Quote from interview with Mark Millar(mentions John Stewart)

[Manhunter]

ST: Why is the Ultimate Nick Fury a black guy in a white suit that he even wears into combat? Was it an attempt to get more diversity into the White-Like-Everyone-But-Storm world of the X-Titles or more of a "I can rewrite this character, what would be a really different way to do it?" thing?

MM: Colin Powell and over eighty per cent of the army are black so it made sense to me that the new commander in chief of SHIELD might be a black guy from a purely practical point of view. [Ed note: the US Army is not eighty percent black.] Everyone told me I was crazy because Nick was so immersed in that Rat Pack cool, but I just couldn't see a fourteen year old responding to that in 2002. Sure, it's got short-term nostalgic appeal for the Ocean's Eleven/ Sinatra revival audience, but I wanted to build this guy up for the 21st Century. Nick was always too cool for school and Samuel L. Jackson just seemed like the perfect choice. Of course, it helped break up the white boy's club a little too in The Ultimates, but it's not *expletive deleted* tokenism like Spyke in the Evolution cartoon or John Stewart in Justice League. It just makes sense. I love the Steranko stuff, but the appeal is mainly nostalgic I think.

[Clark J. Kent]

Mark Millar is a very smart man and a great writer.

[Zoddman]

He's right about the token black guy thing. Glad to see somebody had the guts to come out and say it.

[MattL.]

I'm sorry but Milar is nothing more than a cynical ***** and it really shows inthe stuff that he's doing. It boggles the mind that this guy once wrote Superman Adventures.

As far as "tokenism" goes. I think its far more tokenism to change a character who was white to black than it is to make good use of a character who was already black to begin with like John Stewart.

Its sad that this guy is getting the sheer volume of work and praise that he is, but its a common trend in the current comics industry. The more cynical and crass you are about superheroes the more work and higher sales you get. :rolleyes:

[metaphysician]

Originally posted by MattL.
I'm sorry but Milar is nothing more than a cynical ***** and it really shows inthe stuff that he's doing. It boggles the mind that this guy once wrote Superman Adventures.

As far as "tokenism" goes. I think its far more tokenism to change a character who was white to black than it is to make good use of a character who was already black to begin with like John Stewart.

Its sad that this guy is getting the sheer volume of work and praise that he is, but its a common trend in the current comics industry. The more cynical and crass you are about superheroes the more work and higher sales you get. :rolleyes:

I don't know, he's writing Ultimates, which is pretty damn good.

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by Manhunter
MM: Colin Powell and over eighty per cent of the army are black

Am I the only one who thinks Millar is just making up a statistic here? Someone wanna double-check this?

[Web Head]

Maxie, I think there was an editor's note that said it wasn't.

Just for the record, I personally always thought that they went with the John Stewart GL not because he was black, but because going with either Hal or Kyle meant you were gonna piss off half the GL fanboys. Stewart was a character whose personality you could tweak with and not get the internet in an uproar.

And if anyone was added to the team for the sake of diversity, it was Hawkgirl (though I am really liking where they're going with her character).

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,


Originally posted by Web Head
Just for the record, I personally always thought that they went with the John Stewart GL not because he was black, but because going with either Hal or Kyle meant you were gonna piss off half the GL fanboys. Stewart was a character whose personality you could tweak with and not get the internet in an uproar.

And if anyone was added to the team for the sake of diversity, it was Hawkgirl (though I am really liking where they're going with her character).

I believe it is on the record that both Hawkgirl and John Stewart were added for diversity reasons. I remember the TV Guide article(which, sadly, I didn't save) on JL where Timm comments on both of them, knowing they'd be the most controversial new choices of the League. He stated pretty unequivocably that John Stewart was added initially because the alternative would be the "a bunch of white guys saving the planet" (or some such thing). The characterization of JS as "Samuel Jackson with a power ring" came later.

I think he also stated that Hawkgirl was added to boost the female membership of the team (something Wonder Woman gripes about periodically in the comics), but also because I think Timm just liked her visually (as do we all =8^). Personally, I think she's the first real grand-slam of the show, in a league with Mr. Freeze from BTAS.

As for Millar's comments about tokenism, if SHIELD is not "80% black" in his comics, then a black Nick Fury is a just as much of a "<expletive deleted> token" as JS and Spyke. I could use this as a platform to start griping about the complete lack of Asian people in ANY of these media, but everybody knows we're not that important anyway, especially since we all have these AMAZING Kung-Fu skills to make up for that =8^).

-- Ed/Ace

[Spider]

Ace,

"Personally, I think she's the first real grand-slam of the show, in a league with Mr. Freeze from BTAS."

Couldn't agree more. I don't know if I would have watched Justice League had she not been in it. But because she is, I now pay attention to the other six characters more so than I otherwise would have. :)

[Toddman]

Originally posted by MattL.

As far as "tokenism" goes. I think its far more tokenism to change a character who was white to black than it is to make good use of a character who was already black to begin with like John Stewart.


I agree 100%.

Afterall, what's more in line w/ "tokenism," changing an already existing character like Nick Fury to break-up the "white boys club" or to take a character who is ALREADY black and write him in an interesting way for a larger audience than ever before?

It's funny how Millar can justify his change to Fury siting his own personal beliefs and tastes, and not take into account Bruce Timm's personal fondness for John Stewart (who by the way was Timm's first choice to fill the GL guest spot on Superman, when there was no "team quota" to fill).

Toddman

[JohnStewart-GL]

Originally posted by Web Head
Maxie, I think there was an editor's note that said it wasn't.

Just for the record, I personally always thought that they went with the John Stewart GL not because he was black, but because going with either Hal or Kyle meant you were gonna piss off half the GL fanboys. Stewart was a character whose personality you could tweak with and not get the internet in an uproar.

And if anyone was added to the team for the sake of diversity, it was Hawkgirl (though I am really liking where they're going with her character).
mean and you had similar ideas on john stewart.cool.

[Hal Jordan]

Blacks make up 25.4 percent of the Army. Maybe the fact that this guy THINKS that they make up a much larger percentage says something about how he views things. Alot of time it seams that those people who are screaming about "tokenism" and other such issues, are causing MUCH more negative attention to be paid to race than was originally there from whatever racism did or did not exist.

As far as John Stewart, I would have preferred Hal Jordan, but I have nothing for or against GL as he currently is, as long as the writing is good. Race does not matter, but even saying that they chose John for his race...so what? As long as his character is good, and the writing is good and the stories are good...it doesn't matter if he's black, gay, or whatever.