For all of this fist shaking invective, books that HAVE Black creators like Rat Queens, Vescell, Five Weapons, Midnight Tiger, Miranda Mercury and my personal favorite Molly Danger can barely get a mention around here.
That's in addition to our own Redjack's Knight Rider and Airwolf comics.
You could even donate to the Kick starter for the second volume of Watson and Holmes. Or order the Volume one trade if you are against donating to business ventures (or online begging if you want to be that way about it).
No mention of these projects at the other comics board? If not, then there should be.
On another note: Vic, you mentioned that STORM ongoing's target audience were not those who wouldn't pull an X-book title with a 10 foot pole. Maybe. Maybe not.
When the Lindy Hop dance was created, white people were not the target audience. However, once some whites saw the dance it appealed to them so much that they made themselves welcome at the venues where blacks danced the dance and then those whites began dancing it themselves. They weren't very good at the dance at first and black dancers remarked in jest, that their herky-jerky motions made them look like "jitterbugs", which at that time was a term used to describe nervous and/or drunk people. But those white people adopted that name and made it their own. Soon, they were jitterbugs and the name of the dance, originally named the Lindy Hop by its black creators, today is better known as the Jitterbug.
From the Lindy Hop, to Hip Hop then. Mindful of the history of so-called black American music being appropriated and expropriated by white imitators, Rap music at the beginning was a very "Afro-Centric" genre. Whites were certainly not the target audience. As before however, once the music began to appeal to whites, they gradually moved to it. First, their presence was nothing more than nibbling at the perimeter of the genre. The Beastie Boys and Insane Clown Posse provided white rap fans with an alternative style they could latch onto while Rap music was still in it's "Black positivity stage". But when Rap music turned from being positive to being gangsta, sending negative messages about black people, the community, its women, and criminal activities, whites latched on to it with a fervor, even encouraged it. eminem is the creation of gangsta Rap. Today, white's essentially run Rap music.
Lindy Hop, Hip Hop...target audience = black people. White people now dominate both. Those black creations were universally appreciated and coveted. Comicbooks seems to be immune to this dynamic. It is a white-created medium of entertainment. Usually, whites follow the developments in black culture, rarely is it the other way around. The black audience for comicbooks isn't as great as the white audience is for anything black people seem to create in the realm of entertainment.
STORM and the X-Men don't have to push for universal appeal. Indeed, they might not desire it. The X-franchise might be happy to be seen as a niche for whites and homosexual comicbook fans who don't want their product mixing with the black niche BLACK PANTHER audience.
So why should any of us bother with that STORM ongoing?
Thank you for this incredibly insightful post, Brotha Sinjection.
Yes Sir, Brother. And thank you.
Now Salustrade...Vic's comment regarding Storm's "target audience" piqued my interest somewhat. What might you make of this, Brother?
"Storm’s punk phase, her trouble adjusting to western culture, her commitment to her spirituality and devotion to Wakanda, and her complete domination of every new step in her life have all made her the supreme deviant and progressive punk figures in the X-Men. She’s a Queer, Feminist Icon, and a symbol of Black Power and pride."
http://queeringcomics.tumblr.com/post/85079412112/the-goddess-storm-queen-of-wakanda-of-the-many
Remember when by way of attemtping to deny Ororo's "blackness", some asserted that though her flesh was black, her hair texture and "indeterminate features" which seemingly resembled Asian and Caucasian as well as African defied definite identification, that her mutation perhaps caused her to become a "patchwork quilt" of the essence of the totality of humanity...and as such, she wasn't bound to a black classification as a character?
Proponents of that warped opinion likely supported the gradual lightening of the hue of Ororo's skin, the "narrowing" of her facial features and of course she already had the blue eyes and the attention of her red, white, and blue male suitors. They wanted to ignore her blackness altogether.
They experienced a period of horror when Hudlin wrenched her from that wretched existence and installed her as Queen of Wakanda, a Black Queen ruling a Black Nation beside her Black King. But just as whites targeted the Lindy Hop and Hip Hop and have become the prime mover/dominant group in both, Ororo's predominantly white fanbase...with a bit of pepper sprinkled in if we are to believe some accounts...targeted the MARRIAGE, determined to destroy it largely by claiming Ororo was being diminished as a character by her association with all those black people...that is to say...her association with the Black Panther. Their efforts were successful. Today, Storm's character has been diminished by her ridiculous role as Headmistress of a mutant school and bed warmer for Wolverine.
