5 Comics That Should Be Diversified!

Diversification in comics is a huge topic right now. DC’s relaunches is claiming diversity while some vocal fans outright claim there is none. On the Marvel side the new Ultimate Spider-Man was announced to be a half-black/half-hispanic ethnically which brings up the question: what other comic characters should be diversified? Diversity for the sake of diversity isn’t the point of this article but more so what characters or concepts should be re-looked at and show a broader representation of people.
Over on our facebook I asked what characters should be changed ethnically, gender wise or in regards to their sexual orientation. As the focus of the changes in comics have been on ethnicity many of your responses were heavily influenced based on ethnic background! Here are 5 comic characters that you and I think should be diversified!
Hawkman - Longtime NK Community member TechieMike suggested that a character in much need of change is a character that has had a long standing bout with staying relevant. I 100% agree that Hawkman should be given a change up but diversification should have been part of this character from the get go. Reincarnated Egyptian Pharaoh eventually becomes a white Archaeologist? This barbaric warrior with alien technology should most definitely be Arabic, Egyptian or of Middle Eastern decent and the best part is it won’t change a damn thing about the character. He can still be a reincarnated Pharaoh that is a modern day Archaeologist.
Dr. Doom - Damon Scott of Nfamous Gamers suggested that Dr. Doom should become African American as there is little to no mainstream black supervillains. Ethnically I am torn on this because Dr. Doom is the ruler of a Slavic-based country and I would hope that he would look similar to other Slavic-people in the region but instead he is a character that looks white but since Ultimate Dr. Doom is dead there is more than enough room for a new non-white Dr. Doom to take up the mantle. Black, Hispanic, or European this bad ass definitely could use a make over.
Wonder Woman - NK Senior Editor Jeff Adams suggest that DC Comics’ high profile character Wonder Woman should be be given the diversification treatment as well. A woman on a secluded island made up of various women from different ethnic backgrounds? Wonder Woman should be ethnically ambiguous but just like the other members of the DC Trinity she is white and blue-eyed. Making her look Hispanic or African American skin tone wise would probably piss of a whole lot of people but also being that she is from a different make believe country all together and is a symbol of truth for all mankind her ethnic background should be a mix to represent that.
Robin - A character that has almost always been a young white male is Batman’s sidekick Robin. At times the character has been female but never for too long. This sidekick being different either by its gender or ethnicity will alone set the character to be worlds apart from their predecessors. Grant Morrison has proven in the pages of Batman Inc. that different Batmen can exist so why not a different Robin?
Ultimate Fantastic Four - There isn’t much that could be done about the 616 first family but with the Ultimate Fantastic Four no longer in existence it makes a whole lot of sense of a new first family to be diverse as they come. The F4 is the perfect stage for diversification to take flight. Powers, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation could all be elements that are played with as the team has always been focused on more than just superheroics.
What other characters do you think should be changed up? Do you love or hate the list above? Leave your comments below!

Posted by Nerd Boy Wonder 2 August Permalink

The LV. Cap: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Review

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii
1-4 Players/ Online Play
Developer: Vicarious Visions, Savage Entertainment, n-Space
Publisher: Activision
ESRB Rating: T For Teen
Price: $59.99

Activision hit the gold mine with Marvel Ultimate Universe and various scenarios were shown at the end of the first game that could lead up to the sequel. Guess what? None of those were used. Instead MUA2 was loosely based on the popular comic events Secret War and Civil War. Just like Civil War, MUA2 puts the heroes against each other rather than pit them against villains. The hero war has you choose a side: Iron Man, Shield, and Pro-Registration Heroes fight for public safety or Captain America, the White Stars, and Anti-Registration for personal freedom.

Pros:
Story: The story does what the comic crossovers it is inspired by couldn’t do. Stripping away from the shock value moments and mischaracterizations we are instead left with a story purely about an ideology war after a national tragedy caused by super heroes. The bout between Iron Man and Captain America becomes more than Marvel’s big two going toe-to-toe as they both become a symbols for their causes. What the story does better than Civil War is show the positives of both stances fairly as well as shows the drawbacks. The same debate that sparked division of comic fanboys will definitely re-ignite.

