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JOE QUESADA:
The idea of dual identity became...
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really clear to me
when I started at Marvel full-time.
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It stemmed from a conversation
I was having with Stan Lee.
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I facetiously asked him a question
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that I didn't think
there was an answer for.
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I said, "Stan, how do you create
the perfect Marvel character?"
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He's, like, "Joey, I'm gonna tell ya."
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He said, "Imagine Spider-Man
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"is standing at the precipice
of a building.
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"He's just overlooking the city.
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"And he takes it all in,
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"and he whups his web, and he jumps off.
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(SWISHING AND WHOOSHING)
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"Awesome scene.
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"But tell me who he is?
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"Tell me who he loves.
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"Tell me who loves him.
Tell me what his problems are.
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"And now, when he flies off that building,
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"our hearts clutch
because we're in that suit.
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"Outside of that, it's just a red
and blue suit jumping off a building."
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And that really struck a chord with me
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in understanding the alter ego
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is the most important
part of the superhero.
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BRIAN BENDIS:
As old a tradition as telling of stories,
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there's always been a story about
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a human with other powers
teaching us something.
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CHRISTOPHER PRIEST: It's the power
of fantasy. I was hoping
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that the hero would show up and rescue me.
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In real life that rarely happens,
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but in comics
it happens every 30 days.
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DAVID WALKER: Comic book superheroes,
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they serve as our moral compasses,
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they allow us to make sense
of the world that we live in.
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ROY THOMAS: Every comic book generation
gets the comics it deserves.
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You can't expect today's Spider-Man
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to be exactly what it was 20 years ago.
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Things change.
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Who puts that mask on?
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That's really what inspires me
about superhero stories.
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They are fundamentally
about figuring out who you are.
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QUESADA:
You look at any great Marvel story,
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I don't care who the character is,
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what the team is,
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it's always a great story
about the person behind the mask.
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NARRATOR:
In this 1941 edition of Captain America,
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the Captain was up against
a Nazi villain called the Red Skull
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and the dialogue went like this,
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"This nation was founded by dissidents,
by people who wanted something better."
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I think superheroes have always
been there in American culture,
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at least since the concept was first
introduced in the late 1930s.
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Superheroes got us through
the tail end of The Depression,
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through World War Two, through
the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s.
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Every moment along the way,
the superhero has offered us
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a language to think about our political,
civic, and personal identities.
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Comics, as a medium,
speak very symbolically.
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I think because they're so
larger than life and are so allegorical.
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You have this opportunity to
build interesting social narratives.
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JENKINS: At the core,
are fundamentally civic questions.
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Questions about how we govern our society.
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Is it a vigilante? Is it someone
in the service of the police?
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Is it a man? Is it a woman?
Is he Black? Is she white?
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All of those questions are fundamentally
questions about identity.
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And Marvel's universe is right smack
in the middle of those questions.
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PETER SANDERSON:
Marvel from the very beginning,
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was radically different
as a comic book company.
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You had characters who sort of foreshadow
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what the classic Marvel hero
in the '60s became.
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First of all,
you had the original Human Torch.
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Not to be confused with the later
version in the Fantastic Four.
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Despite the original Human Torch's name,
he wasn't human.
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He was an Android,
an artificially created being,
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who tried to pass
as human and, in fact, did.
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But you already have the idea
of what became Marvel tradition
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of the hero who is an outsider,
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who is in some way alienated
from the rest of the human race,
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who, nonetheless, tries to fit in.
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Who tries to help a society that,
at times, was afraid of him.
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SANA AMANAT: What Marvel does really well
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is play with secret identities
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and plays with the concept
of what an identity is.
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And what that really means is about
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the dualities that we all
encompass, right?
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At work, we're one person,
when we're at home, we're another person.
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And I think, specifically,
within the Marvel landscape,
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it's not necessarily
about hiding yourself,
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it's about uncovering yourself.
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SANDERSON: Characters donning masks
to become superheroes.
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This is the guise in which
they can exercise their higher power.
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The concept didn't originate in comics.
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Before the rise of superheroes,
you had Zorro.
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The idea of a person
who takes on
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another heroic identity
that's unknown to the general public.
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If a man must die,
it's up to the law to decide that.
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SANDERSON:
It's not just a disguise.
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A mask, the costume, enable a person
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to express a side of himself that is not
visible in his ordinary identity.
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JENNINGS: One of the reasons
the idea of a secret or dual identity
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is so powerful is 'cause we all have
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these multiple notions
about ourselves, right?
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And, so, someone like Spider-Man
kind of becomes every man.
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This notion that, in our mundane world,
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we're also capable
of something far greater.
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That's the thing,
especially with Marvel characters,
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where so many of them were mundane people.
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And I think that double consciousness
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allowed these larger-than-life characters
to also be very relatable
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on a personal, human level.
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We try to, just,
ask the reader to accept one thing.
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That a person has a superhuman power.
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He can scale a wall or has the strength
of 10 men or whatever.
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But once accepting that, we then try
to write it as realistically as possible.
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The mere fact
that he has superhuman power
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doesn't mean that he may not have acne,
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or he may not have trouble
with his girlfriend,
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or get a sinus attack
in the middle of a fight,
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or perhaps have money troubles, you see?
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We don't just make them big and powerful
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and they always win the case
and everything is fine.
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WALKER: You look at a lot of the creators
in the '30s,'40s and '50s,
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many were Jewish immigrants,
either born in America
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first generation or some of them
came over from parts of Europe.
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And, you know, when you're an immigrant,
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they lived, to a certain extent,
a dual identity.
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WEINSTEIN: I think it's no coincidence
that Stan Lee was born Stanley Lieber
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or Jack Kirby was born,
you know, Jacob Kurtzberg,
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and they themselves create characters
who have double identity.
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One identity at home
and another identity in the workplace.
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NEAL KIRBY: My father, uh...
Growing up, it was a rough life.
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Street gangs back then were...
You had a Jewish street gang,
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an Irish street gang,
an Italian street gang,
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and it just depended
which block you lived on,
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and comic books in the late '30s
were just coming out,
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and he saw that as an avenue
to escape the Lower East Side.
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The late 1930s were
a particularly anti-Semitic period.
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Jews were barred
from many Ivy League schools,
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country clubs, even entire neighborhoods.
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So I think...
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Their creations, in many ways,
paralleled their own lives
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and what was happening in the world
at that time.
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(INAUDIBLE)
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JENKINS: For those groups that had been
excluded from the political mainstream,
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those metaphors of ripping your coat off
and being a superhero,
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putting on a mask
and going out into the night.
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Those metaphors are incredibly powerful
ways of thinking
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what you could contribute
to a society that's in turmoil.
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WEINSTEIN: It's no coincidence
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that the front cover of Captain America #1
sees, you know,
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Captain America smashing
Hitler across the face.
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What a powerful image.
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I think that's one of the most important
images of American pop culture history.
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And who better to be commenting
than assimilated Jewish immigrants.
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KIRBY: A lot of people were looking
at them like, "Wait a minute."
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We have an American character punching
a foreign head of state in the face.
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We weren't at war with them yet.
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But if there's one thing
my father did not like, it was bullies.
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And Steve Rogers became
a, you know, like, the vehicle for that.
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"Punch me as many times as you like
and I'm still getting up."
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So, that was my father.
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ALL: One nation, indivisible,
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with liberty and justice for all.
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WEINSTEIN:
I think, you know, the superhero
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can be looked at
as an assimilation archetype.
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It's wanting to belong.
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I mean, you know, like,
look at Captain America.
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He's the flag embellished as costume.
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You know, he's Rockwell,
he's apple pie.
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But, really, he's the wish fulfillment
of assimilated Jewish artists
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who wanted to be accepted as All-American.
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I think it's interesting
that if you look at
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a lot of early characters, they fit in.
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But if you look at those
particular characters
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that actually couldn't hide
their mutation,
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that were created after
the Golden Age of Comics...
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To me, that actually starts to map itself
onto other notions of otherness.
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Then we're talking about, like,
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"Well, you get isolated
because of what you look like."
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WALKER: The way I grew up,
I always felt like the odd one out.
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Someone who didn't quite fit in,
no matter how hard he wanted to.
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Judged a lot by the way he looks, that...
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You know, the clothes
that I wore, you know?
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And just wanting to be yourself.
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Dwayne McDuffie and I
had a conversation many years ago.
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"Who's your favorite
Black superhero?"
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My favorite, you know,
Black superhero is The Thing,
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and he was, like, "Okay. Why?"
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And I said, because he's the one
that always stands out in a room,
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no matter where he's at.
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And he's always going to be judged
by how he looks
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before he's judged by who he is.
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And, to me,
that's something that's very universal
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to my experience as a Black man.
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You know, The Thing was my father.
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Ben Grimm kind of acted the same way
my father would act.
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Or my father would act the way
Ben Grimm would.
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You could interchange the two.
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I think, in some ways,
my father almost envisioned himself.
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This humanoid, tough guy creature
that could protect people.
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You know, you have the story of the golem.
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A mythical creature from the mud
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that would somehow
save the Jews of Eastern Europe.
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I think it's very simple that writers
write about what they know about.
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And many of these themes in superhero
narrative are rooted in Biblical story.
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For example, The Hulk.
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The Hulk was originally gray.
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Gray being the golem, which actually
formed the blueprint of Frankenstein.
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And many characters in pop culture...
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The golem figure...
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He's not really a bad guy.
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He's just... He looks different,
and because he looks different,
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you know, he's feared, he's misunderstood,
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he's the rootless wanderer.
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So, I think there is a particularly
Jewish worldview.
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JENNINGS: To me, Hulk is a man of color,
to a certain degree. (CHUCKLES)
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And, so, when you look at constructions
around The Hulk and Monstrosity
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and how Black men are kind of
put into that particular box,
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I can't help but think
of the James Baldwin quote,
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"To be Black and conscious in America
is to live in a constant state of rage."
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GREG PAK: Well, Bruce Banner
has this terror of The Hulk.
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He sees The Hulk as a monster.
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But The Hulk is part of him,
and Banner himself is a hero.
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You've got this very simple kernel,
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which is that anger
triggers you turning into a monster.
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But what if this part of him
is the only part that's out there
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and is thrust into a situation
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where his anger
and his strength are seen as virtues?
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And that very simple thing
allows you to look at this
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monstrous version of ourselves and see
how the thing that we look in ourselves
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and call a monster,
actually is redeemable.
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I love that element of superheroes.
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When you have a simple rule,
a very simple set-up like that,
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it allows you to dig deep
and just do a lot with subtext
234
00:13:28,392 --> 00:13:30,269
and with the emotional story.
235
00:13:30,894 --> 00:13:34,064
PETER: Uncle Ben is dead and, in a sense,
it's really I who killed him
236
00:13:34,147 --> 00:13:36,149
because I didn't realize in time...
237
00:13:36,233 --> 00:13:38,652
REGINALD HUDLIN:
When you look at the Marvel characters
238
00:13:38,735 --> 00:13:40,696
created in the '60s and '70s,
239
00:13:40,779 --> 00:13:44,074
versus the DC characters
that were created in the '40s,
240
00:13:44,157 --> 00:13:46,535
the big difference
is the introduction of psychology.
241
00:13:47,703 --> 00:13:50,539
You have Spider-Man. He's a superhero,
but he's neurotic.