Storm's black fans who also happened to be fans of the Black Panther, were rejected as part of Ororo's "targeted audience". But now that Ororo is back in the hands of those who see her more as mutant than a black woman, a site catering to one aspect of the Ororo/X-Men target audience suggests Ororo is this: She’s a Queer, Feminist Icon, and a symbol of Black Power and pride.
Ororo is by their definition, a Queer, Feminist Icon...........and a symbol of Black Power and pride.
What are your thoughts, Brother? Mine follow this line. Queer, Feminist Icon is not consistent with Black Power and pride. As long as the house of Queer Feminisim is rising and the house of Black Power and pride is not, as evidenced by the disgraceful dissolution of Ororo's marriage to T'Challa, blacks are recognized as a targeted demographic. But if for example, Kymera is revealed to be the child of Ororo and T'Challa possibly re-igniting the love they had for each other I definitely see where the house of Queer Feminism could ally itself with the house of white racism to squash that possibility.
I am not in the slightest bit suprised that some of the self-same individuals who reeled back in horror at the concept of the marriage of an African man and African woman (albeit fictional) would revel in describing Storm as a "Queer Feminist Icon.....and symbol of Black Power and pride" when for the most part, especially where the Black Power and pride aspect of the equation is concerned, she's anything but.
Are there actual LGBT's of African descent out there who are down for the betterment of all Black people regardless of sexual orientation?
I have no doubt that there are as evidenced in your second post on this subject within this thread but can it be said that a majority of them do not sometimes find their alliegance to the LGBT movement and attendant pseudo-culture in conflict with their African heritage and the stuggle contained therein juxtaposed against a backdrop of white supremacy and the Western worlds penchant for pushing it's own cutural and warped ideological imperialism on the rest of the world?
This is a question that some choose to either ignore wholeheartedly or acknowledge fleetingly due to a desire to avoid thinking to deeply on the hypocrisy inherent in wholeheartedly jumping onto a bandwagon which for the most part, has been co-opted by others whose agenda diverges so far from the legitimate needs of people of African descent (both at home in the Motherland as well as within the global diaspora) as to be at distinct odds with it and in some cases, in open ideological opposition to the needs of the aforementione sons and daughters of Africa.
Ororo was created from out of the amalgamation of discarded ideas repurposed with the express objective of creating an exotic character who would fit into the X-men's ongoing narrative as "feared and hated" within the 616 MU but unlike the rest of the X-Men, she was cast as an exotic character of indeterminate racial origins which when juxtaposed against the fact that both of her parents were of African/African-American descent, just came across as a nonsensical explanation that merely enabled the writers concerned to avoid the ramifications of having to actually deal with the real world problems of racism as opposed to the metaphorical conceit that has existed to this very day in the X-books.
Black skin on the outside and convoluted and rarely (if ever) explored true knowledge of self in Ororo's narrative within the X-books was always made glaringly obvious when one considered the fact that practically all of the other X-Men's ethnic bacgrounds and cultural idiosyncracies where clearly delineated on page whilst Ororo's remained buried beneath the incredibly patronizing idea that she allegedly encompassed all of the characteristics of ethnicities from across the globe.
This conceit set agains the backdrop of the near total absence of Black male mutants in the early days of the "new" X-Men was something that flew over the heads of a lot of early X-fans who were swept up in the fast paced adventures of the X-book penned by Chris Claremont who to this day has been credited for being the single X-writer who wrote the book for the longest time before other X-books started cropping up left and right to capitalize on the increasing interest in all of the mutant characters that were being launched.
As time progressed and various writers and editorial teams came and went, there was a sea change at the X-office which led to a gradual move away from the mutant synonymous with racial discrimination concept to one more in line with the concept/reality of homosexuality and homophobia and this change in direction began to play itself out within the X-books with an ever increasing frequency which in turn began to manmifest itself within fandom with many unexpected results.
Reginald Hudlin, unapologetic, confident and focused on revitalizing the Black Panther character in the wake of Christopher J. Priest's stellar take on the character and his world, wrote a T'Challa who was focused, determined, supremely confident and fiercely dedicated to the protection of Wakandan interests in a world that had always sought to subjugate the mysterious nation and purloin Wakandan Vibranium their most treasured natural resource.
