In his latest op-ed on the ongoing problem of race-swapping in comics—a topic he seems to change his mind on every time he talks about it—Image Comics founder Erik Larsen claims that “the original sin at Marvel and DC was to make all the characters straight and white,” but argues against the concept of race and sexuality swapping as a countermeasure.
Source: Iron Fist Vol. 6 #1 (2022), Marvel Comics. Text by Alyssa Wong, art by Michael YG and Jay David Ramos.
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On April 9, Larsen bluntly told his Twitter followers, “The original sin at Marvel and DC was making all the characters straight and white,” before asking rhetorically, “Now that there’s a huge push for representation, they’re on the wrong track, but how can they fix the problem?”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
“It’s easy with the movies – just cast your movie with a diverse group and ignore the comics and the fans on Twitter because nobody cares,” he argued bizarrely and dismissively. “It’s harder with the comics because you can’t just swap out the races of existing characters.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
Rejecting the trend of recent years with characters like Kid Flash, Andra from Master of the Universe and almost the entire cast of Marvel’s Eternals, Larsen suggests: “The ideal solution would be to create a whole bunch of new, diverse characters and then use those characters in comics and movies – but creators don’t want to give Marvel and DC their ‘big ideas’, so that’s not going to work.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
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“Instead they do things like have characters take over the role from a white character, which upsets fans of the original character and always seems like a temporary change,” he explained. “Inevitably the original will return and that leaves the replacement out in the cold.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
Larsen ultimately felt, “If they’re clever, they can give their replacement character a new role, but overall it’s pretty messy and leaves readers on all sides feeling a bit annoyed.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
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In response to a fan who replied to his thread, “I can’t imagine a hero having to be exactly like you in every way to be happy,” Larsen charged, “It doesn’t even have to be. But if a title – these days – never features anything other than white characters, I would think there’s something wrong with that creator.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
Curiously, shortly before this accusation, Larsen responded to a Brazilian fan who claimed: “Real comic book fans don’t care about skin color or ethnicity, they care about characters, stories, etc.”
Larsen said: “Understand that you are not every fan. Your experience is not universal.”
“It’s foolish to assume that everyone thinks like you,” he said. “Many readers like it when the comics they read feature someone who looks like them.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
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Larsen later added – again without a hint of irony – that he was “not a fan of characters whose only attraction is their ethnic or sexual identity.”
“This is just lazy,” he said.
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
As mentioned above, despite Larsen’s recent stubbornness on the matter, the Savage Dragon creator continues to vacillate between differing opinions almost every time the topic comes up.
On April 7, Larsen tweeted to his followers: “For some reason, Marvel and DC have a practice of having new characters take on the identities of old characters. But if I’m an Iron Man fan, there’s no way I’m buying your crappy new Iron Man. I WANT it to flop so the old Iron Man can return.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
“And if you’re going to reinvent a character from scratch, why not just create a new character?” he continued. “You’ve already done 90% of the work – why not give that character a new name and keep the old one?”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
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But about two weeks earlier, on February 23, Larsen pleaded: “Instead of changing Punisher’s chest emblem, they should just finally make it clear to Frank that he is gay.”
“And the beauty of it is that it wouldn’t change the comics at all,” he argued, even though Frank’s origins are tied to the death of his wife and children. “He’d still wear leather, ignore the ladies and hang out with other sweaty guys in bars.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
“And then the Punisher skull would take on a whole new meaning,” Larsen urged. “And he would just kill the guys who showed it around – they’re such a homophobic bunch.”
Archive link Source: Erik Larsen Twitter
What do you think of Larsen’s take on Marvel and DC’s “Original Sin”? Let us know your thoughts on social media or in the comments below!
NEXT: Chuck Dixon explains what bothers him about race swapping in modern entertainment
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