242
00:13:51,290 --> 00:13:55,085
You have The Fantastic Four
who's this dysfunctional family.
243
00:13:55,169 --> 00:13:58,380
So you get a new angle on things
244
00:13:58,463 --> 00:14:01,466
that you didn't see
in those archetypes created in the '40s.
245
00:14:02,759 --> 00:14:05,679
TOM BREVOORT: The thing that Stan and Jack
kind of brought, at least initially,
246
00:14:05,762 --> 00:14:08,599
was they made the characters,
at the least, two-dimensional.
247
00:14:08,682 --> 00:14:11,685
Which is to say,
they were more focused on them
248
00:14:11,768 --> 00:14:16,064
as the people
inside the costumes and their problems
249
00:14:16,148 --> 00:14:20,652
than they were in the overriding tropes
of superhero comics.
250
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,989
QUESADA: Batman. Young Bruce Wayne
walks out of the movie theater,
251
00:14:24,072 --> 00:14:25,991
a criminal comes in,
shoots his parents dead.
252
00:14:26,074 --> 00:14:28,327
From that moment on,
literally from that moment on,
253
00:14:28,410 --> 00:14:30,245
little Bruce Wayne is dead.
254
00:14:30,329 --> 00:14:32,539
Batman then becomes Batman
255
00:14:32,623 --> 00:14:35,584
and as his life goes on,
he uses Bruce Wayne
256
00:14:35,667 --> 00:14:38,629
in order to facilitate what Batman does.
257
00:14:38,712 --> 00:14:41,173
Bruce Wayne is the mask.
Batman is the real character.
258
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:45,093
What Marvel did in the '60s
was they switched the paradigm.
259
00:14:45,177 --> 00:14:47,221
It's Peter Parker who's really important,
260
00:14:47,304 --> 00:14:50,807
and when he puts on the mask,
that becomes the facade.
261
00:14:50,891 --> 00:14:52,851
He becomes somebody completely different.
262
00:14:52,935 --> 00:14:55,354
He's able to quip.
He's no more the shy kid from school.
263
00:14:55,437 --> 00:14:57,606
He's able to do all these different things
264
00:14:57,689 --> 00:15:00,275
that he's not able to do
in his regular world.
265
00:15:01,485 --> 00:15:03,529
RALPH MACCHIO: With Spider-Man,
for example,
266
00:15:03,612 --> 00:15:05,656
you were really interested
in Peter Parker.
267
00:15:05,739 --> 00:15:09,076
You were more interested in his life
than what he did as Spider-Man.
268
00:15:09,159 --> 00:15:11,245
It was "What was
going to happen with Aunt May?
269
00:15:11,328 --> 00:15:13,288
"Was he gonna be able to pay the bills?
270
00:15:13,372 --> 00:15:15,749
"What was his romantic life
going to be like?"
271
00:15:15,832 --> 00:15:19,336
You had Flash Thompson
who is this high school jock
272
00:15:19,419 --> 00:15:22,756
and he despised Peter Parker
and he mercilessly picked on him.
273
00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:25,467
But Flash Thompson
was a huge fan of Spider-Man.
274
00:15:25,551 --> 00:15:26,969
So, that was great.
275
00:15:27,594 --> 00:15:31,723
That was just another way of Stan playing
with the idea of secret identities again.
276
00:15:32,266 --> 00:15:35,269
What lonely kid,
and if you're not a lonely kid
277
00:15:35,352 --> 00:15:37,437
you have no business reading comic books.
278
00:15:37,521 --> 00:15:40,858
What lonely kid
has not loved the idea of...
279
00:15:40,941 --> 00:15:43,360
"Oh, if they only knew who I really was"?
280
00:15:44,653 --> 00:15:46,989
Peter Parker, classic example, you know?
281
00:15:47,072 --> 00:15:50,701
The kid everybody bullies
and picks on and takes lightly.
282
00:15:50,784 --> 00:15:55,038
And he puts on the mask, he's not
just this great athlete and a superhero,
283
00:15:55,122 --> 00:15:56,248
he's a smart aleck.
284
00:15:57,332 --> 00:15:59,334
JENKINS:
I love that Peter Parker is tongue-tied
285
00:15:59,418 --> 00:16:02,212
and Spider-Man zings
one-liners right and left.
286
00:16:02,296 --> 00:16:05,924
It's circling the villain
and just making total nonsense
287
00:16:06,008 --> 00:16:10,179
of his ability to even think as he's
trying to do his grandiose monologue.
288
00:16:10,262 --> 00:16:13,265
But that gap between
the tongue-tied Peter Parker
289
00:16:13,348 --> 00:16:16,643
and the zinger-slinging Spider-Man
290
00:16:16,727 --> 00:16:20,105
sort of captures something
of the ways we see ourselves.
291
00:16:20,189 --> 00:16:23,942
The person we see ourselves as being
and the person we'd like to be
292
00:16:24,026 --> 00:16:26,695
are both brought together
around the same figure.
293
00:16:26,778 --> 00:16:29,072
When I would pick up
a Marvel comic book,
294
00:16:29,698 --> 00:16:34,411
it taught me to, in life,
describe yourself with an adjective
295
00:16:34,494 --> 00:16:36,205
and tell the world who you are.
296
00:16:36,288 --> 00:16:39,708
For instance, The Amazing Spider-Man,
297
00:16:39,791 --> 00:16:43,629
The Incredible Hulk,
The Invincible Iron Man.
298
00:16:43,712 --> 00:16:48,217
And I remembered the description
of those characters always stuck in me,
299
00:16:48,300 --> 00:16:51,094
you know, to the point where, sometimes,
300
00:16:51,178 --> 00:16:53,514
when I would have to walk
from my house to school,
301
00:16:53,597 --> 00:16:56,558
I would say, "Today I'ma be
The Invincible Iron Man,"
302
00:16:56,642 --> 00:16:59,728
and if these bullies
come mess with me or, you know...
303
00:16:59,811 --> 00:17:02,231
"I'ma be stealth today.
I'ma be like Spider-Man."
304
00:17:02,314 --> 00:17:04,483
So when hip-hop came over,
well, to me it was like,
305
00:17:04,566 --> 00:17:08,362
"Oh, my God, you can
tell stories about yourself over music?"
306
00:17:08,445 --> 00:17:11,990
So my whole career,
I was just pretending to be
307
00:17:12,074 --> 00:17:15,536
"the most powerful entity
in the hip-hop universe."
308
00:17:15,619 --> 00:17:20,916
And that imaginative
creation of character and identity
309
00:17:20,999 --> 00:17:22,376
was all because of comic books.
310
00:17:23,085 --> 00:17:24,211
When I get on that mic,
311
00:17:24,294 --> 00:17:26,964
I'm no longer mild-mannered,
Catholic school kid
312
00:17:27,047 --> 00:17:29,883
wearing glasses, nerdy,
comic-book-reading, straight-A student.
313
00:17:29,967 --> 00:17:32,970
I transform into the mighty...
314
00:17:33,053 --> 00:17:35,013
DMC doesn't mean Darryl McDaniels anymore.
315
00:17:35,097 --> 00:17:39,101
Now it means
"The Devastating, Mic-Controlling," DMC.
316
00:17:39,184 --> 00:17:42,312
McDANIELS: (RAPPING)
A superhero like D when it comes to war
317
00:17:42,396 --> 00:17:44,982
I come in like The Hulk
and The Mighty Thor
318
00:17:45,065 --> 00:17:49,611
The most powerful
in the hip-hop universe
319
00:17:52,906 --> 00:17:55,450
BREVOORT: The one choice
that got made very early on
320
00:17:55,534 --> 00:17:59,288
was Stan and Jack put
The Fantastic Four and then Spider-Man
321
00:17:59,371 --> 00:18:03,208
and then The Hulk and then Iron Man,
and so forth in the real world.
322
00:18:03,292 --> 00:18:05,002
"Well, what's the big deal about that?"
323
00:18:05,085 --> 00:18:08,380
Up to that point, superheroes existed
in sort of fantasy worlds.
324
00:18:08,463 --> 00:18:11,383
Superman lived in Metropolis,
which was not a real city.
325
00:18:11,466 --> 00:18:14,511
It was an idealized version
of whatever New York was,
326
00:18:14,595 --> 00:18:16,430
but not a real place.
327
00:18:16,513 --> 00:18:22,394
It blew my mind
when Peter Parker really lived in Queens.
328
00:18:22,477 --> 00:18:27,149
Stan Lee was a genius because the
superheroes was really in New York City.
329
00:18:27,232 --> 00:18:29,776
So, it wasn't pretend to me. It was real.
330
00:18:29,860 --> 00:18:31,069
(CROWD CLAMORING)
331
00:18:35,782 --> 00:18:37,451
QUESADA:
Stan was so ahead of the curve.
332
00:18:37,534 --> 00:18:40,412
And to me, that was ultimately
the hope of Marvel comics.
333
00:18:40,495 --> 00:18:43,832
'Cause if you're growing up in the '60s,
in those incredibly turbulent times.
334
00:18:43,916 --> 00:18:46,043
The civil rights movement,
the women's lib movement.
335
00:18:46,126 --> 00:18:47,419
Everything was just bubbling.
336
00:18:47,503 --> 00:18:50,005
And Stan and Jack
and everyone that was there,
337
00:18:50,088 --> 00:18:52,466
they present a world in which it just is.
338
00:18:53,425 --> 00:18:56,178
BREVOORT: Stuff is going on everywhere.
It's in the news.
339
00:18:56,261 --> 00:19:00,974
And both Stan and Jack, in their own ways,
are aware of it and respond to it.
340
00:19:01,058 --> 00:19:05,312
Steve Ditko, he would just start sticking
characters of color into crowd scenes.
341
00:19:05,896 --> 00:19:09,107
There'd be a bunch of kids
at Peter Parker's high school
342
00:19:09,191 --> 00:19:10,901
and there'd be Black kids.
343
00:19:10,984 --> 00:19:13,487
He would just draw them
that way and there they were.
344
00:19:13,570 --> 00:19:15,614
And there would be
no comment about it, you know?
345
00:19:15,697 --> 00:19:18,659
Nobody would address it or anything.
They were just there.
346
00:19:18,742 --> 00:19:20,035
There's an issue of Spider-Man
347
00:19:20,118 --> 00:19:23,914
where Spider-Man has been trapped
by the Green Goblin and the Crime Master
348
00:19:23,997 --> 00:19:26,416
and these, like, two or three beat cops
349
00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:29,461
come to help him out
and one of them is African-American.
350
00:19:30,087 --> 00:19:33,882
Has the comic book industry
been pressured much by Black people
351
00:19:33,966 --> 00:19:37,094
to get more Blacks into the comics
or does that have anything to do with it?
352
00:19:37,177 --> 00:19:40,013
Again, I can't really talk
to the whole comic book industry,
353
00:19:40,097 --> 00:19:42,808
but as far as we're concerned,
it didn't require any pressure.
354
00:19:42,891 --> 00:19:45,769
We were doing it before there was
talk of the Black Movement.
355
00:19:47,563 --> 00:19:50,983
Ten years ago we had a book called
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos.
356
00:19:51,066 --> 00:19:54,653
We billed it as the war magazine
for people who hate war magazines.
357
00:19:54,736 --> 00:19:56,947
We didn't try to play up
Black people particularly,
358
00:19:57,030 --> 00:19:58,532
but we tried to make it realistic.
