@Clare:
Changing an old character doesn't do anyone any good. They should make new characters with their own backgrounds, they will end up being way stronger for it.
Depends what you mean by change: mandating that a character can't change an iota will make it stale and boring in a hurry. Particularly when you account for comic book time and if the setting is supposed to be the modern times (a bit less problematic for characters like Popeye or Dick Tracy who are more or less locked into a specific period) Even a WW2 relic like Cap learned to deal with 21st century issues and problems. Change (and how the character deals with it) can keep a character fresh and interesting.
What matters is the skill of the writer, and how respectfully they handle the character. Suddenly retconning Steve Rogers to have been a Black lesbian all along in the face of decennies of continuity would be incredibly stupid/incredibly bad writing. OTOH, you may or may not personaly like it, but a depowered Steve passing the mantle of Captain America to one of his closest friends and comrade-in-arms who happens to be Black is narratively sound. It isn't like the Falcon is some new character Marvel suddenly pulled out of their ass just to hand him the shield. Replacing Nick Fury with a Black son who had never been so much as hinted at before just so they could bring the main Marvel universe closer to the Marvel movies is much more of an asspull IMO, and you don't really hear people bitching about that.
@Kuno: well, Justice League 3001 has a couple of examples of gender-benders that have yet to be reversed, a complicated/debatable case with Barry Allen/Terri as Flash, and a clear-cut case with Guy Gardner*. Keith Giffen goodness.
*for that matter, it isn't the first time this happens to Guy: back when he was Warrior, he one day woke up to discover that his powers had turned him into a woman. He was pretty pissed, but it lasted only one issue or two :P
@tipsyGnostalgic:
My only question is where the fuck is my dude Wiccan though.
Right now? In Sunspot's team of Avengers, in New Avengers.
@Da Rat Bastid:
I'm not sure how conservative Lex is or isn't when it comes to social issues, though.
Beside being very much opposed to illegal aliens, you mean? He's not much of a social conservative. And even his "aliens are a threat to mankind" rethoric is mostly a case of using xenophobia so he doesn't have to face the pettiness of the real reason he hates Superman, namely jealousy over the fact that Supes "stole" part of the love and adoration Lex feels entitled to from the world in general and more particularly from Metropolis. He most certainly didn't show any qualms working with other aliens when it fit his interests, even with openly hostile ones like Brainiac.
As a megalomaniac, he just doesn't care enough to be a sexist, a racist, an homophobe or anything like that: as far as he's concerned, if you are human, you are either one of these rare people he deems worthy of his attention/people he can't get away with ignoring, or you're part of the big great mass of unnoteworthy background people whose cosmic purpose is ultimately to serve and adore him.
Lex strikes me as particularly unlikely to adhere to a religion-based type of social conservatism: as a (mad) scientist who is all about realizing the human potential, their regressive, obscurantist mentality would be anathema. Fundies that wilfully cling to superstition and obscurantism may well be one of the few groups (along with members of Superman's fanclub) which he'd actually waste the energy to feel contempt toward. And his God complex precludes the possibility of doing or believing something because it is supposedly the will of a superior entity: to Lex, a god is someone to trick and/or usurp, not someone to worship :P
@FSTDT FAILS:
"Thor isn't a woman.
Captain America is not black. (And he wouldn't give a shit about opposition to illegal immigration anyway, there are actual issues heroes would be concerned about.)
Deal with it."
In today's Marvel Universe, they are.
Deal with it.
Also, way to miss the point of Captain America. And just because superheroes have to handle Doctor Doom or Kang the Conqueror doesn't mean that they don't care about political or economic issues.
"Make your own heroes if you don't like it. Don't fucking retcon existing ones, that's lame and annoying."
Marvel is the one that owns Thor or Captain America, and Marvel is the one that decided that it wanted to try a female Thor and a Black Captain America. Make your own heroes if you don't like it. And I second brazenTyrant, learn what retcon actually means before misusing the word.
"@brazenTyrant
I'll say this again, if I had a problem with diversity I wouldn't have:
1. played GTA 3 (black main char)
2. watched Homeland (female main char)
3. played GTA 5 (1/3 chars black)
So I take it you have no issue for example if I bought the intellectual property rights to all these titles and re-released them with the gender/race changed to male/white? For the sake of "diversity" LOL"
I see that diversity is also on the list of words you fail to understand.
