Riri Williams: Marvel’s Precious Little Sociopath

Marvel debuted the character Riri Williams in July 2016. The character replaced Tony Stark as Iron Man, adopting the name Iron Heart (which ironically turns out to be the name used in a porn parody of Iron Man). Riri’s claim to fame is that she is a 15-year-old black female super-genius supposedly smarter and better than Stark.

Brian Michael Bendis, the character’s creator, faced a backlash from progressives because Bendis is a straight, white, Jewish man writing a black female character. His critics ignored at Bendis and his wife adopted two black girls. They also ignored his reason for creating Riri Williams, as explained in the Time article. His critcis felt much more content to attack the man rather than give him a chance.

However, things have not been that great for Riri. The Invincible Iron Man series that Riri leads has seen its numbers drop dramatically since its November 2016 debut:

#DeleteMarvel: Revenge of the Hypocrites

What do you do when the CEO of a company that has pandered to you for half decade supporters new Hitler?

This is the problem faced by progressives who read Marvel comic books. Their problem begins with Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, a long-time Donald Trump supporter. Perlmutter has a sordid history concerninh his penny-pinching and general indifference to his employees. However, that has history has little to do with the current situation.

The current situation, the #deletemarvel boycott, stems from Perlmutter’s support of Trump. That is it. There is no concern about the CEO’s handling of Marvel, how he treats his employees, or that his primary concern is money. It is solely that he committed the crime of supporting new Hitler.

That seems one of the pettiest reasons to boycott any company. Perlmutter has little to do with the day-to-day grind of the company. Progressives, however, do not like to miss a chance at virtual-signaling. If that means boycotting a company that scrubbed its line-up of iconic characters to meet their demands for more “diversity”, so be it.

Of course, the boycott will likely reduce the already dismal sales of the social justice themed books.

A Dose of Stupid v128

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept.

Case in point:

BET got trolled over Luke Cage

The only thing better than watching someone embarrass themselves faux outraging over racism is watching them do it over fake racism.

To cause this sort of stupidity one needs two things: a legitimate complaint that has been overblown and the  inverse situation stated in the complaint.

Marvel Entertain provided the latter. Marvel, or rather Disney, has milked the Marvel Comics properties for marketable ideas. Within the last decade, Disney released a dozen films, a network TV show, and several Netflix shows. The latest show is Luke Cage. The show focuses on a former inmate granted super powers as a result of an experiment. The experiment leaves Cage with super strength, which he uses to fight crime.

I have not seen the show, so I am not sure how much was changed from the comics. However, one aspect of the character that Marvel/Disney would not dare change is Cage’s race. Cage is black, and he presents the perfect token for the progressive left. They have clamored about the lack of “diversity” in Marvel properties. Cage addresses this in a rather ingenuous way, as the character was original a play blaxploitation tropes.

The progressive thoroughly congratulated itself for the new show. And then someone had to ruin the party:

The Rise and Fall of the Comic Empire

I stumbled onto SF Debris’ Opinionated Reviews a few weeks ago. The page features a fascinating history of the comic book industry. Some of the stories and information I knew, but much of it I did not. I have heard many stories about the dodgy tactics Marvel and DC used over the years to screw over each other and destroy their competition. Their mutual hatred of Valiant and Image is legendary.

I have not vetted any of the claims made in the videos, however, based on my understanding of the comic book industry I do not doubt any of it. Despite the industry being about “funny books,” it is still a business and that will always attract some of the worst humanity has to offer.

What is particularly interesting is Marvel’s behavior over the years. When Disney bought them in 2009, I thought that the Disney need to crush all competition would ruin Marvel. Little did I know that Marvel was as underhanded and vicious as Disney. Given the information presented in the videos, Disney’s buyout of Marvel looks practically incestuous.

The series is well worth the watch.

Dear Marvel, You Can’t Win

Several months ago I wrote about an article featured on ComicsAlliance. Juliet Khan, the author, wrote a rant about Marvel and DC Comics’s recent attempts to appeal to progressive feminist female readers. Her complaint was that the new femalecharacters were bland and boring. Of course, this is precisely what feminists like Khan asked for. They want female characters who never do bad things, never make mistakes, never have bad things happen to them, and never have any character flaws. All this leaves creators with are characters who can only be snarky and sassy.

As I noted at the end of my post, people like Khan knew what the end result would be because comic book fans warned them. We told these progressives that their ideas were boring, yet they ignored us and demanded these characters anyway. And for inexplicable reason, both of the Big Two companies caved.

Now another ComicsAllaince writer shows us why capitulating to the so-called “social justice warrior” crowd is pointless.