359
00:19:58,615 --> 00:20:02,744
And Sgt. Fury's platoon
had a Jewish boy named Izzy Cohen,
360
00:20:02,828 --> 00:20:06,874
an Italian named Dino Manelli,
a Black soldier named Gabe Jones,
361
00:20:06,957 --> 00:20:08,458
and we've been doing it ever since.
362
00:20:08,542 --> 00:20:12,004
Just about every one of our books
has Black people in it
363
00:20:12,087 --> 00:20:13,380
and people of all types.
364
00:20:13,463 --> 00:20:15,632
And not in a token way
365
00:20:15,716 --> 00:20:18,927
but, my God, there are people
of all types in the world we live in.
366
00:20:20,846 --> 00:20:22,055
(INAUDIBLE)
367
00:20:32,733 --> 00:20:35,903
And the one that sort of
changed the game in terms of,
368
00:20:35,986 --> 00:20:40,324
yeah, bringing characters of color into
the superhero world is the Black Panther.
369
00:20:40,407 --> 00:20:44,203
He was debuted in Fantastic Four,
and Fantastic Four was, at the time,
370
00:20:44,286 --> 00:20:45,746
Marvel's best-selling comic.
371
00:20:45,829 --> 00:20:49,750
And in that first issue, Panther
is treated like any other character.
372
00:20:49,833 --> 00:20:51,502
In a sense, surprisingly well.
373
00:20:51,585 --> 00:20:56,256
The fact that he is
an African hero is almost secondary.
374
00:20:56,340 --> 00:20:58,634
He shows up.
At first, he's a mysterious player,
375
00:20:58,717 --> 00:21:01,887
he invites
the Fantastic Four to his country.
376
00:21:01,970 --> 00:21:05,849
He immediately jumps them and spends
20 pages beating the hell out of them.
377
00:21:06,475 --> 00:21:08,977
It turns out, by the end of the thing,
he's not a villain,
378
00:21:09,061 --> 00:21:12,314
he's actually a good guy,
and he's doing this to test himself,
379
00:21:12,397 --> 00:21:15,484
you know, which is kind of a
crappy thing to do to the Fantastic Four,
380
00:21:15,567 --> 00:21:16,735
but they're superheroes.
381
00:21:16,818 --> 00:21:19,238
It's all part of the job,
and by the end of the issue,
382
00:21:19,321 --> 00:21:21,823
he takes off his cowl
in front of the Fantastic Four
383
00:21:21,907 --> 00:21:24,201
and they're all like,
"It's the King of Wakanda,"
384
00:21:24,284 --> 00:21:28,622
and nobody says a word about the fact
that he's a Black man.
385
00:21:29,748 --> 00:21:33,669
QUESADA: For the readers, you know,
when T'Challa takes off his mask,
386
00:21:33,752 --> 00:21:37,714
the readers go,
"Oh, my God. It's a Black superhero."
387
00:21:37,798 --> 00:21:40,175
But the Fantastic Four,
they don't say that.
388
00:21:40,259 --> 00:21:43,762
The beauty of it was that it just was.
389
00:21:43,846 --> 00:21:46,056
So if you're in the middle
of all this strife,
390
00:21:46,139 --> 00:21:47,933
in the middle of all this upheaval,
391
00:21:48,016 --> 00:21:51,562
you read those books and you go,
"That's the world I want to live in.
392
00:21:51,645 --> 00:21:52,896
"That's where I want to be."
393
00:21:54,314 --> 00:21:57,401
SANDERSON:
The Black Panther, T'Challa, is a king.
394
00:21:57,985 --> 00:22:00,070
I think this was
a conscious choice to make,
395
00:22:00,153 --> 00:22:01,947
that the Black Panther is very impressive.
396
00:22:02,030 --> 00:22:04,992
That is, in effect,
the point of the first story.
397
00:22:05,576 --> 00:22:10,330
I think it is meant to bowl the readers
over, to impress them with this guy.
398
00:22:11,373 --> 00:22:14,501
What's amazing about
a lot of the early superheroes
399
00:22:14,585 --> 00:22:20,215
is that sometimes those
early characters came out perfect, right?
400
00:22:20,299 --> 00:22:22,926
It's like, normally,
the first pancake isn't so good,
401
00:22:23,010 --> 00:22:26,054
but Superman, perfect.
402
00:22:26,597 --> 00:22:28,098
Batman, perfect.
403
00:22:28,182 --> 00:22:31,643
(CHUCKLES) Wonder Woman, perfect.
Captain America, perfect.
404
00:22:31,727 --> 00:22:37,274
So the first Black superhero,
Black Panther, comes out perfect.
405
00:22:37,357 --> 00:22:42,237
He's this cool, elegant,
handsome guy who's just got it on locked.
406
00:22:42,321 --> 00:22:46,158
I love it! This is the guy who has it all.
407
00:22:46,742 --> 00:22:51,205
And one by one, he beats
each member of the Fantastic Four.
408
00:22:51,788 --> 00:22:56,752
Now, a few issues ago,
they beat Galactus, who eats planets.
409
00:22:57,586 --> 00:23:01,548
So Black Panther beats the guys
who beat Galactus.
410
00:23:02,174 --> 00:23:06,845
Ergo, Black Panther is the baddest cat
in the Marvel Universe. The end.
411
00:23:08,472 --> 00:23:10,516
BREVOORT:
Now, by '66, it was pretty clear
412
00:23:10,599 --> 00:23:13,393
that the Marvel approach
to doing comics was working.
413
00:23:13,477 --> 00:23:15,729
Stan and Jack and Steve,
everybody realized,
414
00:23:15,812 --> 00:23:18,524
like, "Something's going on here.
We're selling really well
415
00:23:18,607 --> 00:23:21,401
"and proportionately selling
better than everybody else."
416
00:23:21,485 --> 00:23:24,738
And, in fact, it would be 10 years
417
00:23:24,821 --> 00:23:30,452
before rival companies had any ongoing
Black characters in a lot of cases.
418
00:23:30,536 --> 00:23:33,914
ARCHIE GOODWIN: These are character
sketches I had John Romita work on for us.
419
00:23:33,997 --> 00:23:35,999
Great. Now this is the way he really is.
420
00:23:36,083 --> 00:23:37,793
-This is it in real life.
-Yeah.
421
00:23:37,876 --> 00:23:40,170
And this is how
Johnny's tried to glamorize it a bit.
422
00:23:40,254 --> 00:23:45,175
LEE: I like the pilot very much, yeah.
She's a Black girl. That's good.
423
00:23:45,259 --> 00:23:47,928
MAGGIE THOMPSON: One of the problems
with diversity in comics
424
00:23:48,011 --> 00:23:53,642
is that though the creators may seek to
have diverse characters in their stories
425
00:23:53,725 --> 00:23:55,269
and diverse storylines
426
00:23:56,061 --> 00:24:00,732
for years and years and years,
the primary writers and artists
427
00:24:00,816 --> 00:24:04,152
were white guys
in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.
428
00:24:04,862 --> 00:24:07,322
PRIEST:
I'm the first African-American editor,
429
00:24:07,406 --> 00:24:10,158
and to my knowledge,
the first African-American writer
430
00:24:10,242 --> 00:24:12,911
in, what we consider,
modern superhero comics.
431
00:24:13,495 --> 00:24:15,497
I was 17 years old
when I started working there.
432
00:24:15,581 --> 00:24:19,126
I had no idea that I was
the first Black guy in the front office.
433
00:24:19,209 --> 00:24:21,461
I remember one morning,
I came out of subway
434
00:24:21,545 --> 00:24:25,299
and I was skipping down Madison Avenue.
435
00:24:25,382 --> 00:24:29,178
I was skipping to work,
'cause I couldn't wait to get there.
436
00:24:29,261 --> 00:24:31,805
At some point, a couple blocks,
I realized I was skipping
437
00:24:31,889 --> 00:24:33,557
and I said, "Black people don't skip."
438
00:24:36,268 --> 00:24:39,313
DENYS COWAN: Rich offered
to take me to DC Comics
439
00:24:39,396 --> 00:24:42,399
and introduce me
to editors there to show my work,
440
00:24:42,482 --> 00:24:45,444
and the first person he took me in
to was the art director at DC.
441
00:24:45,527 --> 00:24:47,613
I went and showed this guy my work.
442
00:24:47,696 --> 00:24:49,823
It was a white guy. Everyone was white.
443
00:24:50,657 --> 00:24:54,203
Nodded at me and he looked at it,
put it all together, handed it back,
444
00:24:54,286 --> 00:24:56,288
and he said, "This is really great, kid,
445
00:24:56,371 --> 00:24:58,957
"but we already got
a colored artist working here."
446
00:25:04,505 --> 00:25:09,218
Shortly after that, I was up at Marvel
and I met the editor at the time.
447
00:25:09,301 --> 00:25:12,346
I think it was Jim Shooter.
And he didn't call me a colored artist.
448
00:25:12,429 --> 00:25:16,642
He just said, "Go see this editor
and they'll see what they can do for you."
449
00:25:16,725 --> 00:25:18,977
NOCENTI: People always say,
"Was there sexism?"
450
00:25:19,061 --> 00:25:20,896
There was kind of the opposite of sexism.
451
00:25:20,979 --> 00:25:24,816
Even though there
weren't many female fans yet,
452
00:25:25,609 --> 00:25:30,447
and, probably, the percentage
of the office was mostly guys,
453
00:25:30,531 --> 00:25:32,324
everybody was a mentor.
454
00:25:32,407 --> 00:25:36,954
On any typical day at Marvel Comic,
there was an open door policy,
455
00:25:37,037 --> 00:25:41,124
any kid could come in with
his portfolio and annoy us long enough
456
00:25:41,208 --> 00:25:43,293
'til somebody would pick it up and go,
457
00:25:44,211 --> 00:25:46,964
"Okay. Well, here's a sample page.
Try inking that."
458
00:25:47,047 --> 00:25:50,509
And then as the day went on, you'd get
the bottle of whiskey out of the drawer
459
00:25:50,592 --> 00:25:53,637
and, you know, and then (BLEEP) happens.
460
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:54,847
Story ideas come up.
461
00:25:55,931 --> 00:26:02,020
PRIEST: I can't express enough how much
fun these lunatics were who worked there.
462
00:26:02,104 --> 00:26:04,857
Everybody was just a lunatic at Marvel.
463
00:26:04,940 --> 00:26:07,568
It was completely unpolitically correct.
464
00:26:07,651 --> 00:26:09,319
Yes, there were Black jokes,
465
00:26:09,403 --> 00:26:12,739
but there were Polish jokes, there were
Italian jokes, there were Jewish jokes.
466
00:26:12,823 --> 00:26:16,159
So I had no sense,
when I started writing Black characters,
467
00:26:16,243 --> 00:26:19,162
of changing a paradigm
or making a statement.
468
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:21,707
BREVOORT: Moving into the '70s,
469
00:26:21,790 --> 00:26:25,836
as there was more of an interest in
developing further superheroes of color,
470
00:26:25,919 --> 00:26:28,922
I don't know how much
anybody was thinking that hard
471
00:26:29,006 --> 00:26:31,175
about a lot of the choices that were made.
472
00:26:31,258 --> 00:26:34,219
A lot of the writers
and artists were very young.
