Pretty pink, baby blue… why don’t you tell me something new?
June 6th, 2010 by david brothers | Tags: Conventions, DC comics, ian sattlerA serious topic came up about how characters who are minorities who happened to be legacy characters like Ryan Choi are killed off so their caucasian counterparts can return and how they feel like they are being cheated or sidelined out of their roles. Sattler took a more serious tone. “It’s so hard for me to be on the other side because it’s not our intention. There is a reason behind it all. We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won’t get into that. It’s not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.”
–Ian Sattler, DC Nation @ Heroescon
You walked into this one, man.
And honestly, if you think blue characters count toward “a diverse DCU,” you’ve got some issues… problems you need to iron out.
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That reference has been made at least 5 times on various internet avenues already.
It’s like DC put a mile-wide “KICK ME” sign on their backs. Almost too easy.
Almost.
It reminds me of something webcomic artist Spike said on Twitter.
“My comic’s cast is very ethnically diverse. It has humans, trolls, goblins AND dryads! #makebadcomics”
Ian Sattler is probably the stupidest guy working in comics. If DC wants to keep him on staff, they should at least stop trying to make him the face of their company.
he’s just pointing out they don’t automatically make everyone white.
I’ve never liked that page in question. Might be nice for a street level guy, but the biggest thing GL’s do is save the entire planet itself. Same as Superman or any cosmic hero.
He may put out fires or stop natural disasters but that helps everyone around. If he happens to fight a bank robber are people suggesting that only white people have money in that bank?
See, david? I told you you should have included Venom during your Black History Month series.
At one point, Superman was both RED and BLUE!
How’s that for diversity David? Did I just blow your mind?
Hahaha. “Look, we get complaints about how we treat this other marginalised group too! That PROVES we’re not doing anything wrong!”
Wot?
…and what’s more, making up some character from some bizarre space-ethnicity and then writing it like any other white male American character isn’t really diversity either. “Ethnicity” isn’t just skin deep.
That scene always bugged me. I mean, what does the guy expect Hal to do for minorities exactly? The last GL that actually tried to use his ring to promote social change, create order, and generally improve his planet (from his pov anyway)kind of got kicked out of the corps and sent to another dimension.
Some other things to consider:
* Wasn’t the Great Ten mini canceled?
* During the same panel, Sattler didn’t have an answer for when or if Milestone characters would be used.
* “I have counter statistics”? What is that supposed to mean?
@A Boy Named Art: Went from 10 issues to 9 if that’s what you mean. But both the writer and artist are white, though the cover artist is asian. Not sure if this was editorial or if Bedard consciously decided 9 issues was best, the solicit however kind of make sense for having 9 issues.
also again I love how everyone keeps screaming white supremacists are involved with the whole Ryan thing given the creators involved
@Nathan:
also again I love how everyone keeps screaming white supremacists are involved
I thought that was Captain America. I kid, I kibbitz. But thanks for the note on G10.
@Nathan: Who keeps talking about white supremacists? No one here has done that.
@Gavok: Next year is going to be 28 days of all-Venom, all the time.
@LaterComments: Kindly explain that to James Cameron, please?
You don’t mean to say you think Dan Didio is… Na’vikin? Dun dun dun!
@A Boy Named Art: Way I figure, Bedard couldn’t come up with a suitable Mother-Of-Champions story and folded it with his Red-Socialist-Guardsman one.
@david brothers: Manga forums I keep browsing. Also the wiki vandalism that happened to Choi’s page
No one thinks that DC is made up of racists. What they’re made up of are tone deaf morons like Ian Sattler.
I still find it bizarre that a mini about a group called the Great 10 gets 9 issues. Then again, Mother of Champions is a terrible, borderline racist concept that is terrible and bad and should be struck from record.
(HIGH FERTILITY AS A CHINESE PERSON’S SUPERPOWER?)
Her power is the ability to create massive numbers. Marvel has a guy called the Collective Man who’s Chinese
The idea of Grant Morrison ripping off a Bill Mantlo concept is all kinds of horrifying, is it not?
@LaterComments: Aside from that I just don’t see how you can possibly stretch MoC into a full issue, everyone else had a back and forth between timelines but she’s more of a mission control character. Well I hope RSG’s origin takes up more of the issue
also on an unrelated note I like ArtGerm’s final cover http://www.dccomics.com/media/product/1/5/15190_400x600.jpg
@Jason: What’s funny is that I’m fairly certain I saw that exact same character (chinese with those powers) on the Powerpuff Girls 5 years ago.
@Dan Coyle: Yet at the same time the world is in perfect synergy.
