I think it’s time I pointed out something about Marvel and how it handles diversity. They’ve done a lot of great, praiseworthy things in that regard lately.

Unfortunately, none of it is going to last.

Marvel has a long history of screwing up its treatment of minority characters. Many people already know some of the worst bits. Carol Danvers raped and forced to give birth to her rapist. Reed Richards exhibiting misogynistic behavior in the early days, including Sue Storm being called Invisible Girl.

In general, we chalk all this up to being products of a bygone era, and give credit for trying to do better with more modern characters – moving Carol Danvers up to Captain Marvel, making Kamala Khan into Miss Marvel, making Jane Foster into Thor, the former Falcon becoming Captain America, Miles Morales as Spiderman, Amadeus Cho as Hulk, and recently Riri Williams as the new Iron Man.

But you know what? Marvel has a history of creating diverse characters and then letting them disappear into the ether.

There may be better examples than what I’m about to give here. And if I get anything wrong, please correct me. I’m limited by my own knowledge.

Personal Fan Example

Because I’m a Polaris fan, I consider her to be a longstanding example across decades. When she was created, Lorna had much more of a feisty feminist attitude compared to Jean at the time being more the meek and humble girl. This can be seen in scenes such as when, after Cyclops berates Iceman and Havok for fighting over Lorna, Lorna herself angrily interjects with how they should be dealing with more important matters than “who takes who to the next sock hop.”

Unfortunately, Claremont stripped this aspect of her from how he chose to write her, and repeatedly used her to make other characters look better. Now, Marvel’s had since the early 90s to make up for that, but they haven’t. Instead, they try to avoid using her. One particular editor explicitly said Lorna couldn’t take part in Avengers vs X-Men because big events are “only for A-listers and B-listers,” implying Lorna didn’t deserve use.

Some people might think this is unrelated, but it isn’t. When she was introduced, Polaris was a big player shaking up the X-Men book.

She is a prime example of how Marvel treats most of their diversity characters long-term, after the initial push.

Broader Examples

I’ve given my perspective as a Polaris fan. This is where I go through other characters and how they’ve similarly been treated.

Monica Rambeau. Have you heard of her? Probably not. I hadn’t until someone else registered their complaints about Marvel in response to mine about how it handles Lorna, years ago.

Monica Rambeau, a black woman, was originally called Captain Marvel. She’s since been renamed Photon, then Pulsar, and recently Spectrum (in 2013). When introduced, she quickly ascended the ranks in the Avengers and became its leader. Her Marvel wikia entry says only that she left the team due to “injuries.” The Monica fan I talked to, however, pointed out that she was actually written as an incompetent, unstable mess to justify her losing her leadership of the Avengers, for Captain America to take it back.

Same pattern as Polaris: strong introduction, character assassination, shoved into obscurity.

Pepper Potts, aka Rescue.

She donned her own Iron Man style suit. Sound familiar? It should; that’s very much akin to Jane Foster as Thor. Very close female ally of major male character gains the same powers and uses them. This is a relatively new turn for her, made in the 00s, but notice that Marvel’s push for her in this state has tapered off. Rather than standing out for herself in the role, it’s been within context of Tony as Iron Man.

John Proudstar, aka Thunderbird. Male Apache mutant. Marvel had a choice between keeping him or Wolverine. At the time, Wolverine was not the immensely popular character of today. Ultimately, they decided to keep Wolverine and kill John off… and he’s hardly used or even acknowledged today.

Sooraya Qadir, Dust. Female Afghani mutant. Sunni Muslim. She got a lot of attention when she was created, tying into issues with the Middle East in the 00s. She provided Muslim diversity a decade before Kamala Khan… and she’s hardly used today. She appears here and there, but that’s it.

Dani Moonstar. Female Cheyenne mutant. Similar situation to Sooraya, except when she was created, she became co-leader of the New Mutants. Ultimately, she was depowered on M-Day, pulled into Asgardian aspects of Marvel, and is hardly used today.

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. This might sound like a really dumb one to include; both of them are getting huge pushes one way or another. They’re a special honorable mention for a reason: the forced retcon that, after 30 years, suddenly made them no longer Magneto’s kids.

They’ve always been Romani, but that retcon strips them of their Jewish roots. Here, we see that Marvel’s support lasts only until they decide it’s getting in the way of their business – in this case, that it helps Fox. The message is clear: if the diversity of any of the characters Marvel’s introduced becomes an obstacle in their eyes, they’ll ditch that diversity in a heartbeat.

Hell, Marvel’s current treatment of the X-Men franchise as a whole demonstrates their real feelings about diversity.

Because Fox owns the film rights, and things are sour between Marvel and Fox, Marvel is taking their ire out on the X-Men by undermining them – cutting down the number of X-Men comics, setting up events to benefit the Avengers at the X-Men’s expense, disallowing video games and cartoons and toys, etc.

The X-Men started as a representation of the civil rights movement, as an allegory to minority and diversity issues. Yet, Marvel has no problem screwing over the franchise due to who owns the film rights. More importantly, Marvel’s been treating the Inhumans like a wholesale replacement for the X-Men; essentially saying, “one minority is the same as another.”

My point here being: Marvel’s history shows any promotion they give to matters of diversity will not last. They introduce a character, they use the character, they abandon the character and create a whole new one to repeat the cycle. All major shake-ups eventually get at best sidelined, and at worst downright trashed to build up characters meant to replace them.

Love and support these initiatives, and the characters you love… but don’t expect Marvel to stick with it. They won’t. If they did, you’d be reading all sorts of comics featuring Polaris, Monica Rambeau, Pepper Potts as Rescue, Dust, and the list goes on.