473
00:26:34,303 --> 00:26:38,557
So, even the amount of life experience
that a number of these people had
474
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,518
probably colored the way
they depicted things.
475
00:26:41,602 --> 00:26:44,646
They absorbed the culture
that was around them like everybody else,
476
00:26:44,730 --> 00:26:47,107
and it filtered through
the work that they did.
477
00:26:47,191 --> 00:26:51,862
So there are definitely instances
where people didn't present characters
478
00:26:51,945 --> 00:26:53,822
as well as they could have.
479
00:26:53,906 --> 00:26:57,367
You know, Luke Cage in particular,
he was intended to be, effectively,
480
00:26:57,451 --> 00:26:58,869
a blaxploitation character.
481
00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:02,039
Luke Cage was created
because of Shaft.
482
00:27:03,415 --> 00:27:06,084
That's what led
to that blaxploitation period.
483
00:27:07,878 --> 00:27:10,464
PRIEST: Marvel went through
a blaxploitation phase
484
00:27:10,547 --> 00:27:15,385
with Brother VooDoo and Luke Cage,
you know, "Sweet Christmas."
485
00:27:15,469 --> 00:27:18,388
TONY ISABELLA: I was very drawn
to characters of color.
486
00:27:18,472 --> 00:27:20,807
And this stems
from my growing up in Cleveland,
487
00:27:20,891 --> 00:27:23,727
which was a very segregated town,
488
00:27:23,810 --> 00:27:27,731
and my first Black friends
were comic book fans,
489
00:27:27,814 --> 00:27:29,525
and I thought it was really unfair
490
00:27:29,608 --> 00:27:31,860
that there weren't
more Black characters for them.
491
00:27:31,944 --> 00:27:35,781
WALKER: Luke Cage, as a child, was one of
my most favorite books at Marvel.
492
00:27:35,864 --> 00:27:38,200
My cousin and I
discovered Luke Cage together
493
00:27:38,283 --> 00:27:40,744
at a 7-Eleven in the '70s
when we were kids.
494
00:27:40,827 --> 00:27:42,829
We read that comic until it fell apart.
495
00:27:43,705 --> 00:27:47,835
DUFFY: I think it's because he was one
of the first African-American superheroes
496
00:27:47,918 --> 00:27:49,545
that they didn't wanna mask him.
497
00:27:49,628 --> 00:27:52,297
It's like,
they were so doing the right thing,
498
00:27:52,381 --> 00:27:56,593
finally having heroes of color, it was,
like, yeah, they wanted people to see
499
00:27:56,677 --> 00:28:00,514
this strong, handsome champion
of justice who was also a man of color.
500
00:28:00,597 --> 00:28:02,307
If you read the Luke Cage comics,
501
00:28:02,391 --> 00:28:06,770
there's nothing about Luke Cage
that is actually a Black person, right?
502
00:28:06,854 --> 00:28:08,564
The way he talks, the way he acts,
503
00:28:08,647 --> 00:28:12,234
there's this bizarre notion
of what "Blackness" is supposed to be.
504
00:28:12,317 --> 00:28:14,611
PRIEST: A lot of artists,
when they approach Black characters,
505
00:28:14,695 --> 00:28:18,448
they give them this sort of slang.
And it's not real slang.
506
00:28:18,532 --> 00:28:21,618
It's like what white people
think slang is.
507
00:28:21,702 --> 00:28:25,038
WALKER: A lot of times you square with,
what I call, the lack of humanity
508
00:28:25,122 --> 00:28:28,000
in some of these characters
the same way you reconcile
509
00:28:28,083 --> 00:28:32,504
your childhood love of a James Bond movie
and then watch it as an adult and go,
510
00:28:32,588 --> 00:28:35,966
"Ooh, wait a sec. James Bond
is hugely problematic, right?"
511
00:28:37,134 --> 00:28:39,887
ISABELLA: When I was writing
Luke Cage in the '70s,
512
00:28:39,970 --> 00:28:42,890
I wasn't, as they say,
as woke as I am now.
513
00:28:42,973 --> 00:28:46,977
I tried to tell good stories
that respected the character,
514
00:28:47,060 --> 00:28:52,107
that treated him not as
something special but just a great hero.
515
00:28:52,191 --> 00:28:54,860
This was a growth process for all of us.
516
00:28:54,943 --> 00:28:59,114
You don't suddenly wake up
to the world around you and go,
517
00:28:59,198 --> 00:29:02,242
"This is how it should be."
You work your way towards there.
518
00:29:03,535 --> 00:29:06,121
PRIEST: It's rare for me to craft a story
519
00:29:06,205 --> 00:29:08,874
from the perspective
of being a Black writer,
520
00:29:08,957 --> 00:29:12,336
because I don't
consider myself a "Black writer."
521
00:29:12,419 --> 00:29:14,087
I'm a writer. I can write anything.
522
00:29:15,464 --> 00:29:17,674
I wrote Luke Cage for a long time.
523
00:29:18,425 --> 00:29:20,802
Eventually I said, "Well, on demerits,
524
00:29:20,886 --> 00:29:23,347
"how should this person
present themselves?"
525
00:29:23,430 --> 00:29:27,726
I didn't have him using the King's speech,
but some of that stuff had to go.
526
00:29:30,562 --> 00:29:32,981
JENNINGS: I think that it does start out
as this exploitative piece,
527
00:29:33,065 --> 00:29:36,568
but through, like, reappropriation,
we can actually start to sample
528
00:29:36,652 --> 00:29:38,695
and remix these things
and make them our own.
529
00:29:40,197 --> 00:29:42,616
To go from, say,
like this kind of jive-talkin',
530
00:29:42,699 --> 00:29:44,368
steel-hard skin-having character
531
00:29:44,451 --> 00:29:47,955
to this really complex
father figure and leader
532
00:29:48,038 --> 00:29:50,999
who resonates with
a lot of people who live in this country.
533
00:29:52,042 --> 00:29:53,293
I love Luke Cage, you know?
534
00:29:55,003 --> 00:29:57,214
NICOLE GEORGES:
I think identity in comics is huge.
535
00:29:57,297 --> 00:30:00,133
'Cause when you're a kid,
those are the people you look up to,
536
00:30:00,217 --> 00:30:01,927
'cause they represent good.
537
00:30:02,010 --> 00:30:05,055
On the page, it's like,
"This person's good, this person's evil."
538
00:30:05,138 --> 00:30:07,182
I think everyone deserves
to see themselves
539
00:30:07,266 --> 00:30:09,059
reflected in the media they consume,
540
00:30:09,142 --> 00:30:11,395
and it is crazy to think
541
00:30:11,478 --> 00:30:14,022
that people would spend
so much money on entertainment
542
00:30:14,106 --> 00:30:16,525
that does not at all
reflect back their body type,
543
00:30:16,608 --> 00:30:19,611
their class background,
their race, their sexuality, their gender.
544
00:30:19,695 --> 00:30:23,323
It's wild that people have been
entertained solely by products
545
00:30:23,407 --> 00:30:25,576
that didn't reflect
any of those things back to them,
546
00:30:25,659 --> 00:30:28,495
or did in like a real homogeneous way,
for years and years.
547
00:30:28,579 --> 00:30:30,289
(SINGING) Rubbley-ub-dub,
548
00:30:30,372 --> 00:30:32,624
Oh, how she'll get ya with her
Rubbley-ub-dub
549
00:30:33,333 --> 00:30:35,586
She'll really throw ya with her
Rubbley-ub-dub,
550
00:30:36,128 --> 00:30:38,547
Hear them yelling...
551
00:30:38,630 --> 00:30:42,217
JENNINGS: Comics in particular,
they utilize stereotypes to tell stories.
552
00:30:42,301 --> 00:30:45,637
That's one of the reasons why
you have so many problematic constructions
553
00:30:45,721 --> 00:30:49,474
around race in comics because they're
generally borrowing from social norms.
554
00:30:49,558 --> 00:30:52,311
For instance, at the end of the heyday
of the Golden Age of comics,
555
00:30:52,394 --> 00:30:55,147
you have these really,
really horrific racial stereotypes.
556
00:30:55,230 --> 00:30:58,692
A lot of the propaganda around
Asian people during the Second World War.
557
00:30:59,735 --> 00:31:02,946
PAK: There was a time when Asian people
in comics were colored yellow.
558
00:31:03,030 --> 00:31:04,698
They literally used yellow.
559
00:31:05,532 --> 00:31:06,950
Larry Hama talks about this.
560
00:31:07,034 --> 00:31:12,247
I would just say, "Hey, maybe we should
stop coloring Asian people bright yellow."
561
00:31:13,916 --> 00:31:17,586
"Well, why do we do that?"
"Oh, well, we've always done that."
562
00:31:17,669 --> 00:31:22,049
"Well, uh, maybe it's time
we stopped doing that." (CHUCKLES)
563
00:31:22,883 --> 00:31:26,178
BREVOORT: The very first issue of
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos,
564
00:31:26,261 --> 00:31:28,138
Gabe Jones is colored Caucasian.
565
00:31:28,722 --> 00:31:32,643
And he's colored Caucasian
because essentially up to that point,
566
00:31:32,726 --> 00:31:37,189
there really had not been,
in comic books, a character of color.
567
00:31:37,272 --> 00:31:39,316
There were no Black people
568
00:31:39,399 --> 00:31:44,112
apart from Amos 'n Andy,
stereotypical, bug-eyed, big-lipped,
569
00:31:44,196 --> 00:31:46,448
Stepin Fetchit kind of caricatures.
570
00:31:46,532 --> 00:31:49,701
And so, the book was sent
to the printer and the color separator,
571
00:31:49,785 --> 00:31:52,996
and the color separator went,
"This must be a mistake,"
572
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,123
colored him Caucasian like everybody else.
573
00:31:55,207 --> 00:31:58,335
And Stan had to call him up
and kind of ream them out over it
574
00:31:58,418 --> 00:32:00,337
and get it corrected for future issues.
575
00:32:00,420 --> 00:32:03,507
And, in fact, in those early issues
and in those early years,
576
00:32:03,590 --> 00:32:07,302
they don't even quite have
a skin tone that works.
577
00:32:07,386 --> 00:32:12,349
Gabe Jones ends up looking more gray
and more like stone in a lot of issues
578
00:32:12,432 --> 00:32:16,478
than he does
a true, rich African-American brown,
579
00:32:16,562 --> 00:32:20,232
because literally they just couldn't
figure out what's the combination
580
00:32:20,315 --> 00:32:25,153
of red, yellow, blue
to get a skin tone that works.
581
00:32:26,071 --> 00:32:28,907
HAMA: You can yell and pound the desk
all you want.
582
00:32:28,991 --> 00:32:34,872
What that type of aggression does
is it steels people against you.
583
00:32:34,955 --> 00:32:39,168
It's more lasting and it has more meaning
if you become part of what it is
584
00:32:39,251 --> 00:32:40,836
and change it internally.
585
00:32:41,879 --> 00:32:43,922
When I went to work at Marvel on staff,
586
00:32:44,006 --> 00:32:47,050
they were reprinting stories
from the 1950s,
587
00:32:47,134 --> 00:32:49,428
and one of the books
was Jungle Action.
588
00:32:50,596 --> 00:32:51,805
And in those books,
589
00:32:51,889 --> 00:32:54,391
they were reprinting
a lot of these really racist
590
00:32:54,474 --> 00:32:57,311
jungle blonde Gods and Goddesses
591
00:32:57,394 --> 00:32:59,271
saving the natives stories.