[…] David Uzumeri. I thought of this right away, but David Brothers got there […]
“Ian Sattler is probably the stupidest guy working in comics. If DC wants to keep him on staff, they should at least stop trying to make him the face of their company.”
^^^this
I’ve long given up trying to understand the point, the dao, of Sattler.
I gotta ask, not that DC editorial isn’t currently a suppository for The Worst Comics Has to Offer, but what other stupid things has Sattler said?
No offense, but they are pretty racist and horrible towards those fictional races as well. White Martians are pretty much all evil, and those that aren’t pretend to be Green. Also, they had the US government commit an act of genocide against the Kryptonians (killed something like 80% of the race), and they actually ended that arc with Superman (Super Uncle Tom) defend them from reprisal. Not to mention the fact that nobody seemed nearly as horrified as they should’ve been that the US army was given the authority to commit genocide on a race of people in a preemptive strike.
yeah, they whole genocide against Krypton should have been far more played up. I don’t even like the fact they apparently want that to be the real Sam Lane who’s responsible.
But Zod’s forces were attacking everyone also.
@Eric
“and they actually ended that arc with Superman (Super Uncle Tom) defend them from reprisal. ”
Didn’t that arc end with Lois Lane writing an article about how much humanity sucks for listening to a dick like General Lane? I don’t remember Superman defending their actions at all.
@Debaser: This. Sattler isn’t a racist or a hateful person. He’s just not very bright, and he’s an embarrassingly poor spokesman.
Sadly, most of the people in DC Editorial who were good, professional spokesmen have either left or been chased away in the past decade, and they’ve been replaced by folks with no discernible skill-set other than “knows lots about 70’s Flash comics.”
@Tanner: I meant he defended them from the ensuing and justified counterattack from the Kryptonians, which they pretty much deserved.
In essence, it would be as if the USA were nuked by Russia, killing 80% of the populace, and instead of helping the US to mount the justified counterattack, Superman instead intercepts all US missiles in an attempt to “prevent more bloodshed”. Except instead of the USA (which Superman is better connected towards then Russia), its Kryptonians who were obliterated. Making Superman an Uncle Tom.
I’d argue semantics, but War of the Supermen was such a wretched story it doesn’t even matter.
how would a second population suffering genocide solve anything.
And also that counterattack? It only became a counterattack about halfway on their way to Earth. Zod initially had an attack planned.
I actually think that in the case of a nuclear war where one side launched first and their was only some sort of automated response Superman would stop the response if it was nuclear.
@Eric
So a bunch of innocent Russians who took no part in nuking the States need to die, just because? What?
This is the dumbest derail in a long time, folks. Seriously.
Any derailment which leads to discussing the philosophical morality of War of the Supermen* is the dumbest derail not just in a long time, but in all time.
(*Or Planet Krypton or other related dross.)
The Sattlers of the world will never go away. This view persists and is still strong and widespread. Bitching about it in blogs will not make it go away. Critiquing works will not make it fade. Sattler will feel bad about it for a few days and go back to the old thinking.
BUT
Kids who never read blogs and never read comics but watch the screen think Green lantern is a brown skinned guy who is a bad ass of the JLA. Despite the Sattlers. Despite Hollywood casting. To them, John Stewart is the one and only Green Lantern. This shit is powerful. He’s not Black something Man. The viewers don’t even think of him as anything but John Stewart. That shit is potent and pure.
The question is…how do we get that kind of simultaneous color blindness and color awareness in the damned comics industry!!!?
@claire: Yeah, that was… beserk.
Hello spelling: berserk. Anyway, never heard of this guy, but he has been duly filed in my brain under “dumb-dumb”.
Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.
The oft reprinted Green Lantern page loses the point of the story because the preceding page is missing where Green Lantern automatically rescues a white crook from his black captors.
1. What a horrible and ignorant thing to say.
2. Some people STILL do not get it. Even on this response blog, people are sticking up for this nonsense.
3. This is why Milestone was important. It’s just useless to be the “next” version of an established white character; entirely new hero legacies should be created and established.
3a. Unfortunately, that involves a perverted concept known as “work.”
[…] people like this guy don’t understand is that my post about Ian Sattler’s comments wasn’t a reply. It was a dashed off “Your mama” or “u mad?” He said […]
Hey, David! Here’s another 70’s comic scene Sattler’s comment reminded me of:
http://stars-and-garters.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-post.html
[…] people like this Mark Engbloom guy don’t understand is that my post about Ian Sattler’s comments wasn’t a reply. It was a dashed off “Your mama” or “u mad?” He said something stupid, and […]
[…] in DiDio’s defense, at least he didn’t point out how many blue characters DC has in its comics. Funny how blue characters and unintentional racism seem to go together. […]