Graphics: Effin’ Awesome. It’s like someone slapped an epileptic with a rainbow. From the power effects to the cutscenes and down to the character design the game treats your eyes like a faithful muslim going to heaven to receive a bunch of willing virgins.

Character Management: K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid. To the advantage of the players this philosophy works extremely well in the sequel. Gutting the equipment aspect of RPGs that carried over from X-Men: Legends to Marvel Ultimate Alliance, the sequel removes that aspect of personal equipment and instead puts into place party badges that bring stat bonuses to the entire party. With a simple press of the select button you don’t have to go through the actual pause menu to add points or equip the part badges. Instead a “short” menu pops up in the upper left corner where you can spend points after leveling or equip new badges. Another thing that MUA2 improves the ability to change up your party right in the middle of play. No longer do you need to go to a save point.

Camera: Re-worked and fantastic. The horrible camera issues in the first game are completely reworked by giving a Semi-fixed view. You still have some control over the camera with the other analog stick but if MUA camera was porn camera work, MUA2 upgraded to a summer blockbuster. No phallic objects in the foreground will block you from the action. Giggity.

Fusions: New mechanic that makes the game even more enjoyable. Fusions allow you to combine the powers of two characters to do devastating damage to a single or an army of villains. Depending on your party, fusions will vary on the two heroes you pick to team up. Personal favorite is Luke Cage teaming up with Storm to toss a large rock infused with electricity at a boss.

Cons:
Character Costumes: All secondary costumes are unlocked by killing 50 enemies. Some depend on the side you chose during the war as well as having the 50 enemy requirement. Guess what? All the secondary costumes fails harder than a blind nazi playing hide and seek with Anne Frank. Don’t get me wrong, the added costumes are welcomed and are nods to various comic interpretations. The primary problem is that graphically they look like an afterthought. The level of detail given to the primary costumes does not transfer over to the earned secondary costumes.

Power Selection: In order to use the heroes special powers you hold down the right trigger. In MUA you were able to tell the difference between which move was on what button. In MUA2 unfortunately this isn’t the case. If you have a poor memory you are going to be holding down the right trigger and pressing various buttons in order to pull off the one move you actually want. No helpful visual hints for the on-screen power display.

Multiplayer Lag: Lag was always an issue with MUA and continues to be an issue with MUA2. I don’t know if it’s the crappy connection in California but if you want to play this game multi-player, I say skip the Xbox Live or PSN multiplayer, invite your buddies over and enjoy it from your couch.

Verdict:
As much as I enjoyed the game from a comic fan standpoint, for the average gamer this will be a solid must play. Unfortunately it is NOT A BUY but a RENT. For the comic fans though, BUY this ASAP.

Posted by Nerd Boy Wonder 18 September Permalink

Motion Comics: An Oxymoronic Term

Motion Comics are defined as a hybrid between animation and comics. Adapted motion comics take the panels from the adapted text and animate certain sections or sequences. Motion Comics us a variety of techniques to combine the effects of these two mediums and in the end they create absolute crap. Motion Comics, besides being an oxymoronic term, are just bad. This article is dedicated to showing examples of comics and motion comics to show you what I specifically mean.

Lets start with what exactly these terms mean. As recounted by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics, comics are juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence. A comic is different from animation and film in the sense that its sequential in time, but not spatially side by side for the viewer. While a motion comic takes those sequences and arranges them in time instead of space. While this might seem like metaphysical nonsense, there is a huge difference.

When one reads a book, that is maximum viewer involvement. In a book, you must supply a lot, your imagination must really be a worked muscle for books to be enjoyable. While words are in fact given to you, how it comes together in your mind is what makes it such an immersive experience. Art, static art in museums, is about what the intrepretation is. While the image is given to you, there is no context for that image. Again your imagination MUST supply a lot of what is going on. On the most immersive form of fictional enteratainment is a movie. For those wondering, a videogame does not allow you to be a passive observer. A movie allows you to sit and have words and images thrown at you, and your mind processes it. While your imagination is not overtaxed, your brain DOES process things intellcutally. What the meaning of something is, your imagination at work but not so much as in a novel.

Which comes to comics and motion comics. Comics give you an image and the words to a story, so it would seem that it would be closer to a movie then a novel in terms of imagination. A casual observer, even an experienced person would think that. You have to look closer at the true art of sequential telling. The space between the panels, called the gutter, is where the magic of comics happens. In that space, is our imagination as we, the audience, connect the dots of the story.