592
00:32:59,354 --> 00:33:02,149
(CHUCKLES) I would say to editorial,
593
00:33:02,232 --> 00:33:08,113
"I can't believe Marvel
is publishing this stuff in 1973.
594
00:33:08,197 --> 00:33:09,781
"What are you guys, crazy?"
595
00:33:09,865 --> 00:33:12,951
And I know I must have
said something like,
596
00:33:13,035 --> 00:33:17,289
"Can't you at least have an African
character be the hero?" (CHUCKLES)
597
00:33:17,372 --> 00:33:18,373
They came and said,
598
00:33:18,457 --> 00:33:21,627
"We're gonna put
the Black Panther into Jungle Action."
599
00:33:21,710 --> 00:33:25,130
I don't think editorial
had really thought what that meant.
600
00:33:25,756 --> 00:33:28,634
Since everybody in the cast was Wakandan,
601
00:33:28,717 --> 00:33:30,928
it was going to be
an all-Black cast of characters.
602
00:33:31,011 --> 00:33:35,641
This has never been done
in an American comic book series before.
603
00:33:41,855 --> 00:33:45,651
SANDERSON: Don McGregor, his Black Panther
was a cutting-edge series at the time.
604
00:33:45,734 --> 00:33:47,277
He's the one who really created
605
00:33:47,361 --> 00:33:51,406
this incredibly futuristic,
super-scientific society.
606
00:33:51,490 --> 00:33:53,617
The world, the civilization of Wakanda.
607
00:33:54,785 --> 00:33:58,497
DOUGLAS WOLK: One thing that Marvel
did a lot that's fantastic
608
00:33:58,580 --> 00:34:03,001
is they loved to play with tropes
and they loved to turn them upside down.
609
00:34:03,085 --> 00:34:07,130
So the Black Panther, he's in Africa.
It's deep, dark Africa.
610
00:34:07,214 --> 00:34:10,467
This unexplored place.
Trope, trope, tropety-trope.
611
00:34:10,551 --> 00:34:14,888
And Wakanda is a technological paradise
and the most wealthy country in the world.
612
00:34:14,972 --> 00:34:17,808
Wait a second.
This is not a trope anymore.
613
00:34:19,685 --> 00:34:23,355
JENNINGS: The most interesting thing
I think about the Black Panther story
614
00:34:23,438 --> 00:34:26,650
is this idea of an untouched Black space.
615
00:34:26,733 --> 00:34:29,653
It's a space of power
and it's a space of celebration.
616
00:34:30,404 --> 00:34:34,157
Seeing this open, technologically
advanced, beautiful society,
617
00:34:34,241 --> 00:34:36,326
it brought me to tears
almost instantaneously.
618
00:34:41,623 --> 00:34:44,626
DON McGREGOR: There was a resurgence
of the Ku Klux Klan at the time...
619
00:34:45,544 --> 00:34:49,298
and that's how
the Panther versus the Klan came about.
620
00:34:50,674 --> 00:34:52,384
T'Challa is with Monica Lynne,
621
00:34:52,467 --> 00:34:54,428
who's the woman
he is with at that timeframe.
622
00:34:54,511 --> 00:34:58,473
And they start talking about an uncle
she had during the Reconstruction period,
623
00:34:58,557 --> 00:35:01,226
after the Civil War, in the United States.
624
00:35:01,310 --> 00:35:03,812
And when the mother tells the story,
625
00:35:03,896 --> 00:35:07,566
she's telling what historically happened
to her Uncle Caleb.
626
00:35:08,317 --> 00:35:12,487
And in alternate pages,
we have Monica thinking of it the way,
627
00:35:12,571 --> 00:35:16,575
if T'Challa existed
back in 1868 Reconstruction America.
628
00:35:20,662 --> 00:35:22,289
This goes right to the heart of,
629
00:35:22,372 --> 00:35:25,959
"Why do people love costume
and superheroes in comics?"
630
00:35:26,043 --> 00:35:28,295
'Cause T'Challa makes it come out right.
631
00:35:28,378 --> 00:35:30,839
And in the real world, Caleb gets hung.
632
00:35:34,259 --> 00:35:37,179
As the books went along,
it became more and more apparent
633
00:35:37,262 --> 00:35:39,723
that they did not want
an all-Black cast of characters.
634
00:35:39,806 --> 00:35:41,600
They wanted
the Avengers to be brought in
635
00:35:41,683 --> 00:35:43,352
to help the Black Panther out.
636
00:35:43,435 --> 00:35:44,937
I said, "No, this is not that book.
637
00:35:45,020 --> 00:35:47,481
"I don't want it to be a book
where the white guys come in
638
00:35:47,564 --> 00:35:49,816
"and help the Black guy
'cause he can't do it.
639
00:35:49,900 --> 00:35:51,151
"T'Challa can take care of it.
640
00:35:51,235 --> 00:35:53,529
"He doesn't need
anybody else to be coming in there.
641
00:35:53,612 --> 00:35:55,697
"And he'll take care
of the important issues."
642
00:35:56,573 --> 00:36:00,077
ISABELLA: There was a time when
The Black Panther became The Black Leopard
643
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:02,246
because Marvel was afraid
644
00:36:02,329 --> 00:36:05,207
that he'd be associated
with the Black Panther party.
645
00:36:05,290 --> 00:36:10,087
There was a time when T'Challa
became a school teacher in America,
646
00:36:10,170 --> 00:36:15,717
and that seemed to me
not quite right for an African king.
647
00:36:16,218 --> 00:36:18,303
Everybody makes mistakes.
648
00:36:18,387 --> 00:36:20,639
The question is
what you do from those mistakes.
649
00:36:20,722 --> 00:36:21,723
Do you learn from them?
650
00:36:26,937 --> 00:36:28,063
Stay quiet!
651
00:36:28,981 --> 00:36:33,360
CONWAY: There was a tendency under Stan,
and whatever his strengths were,
652
00:36:34,278 --> 00:36:36,989
writing strong
female characters were not among them.
653
00:36:37,072 --> 00:36:39,783
He tended to treat
all of the female characters
654
00:36:39,867 --> 00:36:43,453
as the lady scientist
in bad 1950s horror movies.
655
00:36:44,413 --> 00:36:48,375
Beautiful, but not too bright.
A female character has to be rescued.
656
00:36:48,959 --> 00:36:50,127
(SCREAMS)
657
00:36:53,797 --> 00:36:56,383
WOLK: So one really interesting thing
about Marvel's history
658
00:36:56,466 --> 00:36:58,927
is that at the same time
659
00:36:59,011 --> 00:37:02,472
as their superhero line
was starting in the early '60s,
660
00:37:02,556 --> 00:37:05,726
the other half of the line
that they were publishing
661
00:37:05,809 --> 00:37:07,769
was comics about young women.
662
00:37:07,853 --> 00:37:11,565
They were doing Patsy Walker
and Patsy and Hedy.
663
00:37:11,648 --> 00:37:14,443
They were doing
Linda Carter, Student Nurse,
664
00:37:14,526 --> 00:37:18,697
the comedy romance
medical adventures of a student nurse.
665
00:37:18,780 --> 00:37:22,618
And there's a way
in which those got integrated
666
00:37:22,701 --> 00:37:24,953
into the superhero stories.
667
00:37:25,787 --> 00:37:29,124
SANDERSON:
The heroines tend to have lesser powers.
668
00:37:29,208 --> 00:37:34,254
The Wasp got to shrink down
and sting people and fly around.
669
00:37:34,338 --> 00:37:37,674
Sue Storm was sort of
like the housewife at the Fantastic Four.
670
00:37:37,758 --> 00:37:39,843
Originally,
her power was basically to hide.
671
00:37:39,927 --> 00:37:41,094
She turns invisible.
672
00:37:41,678 --> 00:37:44,848
Male characters
were given the very physical powers,
673
00:37:44,932 --> 00:37:49,436
and female characters have
these sort of point and pose powers.
674
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:50,812
So these powers where
675
00:37:50,896 --> 00:37:53,106
you just stand and look nice,
and you point,
676
00:37:53,190 --> 00:37:55,067
and you can do something with your mind.
677
00:37:55,692 --> 00:37:59,780
The power where you can look good
while affecting those around you.
678
00:38:00,489 --> 00:38:03,992
Every time that gender and sexuality
has been addressed in Marvel comics,
679
00:38:04,076 --> 00:38:07,871
it's very representative
of popular thinking at the time.
680
00:38:08,580 --> 00:38:12,125
And strides have been made
with every subsequent generation.
681
00:38:12,209 --> 00:38:13,836
WOMAN: What do we want?
CROWD: E-R-A!
682
00:38:13,919 --> 00:38:16,630
-When do we want it?
-Now!
683
00:38:16,713 --> 00:38:19,883
Stan wanted me
to create a female superhero
684
00:38:19,967 --> 00:38:22,761
that would have the Marvel name
in her character name,
685
00:38:22,845 --> 00:38:28,183
and I brought together elements
from other books that were pre-existing,
686
00:38:28,267 --> 00:38:29,685
such as Carol Danvers,
687
00:38:29,768 --> 00:38:33,397
and gave her an origin story that tied her
into the Captain Marvel series
688
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,818
and tried to create
a feminist superheroine.
689
00:38:38,443 --> 00:38:43,490
When the strip was started in 1976,
like most of the things Marvel did in '76,
690
00:38:43,574 --> 00:38:46,952
it was an attempt to tap into
whatever was going on in the zeitgeist.
691
00:38:47,035 --> 00:38:50,414
Women's lib was big.
We'll do a female super.
692
00:38:50,497 --> 00:38:53,166
She'll be Ms. Marvel.
That will be current.
693
00:38:53,250 --> 00:38:57,629
The first issue cover had a blurb like,
"This female fights back."
694
00:38:58,255 --> 00:39:01,925
My goal was to write a feminist superhero.
695
00:39:02,009 --> 00:39:04,052
In fact, in the first issue,
696
00:39:04,136 --> 00:39:07,097
there's a moment where,
there's a girl with her mom, she says,
697
00:39:07,181 --> 00:39:08,765
"I wanna be like her when I grow up."
698
00:39:08,849 --> 00:39:11,476
And I thought that was
an important thing to try to create,
699
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,314
was a strong-willed
powerful female character
700
00:39:15,397 --> 00:39:20,777
who was independent
and not the object of a romantic liaison.
701
00:39:20,861 --> 00:39:24,156
The book was a feminist book,
702
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,326
much more heavy-handed
than anything I ever did.
703
00:39:27,409 --> 00:39:30,162
She's got the Gloria Steinem glasses
and part down the middle.
704
00:39:30,245 --> 00:39:32,873
And he makes her
an editor of Woman Magazine.
705
00:39:33,790 --> 00:39:38,295
But the Marvel Universe heroes
are ground level heroes.
706
00:39:38,378 --> 00:39:40,506
They are people who have problems
707
00:39:40,589 --> 00:39:44,384
and things go poorly for them
personally, often.
708
00:39:44,468 --> 00:39:49,598
That makes sense to me,
but that also makes Carol a hard fit
709
00:39:50,140 --> 00:39:56,772
because Carol
is this overpowered beautiful blonde.
710
00:39:57,481 --> 00:40:00,776
Like, there's a record scratch there.