T'Challa was that swashbuckling Monarch who represented all that one could wish for in a character of worth and Mr Hudlin continued from where Priest left off as regards having T'Challa be a competent and extremely compelling protagonist.
All remained peaceful until Reginald Hudlin decided to pick up on another thread that Priest had explored to some degree in the BP series that preceded Mr Hudlin's but it's really important to note that both authors were exploring a concept that had been originally been brought into play than none other than Chris Claremont himself.
Namely, the relationship between T'Challa and Ororo.
Hudlin built up a plausible rekindling of the love between these two characters which culminated in the "Marriage of the Century" with Marvel Editorials full backing and blessing and that's when all hell broke loose.
We're all familiar with the plethora of accusations that began to fill the online so-called comic book "community" with some accusing Mr Hudlin of only marrying two of Marvel's most iconic Black characters because they were African and even more bizzarely some even went as far as accusing Mr Hudlin of being "racist" for putting the two characters together.
Hudlin's Black panther run was extremely successful from a financial point of view and wildly popular amongst a section of Marvels readership that had hitherto always been ignored and most of us enjoyed what Hudlin and Dwayne McDuffie did with the Royal Couple in their respective books and the Marvel events (Civil War/WWH/Secret Invasion) that ran back-to-back at the time.
Unfortunately, there was a segment of readership fueled by a sense of resentment, who kept up a constant level of invective directed towards Reginald Hudlin with the false charge of Hudlin "writing Ororo down to prop up T'Challa" ringing from the metaphorical rooftops
The X-Office and the writers attached to that arm of Marvel did not reciprocate Hudlin's positive portrayal of the X-Men within his ongoing Black panther narrative as they did not seem inclined to recognize the marriage in any way, size or form and this disdain for the marriage on the part of the X-office was solidified by the arrival of Nick Lowe and his taking up of the mantel for Editor of that office.
Reginald Hudlin's departure from the BP book signaled the beginning of the end for the marriage as the X-office went into overdrive in dismantling it via AvX in such a way as to make reconcialition between the two characters virtually impossible but it was the subtext of anti-heterosexual Black male aggression that had long since become a staple within the X-books that really began to show what the real problem was for so many within the X-office as well as a segment of their readership.
The wholesale decimation of Wakanda at the hand of the X-Men's Namor cvlearly illustrated just what the X-office thought of Wakanda and by extenntion, Black people in general and this furthermore goes to show why the marriage between two heterosexuals of African descent was anathema to an X-office hellbent on repurposing the "feared and most hated" tagline and attaching it wholesale to the homosexual cause whilst subliminally throwing a diss towards those xeno(homo)phobic wakandans.
This was the overiding and primary reason why the X-office never supported the marriage and that's why upon engineering it's annullment, Ororo, the former Queen of Wakanda was regressed back to her punk persona (with ridiculous mohawk to match) and turned into Wolverine's bed wench.
The concept of Ororo as Queen of Wakanda was something that these readers could not countenance but the watered down Storm as woman to a man who recognized within the same 616 MU as being an unapologetic mass murderer was fine.
Now, many of those self same readers are clamouring for Storm to be cast as a bisexual character cavorting with the likes of Yukio as they seek to have her take up the mantle of gay icon and in the process, whatever character development that Reginald Hudlin brought to her character is being washed down the drain like so so much jetsam and flotsam. (Yaaaasssssss!)
Only a fool would fail to see that it was a segment of readership with their own ideology that had a problem with the marriage between Ororo and T'Challa and the fact that Marvel pandered to this segment of readership, says a lot about Marvel's faux position on diversity than anything else.
In the wake of BOTA, Kymera was introduced as Storm's daugther from a future timeline accompanied by an actual Black Panther but to date, there has been zero mention or even passing exploration as to Kymera's father is but as we can see from Nick Spencer's
Avengers World........
Avengers scribes have no problem clearly delineating who Ororo and T'Challa's children are.
Set against such a backdrop, one is left wondering what it is exactly that Marvel see as the long game to be played out as far as Ororo's relationship with T'Challa is going to be mocing forward but as far as I'm concerned, the queer nation segment of X-readers and the writers who deliver fan-fic masquerading as professional written stories for them, can keep Storm.
The BP mythos don't need to be derailed any further by folks whose agenda is in complete opposition to that which encourages the harmonius union between Black man and Black woman.
