Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[MacynSnow]

Dude got his own DC CARD!?!?
DRAGONMAGE (Xao Jin)

You gotta admit,it's a nice looking outfit.And with cards,it all about imagery....

[Woodclaw]

God this is stupid. A racial ability to turn into a fortress is only cool if you're a Transformer. Did they really need to make the Legion HQ into some brain-dead kid rather than just a building?

arguably less stupid than the other silver age Clubhouse origin

I'm kind of scared to ask about it.

[M4C8]

So she went from feminized Hulk to humanized She-Thing?

I was staunchly in the hate the character camp. I found that they were trying too hard to show Monstress as still being "ladylike" (whatever that's supposed to mean) while still being powerful and empowered. (Neither concept of which I take any issue, it just felt like a parody of itself in a series that was already cheesie.)

Yeah, some of the images I saw were rather... silly. Like this giant cave-woman creature wearing a slinky dress acting like she felt beautiful. It COULD be empowering... but just comes off as weird.

Sounds like the plot of Amy Schumer's new movie 'I Feel Pretty'

(And no I'm not saying I think she's a monster)

[Batgirl III]

(And no I'm not saying I think she's a monster)

Yeah, monsters are usually sympathetic.

[Ares]

Dragonmade and Harmonia demonstrate sort of the misguided notions some writers have with introducing minority characters. It clearly comes from a good place of "Well, why SHOULDN'T their be a 100% Asian character in the Legion?", to which the answer is "There totally should be". Unfortunately, when adding the character, they opt instead for being a huge sterotype.

"Alright, lets make the new Legionnaire Asian, and lets make him the new mystic on the team. And for extra points, all of his magical effects will look like holographic Asian dragons".

"Okay, so that first attempt didn't really last. Lets add another Asian character to the mix, but this time, lets give her wind powers. And make her centuries old and speak like generic wisdom."

I mean, there's nothing wrong with either concept on the surface. A mystic whose spell effects all resemble dragons is visually cool, and a wind-based, long-lived Chinese hero could actually be one of the Taoist Immortals of Chinese mythology. But when those are the ONLY two 100% Asian characters, it comes off as weird. It's exactly the issue Jab has mentioned with Arabian Knight, where a hero with a magic scimitar and flying carpet isn't bad, but when it's weird when he's the ONLY Middle Eastern hero. Or when every Native American hero in Marvel is wearing feathers in their hair and often have tassels on their costumes. It makes the writers look uncreative at best and mildly racist at worst.

Not as racist as Tyroc's origin, obviously, but still. And actually, if you divorce Tyroc from the incredibly uncomfortable origin and hilariously awful costume, he's not a bad character. His powers have nothing to do with being black, he's just a guy with very versatile sonic powers.

It'd be like if Japan created a superhero setting and the only North American hero was NFL Superpro.

There's no reason Dragonmage couldn't have just been, say, the Legion's first teleporter who just happened to be Asian. Or Hell, make the "Captain Marvel" of the 31st century Asian, Black or Hispanic. Let someone besides a white person have the High End Flying Brick powerset for a change. And once you have a few folks who are just people with powers and abilities that have nothing to do with their culture or race, THEN you can have the guys who fit the stereotypes, because then you've done what diversity inclusion is suppose to do: portray those characters as PEOPLE first and foremost, no different from anyone else.

[Batgirl III]

I honestly would rather have the stereotype-based powered ethnic heroes, like Dragonmage and Arabian Knight, than the industry’s current trend of “diverse” heroes where the only thing that apparently matters to the writer is showing that the character isn’t a cishetero White European-American.

The characters have no flaws, no hook, no interpersonal conflicts — except with the one cishetero White European-American jerk who is Always Wrong —and usually no personality. But, hey look, they’re brown! Or gay! Maybe even fat!

Yeah, Tyroc’s “Apartheid Brigadoon” origin and Disco Thor costume was extremely over the top and kinda racist. But why can’t we get more characters like the Black Panther, Colleen Wing, Night-Thrasher, Jubilee, Falcon; Jon Stewart, Batgirl III, Steel, or Katana...? Characters where their ethnicity isn’t ignored, but isn’t the sole focus of everything ever written about them?

