Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
Your history is way off. A lot of quite awful people absolutely lost their minds over a Black Heimdall. It was a precursor to a great deal of what we’re suffering through now. It didn’t reach the same level of media saturation, however, because the national debate hadn’t fully shifted to cultural issues and the many powerful people now pushing anti-Disney outrage weren’t yet in a position to profit from it. The fact that you are convinced “fans hated” the Iron Man 3 Mandarin twist, a clever and insightful bit of plotting that was quite well received, illustrates the info bubble you’ve encased yourself within.Except nobody cared when they made Nick Fury black. Or Heimdall (which is hilarious in light of Norse mythology). Or the Ancient One being a white woman (which is hilarious in light of the fact that Marvel was falling all over itself at that point to find an asian hero character - there was some eye-rolling because people could see where Marvel was headed with all of this, but nobody cared about the character so it was basically shoulder shrugged). Or the Mandarin vaguely-arab (fans hated the "he was really an British actor" reveal, but not that an academy award winner was being cast to play a middle-eastern terrorist leader).
That said, the Silver Surfer has been a man for sixty years. Nobody would have cared if this woman was cast to play Frankie Raye. And nobody would care if they were using a Shalla-Bal - the Silver Surfer's non-cosmic powered girlfriend - in a film where Norin Radd becomes the Silver Surfer. The gripe is that they are replacing Norin Radd/Silver Surfer with a woman because Disney can't help itself. And the reason the gripe will hold water is because it is true.
For what it is worth, it is exactly this same approach that has crippled the comic book industry for a decade (replacing beloved characters with 50-60 years of history) with DEI replacements that nobody cares about (rather than creating black, or female, or asian, or gay characters that people do care about) - Jane Foster Thor, Sam Wilson Captain America, Amadeus Cho Hulk, Riri Williams Iron Man, etc.
You didn’t challenge my general point, of course, you confirmed it with the “DEI replacement” nonsense, a term that carries all sorts of odious assumptions we won’t discuss here. Contrary to your claims, the Foster, Wilson, and Cho versions were all very well-received, with the Foster-Thor run in particular being one of the most critically acclaimed periods in the characters history. It’s so odd that you didn’t complain about Wally West or Bart Allen becoming the Flash, or Kyle Rainier becoming Green Lantern, or Tim Drake or Damian Wayne becoming Robin…