711
00:40:00,859 --> 00:40:04,571
Our characters are fundamentally
about who they are behind the mask, right?
712
00:40:04,655 --> 00:40:08,909
But then, anything that anyone knows
about Carol Danvers is the costume.
713
00:40:08,992 --> 00:40:10,285
It's the first thing they look.
714
00:40:10,369 --> 00:40:13,080
It's a bathing suit
with thigh-high boots and a sash,
715
00:40:13,163 --> 00:40:16,375
which I think is the most ineffective way
to beat up bad guys.
716
00:40:16,458 --> 00:40:19,294
And very cold when you're flying
at really high altitudes.
717
00:40:19,878 --> 00:40:24,758
But it was a different time,
and the male gaze was at the forefront.
718
00:40:24,842 --> 00:40:28,053
The way a woman is drawn in a comic
where she has a super skinny waist
719
00:40:28,136 --> 00:40:29,638
and huge bullet boobs.
720
00:40:29,721 --> 00:40:33,183
It's like a different version
of womanhood, and femininity,
721
00:40:33,267 --> 00:40:36,937
and a different version of toughness
because when women are drawn by men,
722
00:40:37,020 --> 00:40:38,480
and trying to show they're tough,
723
00:40:38,564 --> 00:40:41,191
they're often givin' them
male marks of toughness.
724
00:40:41,275 --> 00:40:44,403
Being a woman and being tough
sometimes is different than that,
725
00:40:44,486 --> 00:40:46,572
or more nuanced than that.
726
00:40:48,073 --> 00:40:51,034
JEANINE SCHAEFER: It's not that we need
women to be badasses,
727
00:40:51,118 --> 00:40:55,831
or that we need women
to be strong in some, uh...
728
00:40:55,914 --> 00:40:58,166
socially acceptable way,
729
00:40:58,250 --> 00:41:00,544
but when you have women
who aren't allowed to be flawed,
730
00:41:00,627 --> 00:41:03,755
or they can only look like this,
and they can only do these things,
731
00:41:03,839 --> 00:41:08,343
and they can't make bad choices,
that's boring. You know?
732
00:41:08,427 --> 00:41:10,304
That's nobody's favorite character.
733
00:41:15,893 --> 00:41:20,689
CHRIS CLAREMONT: My mom, when she was
in college, ended up joining the RAF
734
00:41:20,772 --> 00:41:22,524
because she wanted to be a fighter pilot.
735
00:41:22,608 --> 00:41:24,193
They wouldn't let her be one
736
00:41:24,276 --> 00:41:26,236
because women
aren't allowed to fly Spitfires.
737
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:31,408
So she ended up serving on a radar station
on the south coast of Britain in 1940,
738
00:41:31,491 --> 00:41:36,413
which was an extremely adventurous time
to be in that place, doing that job.
739
00:41:36,496 --> 00:41:40,542
So I figure if I know
people who do this for real,
740
00:41:40,626 --> 00:41:44,296
why can't I put their equivalent on paper?
741
00:41:44,379 --> 00:41:47,758
Why should women in comics
just be girlfriends?
742
00:41:47,841 --> 00:41:49,468
Why can't there be boyfriends?
743
00:41:49,551 --> 00:41:51,553
Why can't you create
744
00:41:51,637 --> 00:41:54,598
idiosyncratic individuals
and then put them through hell?
745
00:41:54,681 --> 00:41:56,350
No one else was doing it, I figured,
746
00:41:56,433 --> 00:41:58,644
"The heck?
I'll take a shot and see what happens."
747
00:42:02,564 --> 00:42:05,692
BREVOORT: It's what we think of as
The All-New, All-Different X-Men
748
00:42:05,776 --> 00:42:07,528
that came in around 1975.
749
00:42:08,237 --> 00:42:09,863
They took a group of characters
750
00:42:09,947 --> 00:42:13,242
who originally
were five white American kids
751
00:42:13,325 --> 00:42:17,079
and replaced them
with an international team.
752
00:42:17,996 --> 00:42:20,874
IVAN VELEZ JR.: When I became a teenager,
the Uncanny X-Men came out
753
00:42:20,958 --> 00:42:23,168
and something just took it
to another level for us.
754
00:42:23,252 --> 00:42:27,506
Maybe it was the time, maybe it was
coming off of the civil rights era
755
00:42:27,589 --> 00:42:29,758
but it just seemed like brown skin
756
00:42:29,842 --> 00:42:33,053
and not even brown skin,
like that Black skin,
757
00:42:33,136 --> 00:42:37,599
and their attempts to do Asian skin,
which was still too yellow for my taste,
758
00:42:37,683 --> 00:42:40,310
but it was just
like a beautiful thing just to see.
759
00:42:40,936 --> 00:42:44,231
The X-Men
of the '70s is totally fascinating,
760
00:42:44,314 --> 00:42:46,650
because it's such an aggressive attempt
761
00:42:46,733 --> 00:42:49,278
at the idea
of a representational diversity.
762
00:42:49,361 --> 00:42:51,321
If we look at the X-Men of the early '60s,
763
00:42:51,405 --> 00:42:53,907
they were supposed to be different
than ordinary humans
764
00:42:53,991 --> 00:42:55,409
by virtue of being mutants,
765
00:42:55,492 --> 00:42:59,746
but they were essentially a group
of white, privileged teenage kids.
766
00:42:59,830 --> 00:43:02,916
And, so, in many ways,
it didn't live up to its own promise.
767
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:08,797
The X-Men of the 1970s reinvigorates
the imagined category of the mutant,
768
00:43:08,881 --> 00:43:11,341
and it says,
"What if there were lots of mutants,
769
00:43:11,425 --> 00:43:14,094
"but they all
were radically different from each other?"
770
00:43:14,178 --> 00:43:16,138
And then they had to create common cause.
771
00:43:17,181 --> 00:43:19,933
CLAREMONT: The whole point for me
of the X-Men has been,
772
00:43:20,017 --> 00:43:22,853
they are the outsiders,
summed up by the phrase,
773
00:43:22,936 --> 00:43:24,897
"Serve and protect
the world that hates them."
774
00:43:24,980 --> 00:43:27,774
And the idea was
that they can never get away from that.
775
00:43:28,525 --> 00:43:31,653
BREVOORT: The X-Men were
the first superheroes who were the same,
776
00:43:31,737 --> 00:43:34,031
whether they were in the costumes or not.
777
00:43:34,114 --> 00:43:35,365
With Wolverine,
778
00:43:35,449 --> 00:43:39,203
it didn't matter whether he was wearing
a plaid shirt and a cowboy hat
779
00:43:39,286 --> 00:43:41,997
or the yellow and blue superhero outfit,
780
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:46,084
he was the same dude and he reacted
to people exactly the same way.
781
00:43:46,168 --> 00:43:50,631
There wasn't any artifice
of not being the person that you were.
782
00:43:51,590 --> 00:43:54,468
CLAREMONT: The idea of wearing masks,
it just didn't fit.
783
00:43:55,010 --> 00:43:58,680
If I was a normal kid
and I woke up on my 13th birthday
784
00:43:58,764 --> 00:44:01,475
and I'd turned into Nightcrawler,
I'd be pissed.
785
00:44:03,602 --> 00:44:05,479
But if I'm born this way,
786
00:44:05,562 --> 00:44:07,773
if this is what I look like
coming out of the box,
787
00:44:07,856 --> 00:44:09,650
what kind of a person am I?
788
00:44:09,733 --> 00:44:12,903
And then I thought,
"Okay. I might as well make the best of it
789
00:44:12,986 --> 00:44:15,531
"because I can cling to walls,
I can teleport,
790
00:44:15,614 --> 00:44:16,990
"I have a tail that's articulate.
791
00:44:17,074 --> 00:44:19,785
"I'm cool. I am just so cool."
792
00:44:20,744 --> 00:44:25,040
If you're that far
on the outskirts of norm,
793
00:44:25,123 --> 00:44:27,918
it's either an asset or it's a liability,
794
00:44:28,001 --> 00:44:30,254
and why would you want it
to be a liability?
795
00:44:30,963 --> 00:44:32,840
Embrace it and see where it leads.
796
00:44:34,508 --> 00:44:37,177
NOCENTI:
Chris was pretty ahead of the curve
797
00:44:37,261 --> 00:44:40,055
with the diversity
and the female empowerment,
798
00:44:40,138 --> 00:44:42,182
like no one else was.
799
00:44:42,266 --> 00:44:44,601
When you really look back on it,
800
00:44:44,685 --> 00:44:48,772
the female characters
have the best storylines in Chris' X-Men.
801
00:44:49,523 --> 00:44:52,860
He was also doing the early versions
802
00:44:52,943 --> 00:44:56,113
of having people play around
with switching genders
803
00:44:56,196 --> 00:44:58,115
like you have all the time now.
804
00:44:58,198 --> 00:45:04,705
And I remember at one point he wanted
somebody to brainwash Professor Xavier
805
00:45:04,788 --> 00:45:09,042
and have him in a dress with heels,
and I was like, "Chris, that's too far."
806
00:45:12,796 --> 00:45:15,841
FAWAZ: What is so fascinating
about the X-Men in this period,
807
00:45:15,924 --> 00:45:18,468
is that it is very much invested
808
00:45:18,552 --> 00:45:21,346
in the cultures of women's
and gay liberation in the '70s,
809
00:45:21,430 --> 00:45:23,473
even though the series would never mention
810
00:45:23,557 --> 00:45:25,601
any of those terms
in the actual comic book.
811
00:45:25,684 --> 00:45:28,520
Gay liberation,
that social movement is saying,
812
00:45:28,604 --> 00:45:30,772
"We wanna be
able to perform our identities
813
00:45:30,856 --> 00:45:32,858
"visually in the way we dress,
the way we dance,
814
00:45:32,941 --> 00:45:34,026
"in the way we make love,"
815
00:45:34,109 --> 00:45:37,946
and that comic book said what does it look
like to transform those ideals
816
00:45:38,030 --> 00:45:41,450
into the way
that mutants look on the page?
817
00:45:42,075 --> 00:45:44,244
The characters look
like they're dressed in drag,
818
00:45:44,328 --> 00:45:47,956
their costumes
are extraordinarily flamboyant,
819
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:52,252
and there are all of these epic scenes
where they go off into space
820
00:45:52,336 --> 00:45:56,340
and they really look like
they're a menagerie of disco divas.
821
00:45:56,423 --> 00:46:00,093
Seeing that joy, it really spoke to me.
822
00:46:00,177 --> 00:46:03,764
Like, "Oh, you can revel in this thing
that makes you different."
823
00:46:03,847 --> 00:46:07,017
The question is just, "Who am I?
Who am I in the world?
824
00:46:07,100 --> 00:46:10,312
"Who am I to the people around me?
Who am I to myself?"
825
00:46:10,395 --> 00:46:13,440
So, sure, the superpowers were fun
826
00:46:13,524 --> 00:46:17,069
'cause you've got big spectacles
and people flying through space
827
00:46:17,152 --> 00:46:18,320
and punching each other.
828
00:46:18,403 --> 00:46:23,033
But really it was all dressing
for the really intimate discovery
829
00:46:23,116 --> 00:46:26,203
of who you were
and who the people around you were.
830
00:46:26,286 --> 00:46:30,749
If you found the X-Men, you suddenly found
a community of people who knew you.