[M4C8]

I honestly would rather have the stereotype-based powered ethnic heroes, like Dragonmage and Arabian Knight, than the industry’s current trend of “diverse” heroes where the only thing that apparently matters to the writer is showing that the character isn’t a cishetero White European-American.

The characters have no flaws, no hook, no interpersonal conflicts — except with the one cishetero White European-American jerk who is Always Wrong —and usually no personality. But, hey look, they’re brown! Or gay! Maybe even fat!

Yeah, Tyroc’s “Apartheid Brigadoon” origin and Disco Thor costume was extremely over the top and kinda racist. But why can’t we get more characters like the Black Panther, Colleen Wing, Night-Thrasher, Jubilee, Falcon; Jon Stewart, Batgirl III, Steel, or Katana...? Characters where their ethnicity isn’t ignored, but isn’t the sole focus of everything ever written about them?

QFT.

[M4C8]

Dragonmade and Harmonia demonstrate sort of the misguided notions some writers have with introducing minority characters. It clearly comes from a good place of "Well, why SHOULDN'T their be a 100% Asian character in the Legion?", to which the answer is "There totally should be". Unfortunately, when adding the character, they opt instead for being a huge sterotype.

"Alright, lets make the new Legionnaire Asian, and lets make him the new mystic on the team. And for extra points, all of his magical effects will look like holographic Asian dragons".

"Okay, so that first attempt didn't really last. Lets add another Asian character to the mix, but this time, lets give her wind powers. And make her centuries old and speak like generic wisdom."

I mean, there's nothing wrong with either concept on the surface. A mystic whose spell effects all resemble dragons is visually cool, and a wind-based, long-lived Chinese hero could actually be one of the Taoist Immortals of Chinese mythology. But when those are the ONLY two 100% Asian characters, it comes off as weird. It's exactly the issue Jab has mentioned with Arabian Knight, where a hero with a magic scimitar and flying carpet isn't bad, but when it's weird when he's the ONLY Middle Eastern hero. Or when every Native American hero in Marvel is wearing feathers in their hair and often have tassels on their costumes. It makes the writers look uncreative at best and mildly racist at worst.

Not as racist as Tyroc's origin, obviously, but still. And actually, if you divorce Tyroc from the incredibly uncomfortable origin and hilariously awful costume, he's not a bad character. His powers have nothing to do with being black, he's just a guy with very versatile sonic powers.

It'd be like if Japan created a superhero setting and the only North American hero was NFL Superpro.

There's no reason Dragonmage couldn't have just been, say, the Legion's first teleporter who just happened to be Asian. Or Hell, make the "Captain Marvel" of the 31st century Asian, Black or Hispanic. Let someone besides a white person have the High End Flying Brick powerset for a change. And once you have a few folks who are just people with powers and abilities that have nothing to do with their culture or race, THEN you can have the guys who fit the stereotypes, because then you've done what diversity inclusion is suppose to do: portray those characters as PEOPLE first and foremost, no different from anyone else.

While the majority of let's say native American characters being 'mystic Indians' could been seen as questionable (Well at least their costumes could anyway), I don't really agree that's it's in any way inherently racist, I personally don't see it as any different to most British heroes being mystic knight types or Russian characters having a bear or hammer and sickle theme. There are a huge number of characters that have culturally based identities (Captain America, U.S Agent, Jack Flag, Free Spirit etc.) but they're offset by a huge number of other heroes. Also I tend to find that even though stereotypical minority characters get called out by minorities, when minority writers get a chance to create characters they quite often create the exact same type of characters to 'celebrate their heritage'

[MacynSnow]

Dragonmade and Harmonia demonstrate sort of the misguided notions some writers have with introducing minority characters. It clearly comes from a good place of "Well, why SHOULDN'T their be a 100% Asian character in the Legion?", to which the answer is "There totally should be". Unfortunately, when adding the character, they opt instead for being a huge sterotype.

