Marvel Comics

  • Luke Cage: When Representation Isn’t Enough

    Luke Cage: When Representation Isn’t Enough

    This show’s true strength is its diverse portrayal of African-American subjectivity and morality, amongst both the male and female characters.

  • Welcome to the World of Wakanda

    Last week, the exciting news came out that Roxane Gay will be joining Ta-Nehisi Coates as a co-writer on the second Black Panther series, World of Wakanda. The New York Times looks at how the series will center women both on the…

  • The First Trans Superhero

    I send my scripts to at least three trans people every time, to make sure I am not speaking incorrectly, and that I am touching on points that would be realistic. It helps very much that our colourist, Tamra Bonvillain,…

  • The Catch-22 of Representation

    Heroine Complex author Sarah Kuhn writes on her impulse as a child to dislike Jubilee, the Marvel superhero she was “supposed” to identify with as an Asian-American woman, and the pressures of creating representative characters for women of color in…

  • The Rumpus Review of 10 Cloverfield Lane

    The Rumpus Review of 10 Cloverfield Lane

    To hell with alien attacks; cinematically speaking, Hollywood’s destroying itself just fine.

  • Afrofuturism and Optimism in Black Panther

    At Lit Hub, Aaron Counts looks at writing afrofuturism in comics. Specifically, Counts discusses the upcoming run of Marvel’s Black Panther series by Ta-Nehisi Coates and how Coates’s nonfiction could inform the newest incarnation of Black Panther.

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates, Comic Book Nerd

    Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of “The Case for Reparations,” Between the World and Me, and, most recently, “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” will continue highlighting the societal problems faced by young African-American men in his new work…

  • Fresh Comics #5: Who is Lee Marrs?

    Fresh Comics #5: Who is Lee Marrs?

    That’ll be the name of the documentary that gets made when people learn to love Lee Marrs. Who is Lee Mars? Honestly, I don’t really know who she is. I’m sure I could ask her. I could actually call her…

  • Not So Literal

    These days there are so many screens showing superheroes one can almost forget that they came from comics. Ta-Nehisi Coates talks to Vulture about storytelling, representation, and the places where movies fall short: We’re talking about something that’s so surreal…

  • What Gender Means

    The Marvel universe is about to get a much-needed dose of perspective when G. Willow Wilson’s all-female team of Avengers arrives this May. NPR talked to Wilson about gender, identity, and ladies who draw: If we’re going to have an…

  • Peter Parker, the Very Human Superhero

    Take a peep at this The Millions essay for some reasons why Spider-man is such a likeable character. In the end, he was profiting off of violence, on fights that he sometimes started. He was also a dishonest journalist. After he…

  • Spiderman Gets a Socially-Conscious Makeover

    Marvel Comics recently announced their latest secret identity—underneath the spider suit is Miles Morales, whose black and Hispanic makeup mark a significant change in the ethnically homogeneity of mainstream superhero comics. Though killing off Peter Parker, the Spiderman before Morales,…