831
00:46:32,417 --> 00:46:35,045
I was raised in the Bronx
and it was a rough time.
832
00:46:36,004 --> 00:46:37,965
Comics were a great place to hide,
833
00:46:38,048 --> 00:46:40,884
especially if you have stuff
to hide about yourself.
834
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,848
So, the queer part of me
always loved the isolation,
835
00:46:45,931 --> 00:46:47,641
and loved the parallels
836
00:46:47,724 --> 00:46:50,018
between being a gay youth
and being a X-Man.
837
00:46:50,769 --> 00:46:53,897
For the first time,
we felt like we were part of the story,
838
00:46:53,981 --> 00:46:57,317
and that was really important
because before that it was like nothing.
839
00:46:57,401 --> 00:47:01,029
CROWD: I turn my back on AIDS.
840
00:47:01,154 --> 00:47:04,950
I turn my back on AIDS.
841
00:47:05,033 --> 00:47:08,328
VELEZ: There was a movement going on
because of the AIDS crisis,
842
00:47:08,412 --> 00:47:11,290
I think Marvel missed an opportunity
to have gay characters there.
843
00:47:12,499 --> 00:47:13,917
FAWAZ: There are different ways
844
00:47:14,001 --> 00:47:17,254
of representing
the experience of human beings.
845
00:47:17,337 --> 00:47:20,549
One way that comics
have been really successful at,
846
00:47:20,632 --> 00:47:25,220
is to produce
elaborate fictional metaphors.
847
00:47:25,304 --> 00:47:29,558
So, you say being a mutant is like being
a racial minority in the United States.
848
00:47:29,641 --> 00:47:32,811
Or you say being a mutant
is like being gay.
849
00:47:32,895 --> 00:47:36,899
At the same time, there comes a point
in which real people say,
850
00:47:36,982 --> 00:47:39,693
"I need to see myself in these texts.
851
00:47:39,776 --> 00:47:44,031
"I can't always be a fictional metaphor
because I'm a living human. "
852
00:47:44,114 --> 00:47:48,744
So another way of representing
the lived experience of human beings
853
00:47:48,827 --> 00:47:50,913
is to actually just represent people.
854
00:47:56,084 --> 00:47:59,171
I mean, they tried. They really did try.
855
00:47:59,254 --> 00:48:01,089
They had that thing
when Northstar came out.
856
00:48:02,382 --> 00:48:06,428
ALLAN HEINBERG: Northstar was
the first out gay Marvel character
857
00:48:06,512 --> 00:48:09,515
and huge for the gay community
in terms of representation.
858
00:48:09,598 --> 00:48:13,018
But the focus was never on his
personal life or his relationship life.
859
00:48:13,101 --> 00:48:15,979
It was always sort of a "I'm gay"
and that was it.
860
00:48:17,773 --> 00:48:19,191
BREVOORT: But the writer of the series
861
00:48:19,274 --> 00:48:22,069
wanted him to go through a journey
where he got AIDS.
862
00:48:22,152 --> 00:48:26,031
And he started that story
and Marvel got skittish about it.
863
00:48:26,114 --> 00:48:29,618
(CHUCKLES) And so that story
got changed in the telling,
864
00:48:29,701 --> 00:48:33,205
and instead
it became this really bizarre thing
865
00:48:33,288 --> 00:48:37,334
where it was actually
that Northstar was half...
866
00:48:37,417 --> 00:48:39,920
And I swear this is true. Half fairy.
867
00:48:40,879 --> 00:48:44,925
It was nobody's intention,
but it's a really bad set of comics.
868
00:48:46,009 --> 00:48:49,137
PAK: If the only characters you see
are the stereotypes,
869
00:48:49,763 --> 00:48:53,392
that's when they become stereotypes.
That's almost the definition of it.
870
00:48:53,475 --> 00:48:57,938
If that's the only image you see
of an entire group of people,
871
00:48:58,438 --> 00:49:01,108
then that's a little bogus.
872
00:49:04,152 --> 00:49:10,033
But you let a character live and breathe
in multiple dimensions, it's a person.
873
00:49:10,909 --> 00:49:13,287
And it's not a stand in for a community.
874
00:49:15,372 --> 00:49:18,750
At the end of the day,
what creators must do
875
00:49:18,834 --> 00:49:22,087
is to simply pay attention
to the world more closely.
876
00:49:22,171 --> 00:49:25,382
To introduce characters
who come from different walks of life,
877
00:49:25,465 --> 00:49:28,802
and then take their own creative license
to take it somewhere else.
878
00:49:29,344 --> 00:49:31,763
So ultimately, the purpose of the creator
879
00:49:31,847 --> 00:49:34,016
is to take what we already know
about the world,
880
00:49:34,099 --> 00:49:35,893
which is that it is diverse,
881
00:49:35,976 --> 00:49:39,271
and to represent it to us
in new and exciting ways.
882
00:49:40,022 --> 00:49:41,982
It's like run 'em through the mill.
883
00:49:42,065 --> 00:49:45,402
Run 'em through the mill
that we run every Marvel character through
884
00:49:45,485 --> 00:49:47,070
no matter who they are.
885
00:49:47,154 --> 00:49:48,655
Go from hero to villain,
886
00:49:48,739 --> 00:49:51,575
die, get resurrected,
get seriously injured,
887
00:49:51,658 --> 00:49:54,286
come back from the injury,
join the Avengers,
888
00:49:54,369 --> 00:49:55,662
get thrown out of the Avengers.
889
00:49:55,746 --> 00:49:59,541
Anything and everything
that's happened to Spider-Man,
890
00:49:59,625 --> 00:50:02,377
Captain America, or Iron Man
over these years,
891
00:50:02,461 --> 00:50:04,880
I want to happen to that character.
892
00:50:04,963 --> 00:50:06,423
Because what it means then,
893
00:50:06,507 --> 00:50:09,551
is that writers
want to write that character,
894
00:50:09,635 --> 00:50:11,678
artists want to draw that character,
895
00:50:11,762 --> 00:50:16,099
and that character now is included
into the fabric of the Marvel Universe.
896
00:50:16,183 --> 00:50:20,521
A lot of people wanna say it's diversity.
I wanna say it's inclusion.
897
00:50:23,398 --> 00:50:26,568
BENDIS: We were sitting around
at lunch. We weren't having a meeting.
898
00:50:26,652 --> 00:50:28,862
We're sitting, talking
about what we'd do differently
899
00:50:28,946 --> 00:50:30,405
with certain things we've done,
900
00:50:30,489 --> 00:50:34,785
and with Ultimate Spider-Man,
it was working fine. It worked great.
901
00:50:34,868 --> 00:50:37,704
It was a hit book for many years.
902
00:50:37,788 --> 00:50:41,792
And we were talking about
if you unpack the origin of Spider-Man,
903
00:50:41,875 --> 00:50:44,920
a New York kid, and he lives
with his aunt, he's a science nerd,
904
00:50:45,003 --> 00:50:47,172
there's really nothing there
that says Caucasian.
905
00:50:47,256 --> 00:50:50,133
There's a lot of things there that say,
just from location
906
00:50:50,217 --> 00:50:54,805
and other things that he may be a kid
with a different kind of background.
907
00:50:54,888 --> 00:50:59,017
And then, once that idea is in your head,
it's hard to let go of it.
908
00:50:59,101 --> 00:51:03,021
Like, if we did this again,
we would have made this kid a kid of color
909
00:51:03,105 --> 00:51:05,232
and developed a completely new voice.
910
00:51:05,315 --> 00:51:08,277
And we were like, "Yeah."
I'm like, "Hmm. Why don't we do that?"
911
00:51:10,362 --> 00:51:13,282
Peter Parker passed away
in a very heroic way
912
00:51:13,365 --> 00:51:16,743
of saving Aunt May's life in the way
he couldn't save Uncle Ben's,
913
00:51:17,411 --> 00:51:20,122
but he didn't know that another young man
914
00:51:20,205 --> 00:51:23,667
had also been bitten by a spider
and his name is Miles Morales.
915
00:51:28,714 --> 00:51:32,509
As everyone dealt
with the shocking death of Spider-Man,
916
00:51:33,177 --> 00:51:35,971
Miles pulls off his mask
just to get some air
917
00:51:36,054 --> 00:51:37,639
and that's when we see who he is.
918
00:51:40,809 --> 00:51:43,854
George Lucas said, the easiest thing
a writer could do is kill a puppy
919
00:51:43,937 --> 00:51:45,731
'cause everyone's gonna go, "Oh!"
920
00:51:45,814 --> 00:51:48,692
So by killing Peter Parker,
I had killed the puppy.
921
00:51:48,775 --> 00:51:50,402
That wasn't a good enough story.
922
00:51:50,485 --> 00:51:53,530
But when it became that Peter Parker dying
923
00:51:53,614 --> 00:51:57,034
inspired Miles
the way Uncle Ben inspired Peter,
924
00:51:57,117 --> 00:52:01,163
I knew this story
had elevated beyond dead puppies.
925
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:04,374
Miles was looking at the theme
926
00:52:04,458 --> 00:52:06,585
of "With great power
comes great responsibility"
927
00:52:06,668 --> 00:52:10,672
from a completely different point of view
than the way Peter Parker did.
928
00:52:11,882 --> 00:52:15,636
The idea of these roles
being taken over by other characters
929
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:17,137
is something we've seen before.
930
00:52:17,221 --> 00:52:21,266
The difference in this round
of the stories that we're seeing,
931
00:52:21,350 --> 00:52:27,940
it is more a cast that reflects
the world that we actually live in.
932
00:52:28,649 --> 00:52:34,780
So, with Carol, I go back to
what is at the center of her identity?
933
00:52:34,863 --> 00:52:36,281
Where does her pain come from?
934
00:52:36,365 --> 00:52:39,284
How can I make her
not just aspirational but relatable?
935
00:52:40,118 --> 00:52:41,411
She has to (BLEEP) up.
936
00:52:41,495 --> 00:52:44,373
She has to fall down,
she has to get back up,
937
00:52:44,456 --> 00:52:46,458
she has to have her ass handed to her.
938
00:52:49,044 --> 00:52:52,214
So I go back, I read as much as I can
about her biography,
939
00:52:52,297 --> 00:52:58,095
and I find that her father who she loves
and adores has two boys and a girl,
940
00:52:58,178 --> 00:53:01,890
and he can't afford to send everybody
to school, and he's gonna send the boys.
941
00:53:02,558 --> 00:53:06,311
So Carol enlists in the Air Force
to pay for her education
942
00:53:06,395 --> 00:53:10,482
and spends the rest of her life
trying to prove to her father
943
00:53:10,566 --> 00:53:13,694
that she is just as good as the boys.
944
00:53:15,487 --> 00:53:19,867
And that is a thing
that is human and relatable.
945
00:53:19,950 --> 00:53:23,495
And even though she's beautiful,
and even though she's powerful,
946
00:53:24,162 --> 00:53:26,874
like, she has a very real,
very human pain,
947
00:53:27,833 --> 00:53:32,129
and that's how
you make a character you can root for.
948
00:53:33,839 --> 00:53:35,424
When I started writing Black Panther,
949
00:53:35,507 --> 00:53:40,679
I said I'm gonna make the comic book
equivalent of a Public Enemy record.
