The two super hero comics I chose for this week were, America Chavez by Gabby Rivera, and Iron Man: Iron-Heart: Riri Williams by Brian Michael Bendis. One comic, America Chavez, was written by a queer latinx author while the other, Iron-Heart, was written by a white cis-man. Both comics were refreshing to read, as the main character was not a white man, however, both comics do follow many stereotypes that I thought were unnecessary. For example, in America Chavez, the main character held many hyper-masculine traits that directly reflected many previous super heroes. I would have like to have seen a sarcastic hero with a temper that was not so similar to other heroes. However, her story was new and her love life was barrier breaking. Although I think the author over wrote the love tensions, they were excellent. Since America is queer, I think Rivera decided to make it clear to the readers by having multiple love interests and love tensions. Chavez’s ex-girlfriend Lisa character was written a bit odd, towards the end of the book America confronts her for lying and using manipulative techniques to ‘save the world’. I found this character to be very problematic, and although they mention it is toxic behavior, I think the author should have come up with an alternative scene instead of exploiting toxicity for entertainment. Further, Iron-Heart was an interesting read, and the author incorporated modern-day events in to the story. I don’t think the author made it clear enough that the drive-by and the picnic were relevant, many of my peers did not understand the symbolism. This may be attributed to the author, Brian Michael Bendis, being a cis-white man. While reading, I could tell the author did not truly relate to the black family in the comic. Often, the interactions and personal thoughts were stereotypical to that of black people in media. Had this comic been written by a black author, the character would have had more dimensions and culture. Also, had the author been non-male then the comic would have been less sexist. Although the author tried to be funny in the scene where Riri and Tony are trying to find a name, I think the author was problematic and sexist. The “fe-male” comment was not funny, rather extra sexist since the character was ‘trying not to be.’ When an author is aware of sexism, yet still writes sloppy sexist characters, it’s not progressive. Iron man’s character has a sarcastic and rude-ish attitude to him, but he did not need to be sexist to stay true to his character.

The comic we designed in class on Thursday took a few trials of ideas before coming to life. Without only four comic slots to tell a story, or part of a story, we decided to do our comic on environmental issues, specifically deforestation. Our character was a super-bunny who helps replant the forest that has been cut by logging companies. The bunny replants trees and shrubs until they realize that the efforts they are making are worthless without taking on the logging companies. The last comic slot insinuates that the bunny is heading to take-on or fight the logging companies.

Diversity in Marvel comics has come along very slowly, and even as they have done so, is not great. Black Panther was an amazing movie and did a fine job as displaying diversity. Wonder Woman on the other hand, I thought was not very good. Wonder Woman should have been a women of color, or at least someone who more women can relate to. The actress, Gal Gadot, to me symbolized white feminism rather than intersectional feminism. I think that diversity in movies and comics is still not very good due to the lack of sales when characters like America Chavez are released. The core of the fan base for comics are white cis men that reject anything that is not white and male. In class we watched a video, and one of the convention goers stated that comics and fictions have so many wild features, ideas and characters. Yet the thought of characters of colors bother people, this is not logical, rather it shows how sexism and racism are so normalized.