"Alright, lets make the new Legionnaire Asian, and lets make him the new mystic on the team. And for extra points, all of his magical effects will look like holographic Asian dragons".

"Okay, so that first attempt didn't really last. Lets add another Asian character to the mix, but this time, lets give her wind powers. And make her centuries old and speak like generic wisdom."

I mean, there's nothing wrong with either concept on the surface. A mystic whose spell effects all resemble dragons is visually cool, and a wind-based, long-lived Chinese hero could actually be one of the Taoist Immortals of Chinese mythology. But when those are the ONLY two 100% Asian characters, it comes off as weird. It's exactly the issue Jab has mentioned with Arabian Knight, where a hero with a magic scimitar and flying carpet isn't bad, but when it's weird when he's the ONLY Middle Eastern hero. Or when every Native American hero in Marvel is wearing feathers in their hair and often have tassels on their costumes. It makes the writers look uncreative at best and mildly racist at worst.

Not as racist as Tyroc's origin, obviously, but still. And actually, if you divorce Tyroc from the incredibly uncomfortable origin and hilariously awful costume, he's not a bad character. His powers have nothing to do with being black, he's just a guy with very versatile sonic powers.

It'd be like if Japan created a superhero setting and the only North American hero was NFL Superpro.

There's no reason Dragonmage couldn't have just been, say, the Legion's first teleporter who just happened to be Asian. Or Hell, make the "Captain Marvel" of the 31st century Asian, Black or Hispanic. Let someone besides a white person have the High End Flying Brick powerset for a change. And once you have a few folks who are just people with powers and abilities that have nothing to do with their culture or race, THEN you can have the guys who fit the stereotypes, because then you've done what diversity inclusion is suppose to do: portray those characters as PEOPLE first and foremost, no different from anyone else.

While the majority of let's say native American characters being 'mystic Indians' could been seen as questionable (Well at least their costumes could anyway), I don't really agree that's it's in any way inherently racist, I personally don't see it as any different to most British heroes being mystic knight types or Russian characters having a bear or hammer and sickle theme. There are a huge number of characters that have culturally based identities (Captain America, U.S Agent, Jack Flag, Free Spirit etc.) but they're offset by a huge number of other heroes. Also I tend to find that even though stereotypical minority characters get called out by minorities, when minority writers get a chance to create characters they quite often create the exact same type of characters to 'celebrate their heritage'

And that's why it's called Hypocracy(?),as i'll guarantee you that those same minority writers would be up in arms if a white man made the same character.....

[Ares]

I honestly would rather have the stereotype-based powered ethnic heroes, like Dragonmage and Arabian Knight, than the industry’s current trend of “diverse” heroes where the only thing that apparently matters to the writer is showing that the character isn’t a cishetero White European-American.

The characters have no flaws, no hook, no interpersonal conflicts — except with the one cishetero White European-American jerk who is Always Wrong —and usually no personality. But, hey look, they’re brown! Or gay! Maybe even fat!

Yeah, Tyroc’s “Apartheid Brigadoon” origin and Disco Thor costume was extremely over the top and kinda racist. But why can’t we get more characters like the Black Panther, Colleen Wing, Night-Thrasher, Jubilee, Falcon; Jon Stewart, Batgirl III, Steel, or Katana...? Characters where their ethnicity isn’t ignored, but isn’t the sole focus of everything ever written about them?

Oh believe me, I am completely with you here. Modern comics have basically decided that, rather than someone's gender, race or sexuality being a component of their personality, it's basically the only thing that matters. It's especially bad when they replace established heroes with minority replacement characters who have no personality and instead just bank on the name to sell things. They forget that people like Iron Man not because of the name, but because we like Tony Stark the character. Replacing him with Riri Williams would have been a problem even without her basically being an entitled psychopath. Squirrel Girl, America Chavez, Amadeus "The Hulk" Cho, Unstoppable Wasp, Mockingbird, even Kamalah Khan can get kind of uncomfortable to read at times. Conversely, folks like Jaime Reyes and Miles Morales did a good job as legacy heroes, because they have actual personalities. Miles is pretty much the only time this has been done well in the last 5 years, because he had an actual personality and he was replacing an alternate-universe Peter Parker who got a heroic send off.