950
00:53:40,762 --> 00:53:42,472
When they make Bring the Noise,
951
00:53:42,556 --> 00:53:46,393
when they make Party for Your Right
to Fight, It Takes a Nation of Millions,
952
00:53:46,476 --> 00:53:48,645
they're just like, "This is for us
953
00:53:48,729 --> 00:53:53,483
"and our friends,
and we're gonna super satisfy us."
954
00:53:55,068 --> 00:53:56,737
When Hurricane Katrina happened
955
00:53:56,820 --> 00:54:01,283
and it's this incredible tragedy
in a very Black city,
956
00:54:01,366 --> 00:54:03,577
I thought, "Here's a situation
957
00:54:04,411 --> 00:54:09,291
"where we could do a test run
of an idea I really wanted to do
958
00:54:09,374 --> 00:54:10,584
"which is Black Avengers."
959
00:54:12,002 --> 00:54:17,257
Let's get Black Panther,
Luke Cage, Blade, Photon,
960
00:54:17,341 --> 00:54:22,387
put together basically, a Black super team
to come solve this problem.
961
00:54:22,471 --> 00:54:23,805
It's the wish fulfillment
962
00:54:23,889 --> 00:54:26,225
that I've been wanting to see
my whole life
963
00:54:26,308 --> 00:54:27,893
and that's what happened.
964
00:54:29,394 --> 00:54:31,188
PAK: I remember thinking about
Marvel Universe
965
00:54:31,271 --> 00:54:34,566
and realizing that there were
very few Asian American characters
966
00:54:34,650 --> 00:54:37,694
and very few, in particular,
young Asian American male characters,
967
00:54:37,778 --> 00:54:40,489
and I was like,
"That's a niche I'd like to fill."
968
00:54:40,572 --> 00:54:45,702
And, so, Amadeus Cho, this brilliant kid,
he has a close encounter with The Hulk.
969
00:54:45,786 --> 00:54:48,956
He's like, "Okay. Bruce,
you've had enough tragedy in your life.
970
00:54:49,039 --> 00:54:51,291
"I'm gonna cure you of being The Hulk,
971
00:54:51,375 --> 00:54:53,669
"since I'm a cocky kid
who knows everything,
972
00:54:53,752 --> 00:54:55,170
"I'll take the power of The Hulk.
973
00:54:55,254 --> 00:54:56,713
"I'm gonna be the best Hulk.
974
00:54:56,797 --> 00:54:58,257
"The Totally Awesome Hulk."
975
00:54:58,340 --> 00:55:00,509
And that was the book,
The Totally Awesome Hulk.
976
00:55:01,134 --> 00:55:03,846
I was actually in middle school.
I was around 12 years old
977
00:55:03,929 --> 00:55:06,473
when I realized
that people had a perception
978
00:55:06,557 --> 00:55:10,936
of Muslims
that was antagonistic or misunderstood.
979
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:13,105
Marvel really welcomed me
980
00:55:13,188 --> 00:55:17,109
and encouraged me to use my voice
to tell a different kind of Marvel story.
981
00:55:17,693 --> 00:55:22,322
Kamala Khan, the all new Ms. Marvel,
she is a young, newly discovered inhuman.
982
00:55:22,406 --> 00:55:25,826
She's South Asian,
a Muslim girl from Jersey City,
983
00:55:25,909 --> 00:55:30,747
and Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers happens
to be her most favorite superhero ever.
984
00:55:30,831 --> 00:55:33,417
She is tall, she's blonde,
she has blue eyes,
985
00:55:33,500 --> 00:55:35,878
she's everything that Kamala Khan is not.
986
00:55:35,961 --> 00:55:38,088
First thing that happens
when she gets her powers
987
00:55:38,172 --> 00:55:41,550
is that her body morphs
and she subconsciously decides
988
00:55:41,633 --> 00:55:43,844
that she wants to look like Carol Danvers.
989
00:55:43,927 --> 00:55:46,722
So, her kind of finding
a way back to herself
990
00:55:46,805 --> 00:55:51,143
and her sense of balance within her power
is the beginning of her journey.
991
00:55:52,436 --> 00:55:56,607
From a purely thematic point of view,
the idea of the masked superhero,
992
00:55:56,690 --> 00:55:59,693
the person who is afraid
to reveal themselves,
993
00:55:59,776 --> 00:56:03,155
that doesn't have
as much power as it once did.
994
00:56:03,238 --> 00:56:08,619
I think we're actually seeing a broadening
of acceptance of differences,
995
00:56:08,702 --> 00:56:11,205
and of uniqueness of each individual,
996
00:56:11,288 --> 00:56:14,124
and under those circumstances,
you don't need a dual identity.
997
00:56:14,208 --> 00:56:16,919
You can be yourself.
You don't need to hide who you are.
998
00:56:17,669 --> 00:56:19,922
AMANAT: When we look at Captain America,
we look at Thor,
999
00:56:20,005 --> 00:56:22,007
we look at these big name characters,
1000
00:56:22,090 --> 00:56:24,718
we look at them
through those ideals that they represent.
1001
00:56:24,801 --> 00:56:27,804
These ideals
can really be encompassed by anybody.
1002
00:56:28,514 --> 00:56:32,226
The metaphor of putting on a mask,
and taking off your mask,
1003
00:56:32,309 --> 00:56:35,938
and trying to figure out if you're
a superhero or just a regular person.
1004
00:56:36,021 --> 00:56:38,482
You can be both. And we should be both.
1005
00:56:39,316 --> 00:56:42,027
We have to live in that space in between,
1006
00:56:42,110 --> 00:56:44,112
so that's really
where our power comes from,
1007
00:56:44,196 --> 00:56:46,532
and I think that's what makes
the Marvel Universe
1008
00:56:46,615 --> 00:56:47,991
all the more interesting.
1009
00:56:48,742 --> 00:56:52,579
We got Captain Marvel #6, legacy 140.
1010
00:56:52,663 --> 00:56:54,039
It's The War of Realms tie-in.
1011
00:56:54,122 --> 00:56:56,208
JENKINS: So what happens next,
none of us know.
1012
00:56:56,291 --> 00:56:59,086
I think, though,
the possibility is really exciting
1013
00:56:59,169 --> 00:57:03,048
as we try to find our way through
a demographic transition,
1014
00:57:03,131 --> 00:57:05,551
where, by the end of the next decade,
1015
00:57:05,634 --> 00:57:08,303
America will be
a majority minority culture.
1016
00:57:08,929 --> 00:57:10,389
And how do we live in that world?
1017
00:57:10,472 --> 00:57:15,143
How do we live with each other, I think,
is shaped by the stories we consume.
1018
00:57:16,019 --> 00:57:21,233
I always tell fans of these comic books,
a lot of us think that these heroes,
1019
00:57:21,316 --> 00:57:24,736
and these characters,
and these villains was made for you.
1020
00:57:24,820 --> 00:57:27,739
I said, "No, they're made
because you exist, they exist."
1021
00:57:28,615 --> 00:57:31,034
QUESADA: The real world is our canvas.
1022
00:57:31,118 --> 00:57:35,581
If we stop looking out our window
and noticing what the real world is doing,
1023
00:57:35,664 --> 00:57:39,626
then inevitably our books fail,
and our stories fail.
1024
00:57:39,710 --> 00:57:43,422
HUDLIN: I don't think comics
have an obligation for representation.
1025
00:57:43,505 --> 00:57:45,299
I just think you're a damn fool
1026
00:57:45,382 --> 00:57:49,094
if you don't have representation
as a piece of business,
1027
00:57:49,178 --> 00:57:53,223
as a piece of storytelling.
There's every reason to do it.
1028
00:57:54,057 --> 00:57:56,018
COWAN: It has potential
of being pretty wonderful
1029
00:57:56,101 --> 00:58:00,147
what's happened to Black Panther,
and Hollywood's awareness of inclusion
1030
00:58:00,230 --> 00:58:01,982
and what diversity means.
1031
00:58:02,065 --> 00:58:05,194
I look at it in wonderment
and amazement and I'm like,
1032
00:58:05,277 --> 00:58:06,737
"Oh, this is great."
1033
00:58:06,820 --> 00:58:09,698
The other half of me
looks at it with a squinty eye.
1034
00:58:09,781 --> 00:58:11,533
Because I've been through this before.
1035
00:58:12,284 --> 00:58:16,580
And the door shut
almost as fast as it had opened up.
1036
00:58:17,539 --> 00:58:20,334
But no matter what,
we'll still do what we do.
1037
00:58:21,168 --> 00:58:23,170
We'll still keep doing
these kinda characters
1038
00:58:23,253 --> 00:58:24,880
and telling these kinda stories,
1039
00:58:26,423 --> 00:58:28,133
because it's too important not to.
1040
00:58:29,051 --> 00:58:33,138
AMANAT: With comic book stories in general
and superhero stories specifically,
1041
00:58:33,222 --> 00:58:38,227
there is something so aspirational
and amazing about what the human spirit is
1042
00:58:38,310 --> 00:58:39,770
and what it can become,
1043
00:58:39,853 --> 00:58:42,481
it's that it encourages us
to look within ourselves
1044
00:58:42,564 --> 00:58:43,857
and find what is great.
1045
00:58:43,941 --> 00:58:46,735
We'll dig through all that grit
and that uncertainty,
1046
00:58:46,818 --> 00:58:49,821
and find what it is that makes us unique,
1047
00:58:49,905 --> 00:58:53,825
and what it is that makes us powerful,
and bring that to the forefront.
1048
00:58:54,785 --> 00:58:59,206
In a lot of these superhero stories,
the aspiration is the hero. You know?
1049
00:58:59,289 --> 00:59:03,418
And what always spoke to me about Marvel
was that the aspiration was the human.
1050
00:59:04,461 --> 00:59:07,631
And that's what's really exciting to me,
where we are right now.
1051
00:59:08,382 --> 00:59:10,467
Who are you?
Who do you want yourself to be?
1052
00:59:12,803 --> 00:59:17,057
NARRATOR: Open bulletins,
Stan's Soapbox, February, 1980.
1053
00:59:17,933 --> 00:59:20,769
"Bear with me, gang.
It's philosophy time again!
1054
00:59:20,853 --> 00:59:24,606
"Human nature doesn't change.
It's the environment.
1055
00:59:26,024 --> 00:59:28,986
"What's happened to us is,
the world has been wildly changing,
1056
00:59:29,069 --> 00:59:32,114
"producing new sets of rules
each time you blink your eye.
1057
00:59:33,907 --> 00:59:35,742
"None of us is different from each other.
1058
00:59:35,826 --> 00:59:38,787
"We all want
essentially the same things out of life.
1059
00:59:40,581 --> 00:59:44,293
"A measure of security, some fun,
some romance, friendship,
1060
00:59:44,376 --> 00:59:46,295
"and respect of our contemporaries.
1061
00:59:47,129 --> 00:59:49,798
"That goes for Indians, Chinese, Russians,
1062
00:59:49,882 --> 00:59:53,218
"Jews, Arabs, Catholics, Protestants,
1063
00:59:53,302 --> 00:59:56,388
"Blacks, Browns, whites,
and green-skinned Hulks.
1064
00:59:57,139 --> 01:00:00,559
"So why don't we all stop wasting time
hating the other guys?
1065
01:00:00,642 --> 01:00:04,563
"Just look in the mirror, mister.
That other guy is you.
1066
01:00:05,439 --> 01:00:07,608
"Excelsior! Stan."