The people behind Marvel Comics might create superheroes, but they themselves are just people.
And normal people are as scummy as Norman Osborn, and as greedy as J Jonah Jameson,
and as devious as Obadiah Stane.
This means that Marvel has done some things and published some questionable comic books
they'd rather you just forget altogether.
Here's a look at some secrets Marvel doesn't want you to know.
Strange practices
Marvel's iffy history of stereotypes and cultural appropriation has been dragged into the spotlight
recently thanks to films like Doctor Strange and shows like Iron Fist, both of which take
elements of Asian culture and whitewash them by casting caucasian actors as the heroes.
But the directors at Marvel Studios and showrunners at Netflix aren't entirely to blame — it
all started in the comics themselves.
Take the case of the Ancient One, Doctor Strange's mentor, who in the comics is portrayed as
a stereotypical Asian mystic whose magical wisdom helps inform the white hero's journey.
The filmmakers recognized this as a pretty dodgy concept, but their solution was to double
down by recasting the character as another white person.
A more radical idea might have been to cast Doctor Strange as an Asian-American character
— which is what some scholars and industry veterans believe Doctor Strange co-creator
Steve Ditko originally intended.
So why did Doctor Strange become white in the first place?
The best guess is that the always pragmatic Stan Lee decided fans in the early '60s weren't
ready for an Asian lead.
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
Slap Leather
Imagine you know nothing about gay people, and yet you want to publish a comic book about
a gay cowboy.
What to do?
How about making him as overtly, flamboyantly, stereotypically, cartoonishly gay as possible?
That's what Marvel did!
Meet the Rawhide Kid, the star of an older Marvel comic about a gunslinger.
Years later, the company decided to bring him back and make him as stereotypically and
reductively gay as possible.
While some actually felt the camp element intentionally "inverts and counteracts heteronormative
ideologies," — try saying that five times fast — most readers just found it to be
offensively bad...and better off forgotten.
The death of Romance
Once upon a time, Marvel published a thriving line of romance comics, but the renewed popularity
of superheroes in the '60s killed it off.
In the early years of the twenty-first century, though, Marvel decided to try to bring back
the romance comic.
So who did they hire to write it?
Maybe an author who'd made a name for herself with harlequin fiction, or possibly someone
with experience writing modern romance comics?
No, of course not! they hired Mark Millar — better known as the guy behind the comics
that inspired the movies Kick-Ass and Wanted.
His romance comic was called Trouble, so there was at least some truth in advertising.
The two scantily clad lead characters spend most of their time hooking up, until one of
them accidentally gets pregnant — and you discover she's actually Aunt May.
And her baby is Peter Parker.
Marville
Once upon a time, Marvel was run by a guy named Bill Jemas, who was actually in charge
when things like Rawhide Kid and Trouble were published.
He decided that those comics weren't embarrassing enough, though, so he went ahead and wrote
his own comic, called Marville.
Since its publication in 2002, Marville has gained a reputation as one of the worst comics
the company has ever published.
It featured everything from randomly gratuitous covers that had nothing to do with the story
to a bizarre, nonsensical discussion on the nature of God to a clumsy sequence about racism
that immediately required a written apology.
Jemas ended the series with a note proudly admitting that "Marville has been a story
that would never have been published if I didn’t happen to have this here job as President
of Marvel."
Well, at least he got that part right.
Toys make the money
Spider-Man is the most profitable superhero in the world, but not from his comics or movies.
In one year alone, Spider-Man merchandising made Marvel about $1.3 billion.
Spidey toys, blankets, shoes, glasses, bug repellant — that's where the real money
comes from.
That's also why all the various movie franchises are so important to Marvel.
Because while the films certainly make money, that's not as important as how they increase
brand recognition and enable Marvel to sell more licenses of more characters to more brand partners.
For instance, three years ago, would you have bought a plate with Rocket Raccoon and Groot?
No, because you didn't know who they were!
Now?
You'll buy anything with them on it!
That's how Marvel actually makes money, just like how the movie theaters themselves really
earn their cash by selling you overpriced popcorn, rather than actual movie tickets.
Who knew, right?
Civil Disobedience
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an amazing writer, perhaps best known for his work Between the World
and Me, about life as a black man in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
He later won the Genius Grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
All of these qualifications help explain why Marvel sought him out to write titles like
Black Panther — and why it's so bizarre that Marvel completely ignored his advice
not to kill a major black character for no good reason.
The character in question was James "Rhodey" Rhoades, better known as War Machine
Who you might also know from the movies.
During Marvel's 2016 event, Civil War II, the publisher decided that, in order to provide
some character development for a couple of other, white characters — specifically Captain
Marvel and Iron Man — they would kill off Rhodey.
Having been around for decades, War Machine is one of the most recognizable black characters
in the world of superheroes, and his huge role in the movies proves he's more than just
a fan favorite — he's a massively popular and visible character in his own right.
Naturally, Coates urged them not to go through with it, writing a long missive to the Marvel bosses.
Marvel ignored his advice and killed off Rhodey — resulting in more than a little backlash
from fans and critics.
And this isn't the first time this has happened, either.
Like Goliath in the first Civil War series, Rhodey became yet another victim of Superheroing
While Black.
Contract killers
Back when Marvel started out, the late, great Jack Kirby co-created some of Marvel's biggest characters.
including the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the Incredible Hulk, just
to name only a handful.
But there was just one tiny problem: Marvel didn't care.
Since he was considered work for hire, Kirby got paid by the page, and Marvel kept all
the rights and all the profits.
Naturally, once Marvel started making literally billions of dollars off his creations, this
became a sore spot for Kirby's family, who sued.
With a looming PR disaster on their hands, Marvel eventually cut a deal with his estate.
Not everyone is so lucky, though.
Ghost Rider co-creator Gary Friedrich also sued Marvel over profits from their films.
But without the name recognition of the Kirby estate, Marvel felt no need to play nice.
The case settled in 2013, but Marvel sure made life tough on the guy!
Stay classy, Marvel
Don't be like Ike
Marvel has a secret CEO named Ike Perlmutter.
Just how reclusive is this guy?
Until recently, the last known photo of him dated to the 1980s, with one website going
so far as to have his friends describe him so they could draw an approximation of what
he might theoretically look like.
He's basically like a supervillain hiding inside a volcano lair.
“Here’s the plan.
We get the warhead, and we hold the world ransom for…
ONE MILLION DOLLARS!”
What we do know about Perlmutter is that he apparently doesn't like female superheroes
very much.
A while back, the infamous Sony hack revealed a bunch of secret emails between Sony and
Marvel, and among them was an email called "Female Movies" from Perlmutter where he cites
films like Supergirl and Catwoman as proof that movies starring female superheroes are
a terrible idea.
That probably helps explain why Marvel has been so reluctant to make any movies starring
lady leads — and why Captain Marvel was pretty much announced the instant Disney kicked
Perlmutter out of the Marvel Studios.
You know what they say: the arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
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