. note this excerpt from the article:
“I made a creative decision to streamline the story and focus on Peter and Gwen and their relationship,” said Webb. “Shailene is an incredibly talented actress, and while we only shot a few scenes with Mary Jane, we all love working with her.”
The plan now is for Watson, one of Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s iconic love interests, to be introduced in the third movie.
It is likely that Woodley will not return and that the part will be recast.
“Of course I’m bummed,” Woodley told Entertainment Weekly, which first reported the news. “But I’m a firm believer in everything happening for a specific reason. … Based on the proposed plot, I completely understand holding off on introducing [Mary Jane] until the next film.”
okay, so – couple things:
“watson, one of peter parker/spider-man’s iconic love interests” – not “mary jane,” but the gender neutral “watson”
the director complimented shailene’s talent and work ethic, indicating that nothing in her performance was a problem; nonetheless, “woodley will not return and the part will be recast”
and woodley says, “based on the proposed plot, i completely understand holding off on introducing [mary jane] until the next film”
and the brackets around [mary jane] indicated that she… didn’t say mary jane. she said something else. maybe “watson.” maybe “MJ.”
and, of course, one month later, andrew garfield and marc webb were publicly running around comic-con calling for a bisexual spiderman and michael b. jordan as MJ.
hmm.
now, when later asked about the entertainment weekly interview, andrew claims that he was “joking” and that “it wouldn’t make sense for peter parker to suddenly discover he’s into boys” but then… he delivers a three-minute monologue about lgbt teen suicide and the importance of representation and almost starts crying. so make of that what you will.
then, shortly after comic-con, in august of 2013, stan lee was asked a couple of times about andrew garfield’s call for a bisexual spiderman. his thoughts:
This past weekend, Comicbook.com covered Fandomfest in Louisville, Kentucky, where we reported on Stan Lee’s reaction to a question about Andrew Garfield’s idea to make Spider-Man bisexual. Stan Lee said, “He’s becoming bisexual? Really? Who have you been talking to? I don’t know…seriously I don’t know anything about that. And if it’s true, I’m going to make a couple of phone calls. I figure one sex is enough for anybody.”
In an interview yesterday with WGN radio, Stan Lee was once again asked about Andrew Garfield’s comments. The radio host asked, “There’s one thing that happened recently, and I think this is one thing that makes you a little bit mad. Andrew Garfield suggested that maybe MJ could be a man. Was that out of left field?”
Stan Lee replied, “Boy, that was so out of left field! I don’t understand why he said that, and one of the quotes I gave, he wanted to talk about I think Spider-Man being bisexual, and my only comment was I thought one sex at a time ought to be enough for anybody.”
When asked where he thought Andrew Garfield’s comments came from or if he was just trying to include another audience, Stan Lee said, “Or maybe sometimes you say something just to be noticed or to create a controversy, who knows? But he’s a great guy and he’s a fine actor, and I hope this doesn’t hurt him in any way.”
so like… stan lee was not on fucking board. stan lee was talking about “making a couple of phone calls,” and suggesting andrew “said something just to be noticed or to create a controversy,” and intimated, “i hope this doesn’t hurt him in any way.”
and then, of course, andrew was let go from his contract, and sony struck a deal with marvel to reboot spiderman according to a legal licensing agreement – in place prior to the andrew garfield movies, actually – requiring peter parker to be heterosexual and white.
now, earlier this year, andrew garfield took part in a roundtable discussion with several other actors, including dev patel.
at one point, around the 36-minute mark, dev mentions that he regrets participating in avatar: the last airbender, saying:
I saw a stranger on the screen, like, i didn’t really relate to. And I was just like, this is a terrible extension of me. This is not what I want to represent in any way.
andrew then replies:
I love what you just said, that it felt like you were looking at a stranger, and feeling like you were perpetuating something that’s toxic. And something that’s shallow. And something that has no depth. No matter how much depth was attempted to be bought into it and sold. And then you go – millions and million, for me it was, you know, Spiderman stuff… There’s millions and millions of young people watching who are hungry for a hand here. Someone to say, “You’re okay. Everything’s okay. You’re seen. You’re seen very deeply.” And we have opportunities to do that with those kind of behemoth films. And more often than not, the opportunity is not taken. And it’s absolutely devastating and heartbreaking because there’s so much medicine that could be delivered through those films.”
then the interview asks, “but why is it not taken?” and andrew replies, “why do you think? why do you think?”
tl;dr andrew garfield and marc webb were lobbying for a bisexual spiderman and sony literally fired both of them, signed a licensing agreement with marvel, and rebooted the entire franchise to ensure that would not happen. thanks for coming to my ted talk.