In motion comics, that sense of closure is completely erased. Our imagination is now being handled by a director. Unlike a movie where the camera is used to great effect to bring a reader in, the static images of motion comics keep the reader at a distance. In their own embarressment of the word balloon and sound FX, motion comics have turned comic books into 19th century puppet theater. The images dance around like marionettes, teasing the audience into caring about the performance, but never giving any substance to their flash.

Motion Comics are seen as the future to comic books. We have seen classic stories told in motion format to a variety of reactions. You dont say something is the future of the medium„ when it eradicates what makes that medium work best. Motion Comics take the soul out of the comic book and put it into some cold, unfeeling homoculi that stumbles around and tries to pretend its a new thing. Motion Comics needs a name for itself, and it needs to become its own medium. If they could somehow do that and stop using old comics and raping them of their gravitas, maybe I could accept them. Until then, they are an abobmination to comic books, comic bok creators and comic book fans. All flash and non substance.

Posted by Nerd Boy Wonder 11 August Permalink

Nerd Rage: Obamatization!

Barack Obama.  His image and name hold so much weight following his campaign and election in 2008.  The turn of events for companies within 2009 alone has had the fear and dread of a full on depression.  Comic book publishers have had an increased in prices to combat the slump in sales in the worsening market.  During this increase in cost and sales slump, who was the person to save them?  Obama, but not exactly how you think.  Unlike how the bailout money was thrown to failing companies like a first timer’s trip to a strip club, publishers within the industry used the one thing they could in their power without getting in trouble.  Obama’s image.

Yesterday, there was a reveal for an upcoming Army of Darkness comic featuring Obama. What is the point of having Obama in a comic and its effect?  Huge sales boost.  Here is a quote from Newsarama regarding the sales figure for Obama’s appearance in Amazing Spider-man #583:

Sales in the mid-300k range would also make Amazing Spider-Man #583 one of the highest-selling issues in the title’s 42-plus year history.

With retail cover price of $3.99, Jackson estimates the issue alone added more than $1 million dollars to the industry’s January figures, which typically totals sales between $30 and $40 million dollars a month.

What I find interesting is Joe Quesada wants to keep Spider-Man timeless and used the timeless argument to justify the devil’s deal marriage fiasco.  If you want to keep a character timeless, why would you use a historical figure in a comic then?  Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of not planting the character in a time period?  I understand that Obama has become the symbol of hope and change in this new era following the last administrations but is exploiting his image or any image of someone’s celebrity status the “new American Way?”  IDW, Devil’s Due, Image and Marvel have all used Obama’s image to promote their comics.  Here is what I think they should do to help the comic industry instead of over using Obama’s image like a Dr. Manhattan penis joke:

• Resort to good stories: Allow writers to explore concepts that suit the character and not bog them down with editorial mandate or the flavor of the month cross-over event.  Good may be a relative term but a solid story sells a comic.
• Explore other mediums: In an internet ADD culture, the average attention span is almost nonexistent.  Publishers should continue to explore the movie, television and internet to continue to tell quality stories and not have movie studios change the content so much that it doesn’t resemble the core material.  Yeah, I am referring to DEADPOOL.  Stupid Barakapool.
• Go paperless: Take a breath and face the future.  Things are going paperless and comic purist need to get with the times.  iPods/iPhones, PSP, DSi, and the kindle are common place.  The comic book industry should look into creating a universal format and begin to release their comics digitally for download and could be sold through iTunes or a similar online distributor.  Everything is at the tip of our fingers, why aren’t comics?

Instead of going for the short term solution, the industry needs to look at a long term solution to remedy the tanking in sales.  Resorting to cheap marketing tricks to bring in readers not familiar with the core continuity, while sly, will not keep them to continue to read the title.  Instead of whoring out Obama’s image harder than my brother’s achievement gaining, let his actions in office speak for himself.  Don’t let his celebrity image be what people remember him for.  Here is a treat.  All the comic covers featuring Obama that I could find but there are more out there.

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Josh “Buddhapunch” Pacheco
Co-Founder, Site Manager & Staff Writer

Posted by Nerd Boy Wonder 27 May Permalink