While the majority of let's say native American characters being 'mystic Indians' could been seen as questionable (Well at least their costumes could anyway), I don't really agree that's it's in any way inherently racist, I personally don't see it as any different to most British heroes being mystic knight types or Russian characters having a bear or hammer and sickle theme. There are a huge number of characters that have culturally based identities (Captain America, U.S Agent, Jack Flag, Free Spirit etc.) but they're offset by a huge number of other heroes. Also I tend to find that even though stereotypical minority characters get called out by minorities, when minority writers get a chance to create characters they quite often create the exact same type of characters to 'celebrate their heritage'

Well that's the thing: there'd be nothing wrong with Arabian Knight or Warpath if they weren't the some of the only examples of those kinds of heroes. I mean, Black Panther is a hero who literally a jungle lord from a land where the main weapon of his people is spears and shields (hi-tech spears and shields, but still), but that isn't a problem for two reasons: 1) He's a well written character with an actual personality and 2) There's a ton of other black heroes whose race really isn't a factor unless it's relevant, such as the Falcon, Luke Cage, Monica Rambeau, War Machine, Blade, Misty Knight, etc. Kamalah Khan is a moderately good example of a superheroine whose powers and name have nothing to do with her race, religion or orientation, she's a superhero fangirl who can stretching and size-changing powers. Whereas the major Chinese heroes in Marvel are Shang Chi (a martial artist) and the Collective Man (a guy whose power is essentially Communism). Likewise, Sabra going around with a Star of David on her outfit isn't weird since the Marvel Universe has more than a few prominent Jewish heroes like Kitty Pryde and Ben Grimm.

Basically, the way superheroes are portrayed in Marvel and DC, I think that 8 out of 10 heroes should look like the Justice League. No, note "all white with one green guy and one woman", let me finish. I mean that if you look at the Justice League, Diana is the only one wearing a flag on her outfit, and even then, it's a flag not of her homeland. If you were to modify the outfits of the League to cover their faces and skin, you really wouldn't be able to guess their race, sexual orientation or country of origin based off of their uniforms. You'd have a decent chance of guessing their gender and powers, but that's about it. Which is how things should default in Marvel and DC, IMO.

I mean, why not have a Chinese hero whose power is just superspeed? Or a Native American who wears power armor? Or Indian with science-based flying brick powers? Again, I think the idea of Dragonmage is cool, it'd just be better if there were at least 10 other Asian heroes and maybe only one of them was a martial artist?

[Goldar]

True, because not everyone Asian person knows martial arts!

When comics portray it that all martial artists are Asian, that is the Stereotyping.

[Batgirl III]

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the “Wearing A Flag As Your Costume” trope — everyone loves Captain America, Captain Britain, Vindicator, etc. Nor is their anything wrong with “My Cultural Traditions Dialed To 11 Are My Superpower” trope — Silver Samurai is cool, Knight and Squire are cool, etc.

But it’s boring when that’s the ONLY aspect of the character.

[Ken]

But why can’t we get more characters like ... Jon Stewart...?

I'd rather have characters like John Stewart. Jon Stewart's just a supposed comedian who's a part of the problem.

[Ares]

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the “Wearing A Flag As Your Costume” trope — everyone loves Captain America, Captain Britain, Vindicator, etc. Nor is their anything wrong with “My Cultural Traditions Dialed To 11 Are My Superpower” trope — Silver Samurai is cool, Knight and Squire are cool, etc.

But it’s boring when that’s the ONLY aspect of the character.

And that's one reason why I'm glad you're back, BG. You basically said in three sentences what it took me multiple rambling paragraphs to say.

[Batgirl III]

But why can’t we get more characters like ... Jon Stewart...?

I'd rather have characters like John Stewart. Jon Stewart's just a supposed comedian who's a part of the problem.

Damn you, Typo-Man! I will have my revenge one day!