That’s infuriating. Andrew Garfield, please dress up as Spiderman and make out with Deadpool. Just to piss Stan Lee off. Please.
stan lee is really, really old and has no idea what’s going on. i’m not going to villify him for this. but i’m not pleased with the rest of the industry for being firmly stuck in the 1980′s while the rest of us are reaching for 2020.
“These nominations come just days after Marvel’s Vice President of Sales, David Gabriel, went out of his way to blame Marvel’s lagging sales on comics—like Black Panther and Ms. Marvel—starring people of color and women. Suffice it to say that the optics of this whole thing don’t reflect well on the publisher, but the Hugo nominations send a telling message to Marvel about just how the public actually feels about its “diverse books.”
In his presentation to the Marvel Retailer Summit, Gabriel said that he and other executives heard from retailers that readers weren’t interested in change, despite the company’s many “fresh, new, exciting ideas.”
“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel said. “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,”
While it’s true that Marvel’s sales have been steadily declining for some time now, the drop has been seen across its entire portfolio, not just with titles starring leads who aren’t straight, white men. Both Black Panther and Ms. Marvel have regularly charted as New York Times best sellers over the past few years and that isn’t by accident. It’s because of interest from communities of fans (like the body that makes up the Hugo Awards voting committee) who make the effort to critically analyze the titles despite the fact that Marvel doesn’t do the best of jobs when it comes to promoting them effectively.
Writing for The Guardian, JA Micheline correctly notes that while Marvel may have a handful of progressive characters, it doesn’t go out of its way to let new potential readers know about them in a meaningful way.
“Marvel seems to outright misunderstand capitalism when it largely limits its marketing efforts to comic-book shops – spaces that have historically been unwelcoming to marginalised people,” Micheline argues. “[I]t largely presents white male heroes to the public via its cinematic universe, then makes public comments that outright concede that its main interest is selling comics to white men.”
Johnston says [sales] numbers are off by about 15% on average, and notes that they don’t include digital or international sales, or the potential for sales in the bookstore market (which is high for many of these titles), and that the numbers aren’t even inaccurate consistently, making it difficult to compare them month to month.
So.
1) Marvel doesn’t count digital sales.
2) Marvel doesn’t count international sales.
3) Marvel doesn’t count comics that are sold as trades in book stores or online.
4) Marvel only counts monthly issues of physical comics sold in stores.
And that’s really not where they’re getting most of their sales from any longer.
Not to mention that:
5) Comic book sales in general have been slumping for a while–at least if you only look at the monthly sales of physical comics sold in stores.
6) Most of Marvel’s money now comes from its movies, not its comics.
7) Oh, and the potential readers who refuse to buy Marvel comics during the run of Secret Empire (i.e., the one with Hydra Cap)? That’s probably not helping sales, either.
But sure, Marvel. It couldn’t be that your business model is outdated, that the types of sales have changed, that your sales figures are wildly inaccurate, that monthly purchases of physical comics are just not as affordable for customers as they used to be in the 1980s and 1990s (especially since the cost keeps going up), or that some potential customers have been boycotting your comics for a year.
No. Clearly all of your problems stem from diversity. Because that way, you don’t need to change your way of doing business or your attitudes.
Marvel blaming diversity for their lack of sales when in actual fact a LACK of diversity, a lack of PROMOTION of the diversity they do have and the fact that as storytellers and salesmen they are doing a SHITTY JOB at marketing their comics to the people who would be interested in them and writing some truly GARBAGE stories (Like the Civil War II crap or this Secret Empire nonsense) that puts people off bothering to buy them
Because that way they can use this scapegoating bullshit as an excuse to fill their comics with yet more heteronormative shit featutring yet more utterly tedious cishet characters, most of whom are all white
wait wtf they don’t count digital sales or trades
jfc
like how many different kinds of abhorrent and incompetent can they be
Right?
It’s 2017
SO MANY SALES come from digital sales and trade sales
So, today, Marvel published issues of comics revealing that in fact the Nazis were always supposed to win World War 2, and the Allies invented the Cosmic Cube to rewrite history to prevent that from happening.
That was released today. April 19th.
The anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest Jewish revolt during World War 2, the first urban uprising in Nazi-occupied Europe, begun when the Nazis decided to completely wipe out the Warsaw Jews on Passover eve. Instead, the Jews held out for nearly a month, with whatever they could fight with. They’re honored to this day.
And Marvel published their Nazi-stanning dumpster fire of a retcon today.
so how many people on Marvel’s editorial board are white supremacists?
Fucking ridiculous
But no, the reason we all bailed was too much “diversity.”
There’s something more insidious going on here than just “the Nazis were supposed to win” and I think it needs examination.
And by that I mean let’s talk about Steve Rogers, Straight White Cis Man.
A lot of the early superheroes were very explicitly invested in social justice – Wonder Woman fights sexist dictators and empowers women, Superman goes undercover to bust the KKK and advocates for the working class. And of course it’s not that surprising that Superman, the explicitly Jewish-coded immigrant, or Wonder Woman, the female superhero in a world of men, strike out against the power structures that oppress the groups they represent; they stand to gain greatly, after all, from the freedom and elevation of their peers.
But Cap is a little different. Cap, actually, is a lot different, because Steve Rogers is a white man with blue eyes and blonde hair. Steve Rogers is not just physically fit and able-bodied, but an outright ubermensch who can tough out gunshot wounds and knock around cars. Steve Rogers would be treated like a goddamn king in Hitler’s Germany, he is literally everything they claim to love and want and honor. Steve does not stand to gain greatly by fighting Nazis. Steve stands to gain greatly by joining them. The only thing he, personally, can achieve by his battle is personal loss; at best, of institutional privilege over basically everyone he’ll ever meet, at worst, of his very life.
If you think it is an accident that two Jewish guys made this character the dedicated, justice-loving ultimate enemy of the Nazi state, I do not know what to tell you other than that you are hilariously, incomprehensibly, obviously wrong.
This is a guy who could have the bad guys eating out of his hand, but opposes them instead because it’s the right thing to do, full stop. No matter the cost, no matter what anyone else says he in particular should care about due to his own station, he’s going to help people instead of hurting them. Steve Rogers is not just a guy who punches Nazis, he is a promise to Jewish kids that Gentiles, too, can and will punch Nazis, and a reminder to Gentiles that just because they’re not Jewish is no excuse not to. More than that, even. He is a promise to every marginalized fan that yes, there really are allies who will fight for you all the way to the end. He is an example to every privileged fan that real heroism means being that ally for others, that it is not only possible but important and even imperative to defend the less privileged. If Diana teaches us that we can fight for ourselves, Steve teaches us that we can fight for others. And that is a kind of hope and inspiration that most superheroes never even get to pretend to.
And so think about what Spencer is saying, when he says that that isn’t real.
In Spencer’s new Cap universe, it is natural, inevitable, that a smart, strong, authoritative white dude would ally himself with Nazis. In Spencer’s universe, if you want a person with privilege on your side, if you want that person to actually put themselves at risk fighting on your behalf, you have to literally rewrite reality. Are you a person with privilege? Great, don’t worry about it, you have no obligation to give a shit, because no sketchy minority rabble-rouser has brainwashed you with a cosmic cube. Are you a minority rabble-rouser? You’re on your own, good fucking luck. Straight white cis dudes are your natural enemy, and since you live in the real world without cosmic cubes, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Spencer has taken a character created by two Jewish guys to explicitly say “you don’t have to be Jewish to care about Jewish people” and turned him into a character that instead very aggressively says “actually you do have to be Jewish to care about Jewish people. Race war is the Real World and that Steve is a fantasy.”
So, you know. Fuck him.
Nick Spencer is a real life agent of Hydra and you’ll never convince me otherwise.
fortunately, superhero mythos is FULL of evil duplicates, and we know how to spot them.
spencer’s cap is a fake. the real cap would never, ever be like that.
just moving along like everyone else 