WEBVTT FILE

1
00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:07.000
Downloaded from
YTS.MX

2
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.000
Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

3
00:00:10.052 --> 00:00:12.095
JOE QUESADA:
<i>The idea of dual identity became...</i>

4
00:00:13.597 --> 00:00:17.935
really clear to me
when I started at Marvel full-time.

5
00:00:18.977 --> 00:00:22.481
<i>It stemmed from a conversation</i>
<i>I was having with Stan Lee.</i>

6
00:00:23.315 --> 00:00:24.858
I facetiously asked him a question

7
00:00:24.942 --> 00:00:27.194
that I didn't think
there was an answer for.

8
00:00:27.277 --> 00:00:30.239
I said, "Stan, how do you create
the perfect Marvel character?"

9
00:00:30.322 --> 00:00:31.907
He's, like, "Joey, I'm gonna tell ya."

10
00:00:35.327 --> 00:00:36.954
<i>He said, "Imagine Spider-Man</i>

11
00:00:37.037 --> 00:00:39.081
<i>"is standing at the precipice</i>
<i>of a building.</i>

12
00:00:39.164 --> 00:00:40.999
<i>"He's just overlooking the city.</i>

13
00:00:41.083 --> 00:00:43.877
<i>"And he takes it all in,</i>

14
00:00:43.961 --> 00:00:48.257
<i>"and he whups his web, and he jumps off.</i>

15
00:00:49.383 --> 00:00:50.968
(SWISHING AND WHOOSHING)

16
00:00:55.472 --> 00:00:56.974
<i>"Awesome scene.</i>

17
00:00:57.057 --> 00:00:59.059
<i>"But tell me who he is?</i>

18
00:00:59.810 --> 00:01:01.186
<i>"Tell me who he loves.</i>

19
00:01:01.270 --> 00:01:04.356
<i>"Tell me who loves him.</i>
<i>Tell me what his problems are.</i>

20
00:01:05.107 --> 00:01:07.442
<i>"And now, when he flies off that building,</i>

21
00:01:07.526 --> 00:01:10.779
"our hearts clutch
because we're in that suit.

22
00:01:12.406 --> 00:01:15.868
<i>"Outside of that, it's just a red</i>
<i>and blue suit jumping off a building."</i>

23
00:01:15.951 --> 00:01:18.370
<i>And that really struck a chord with me</i>

24
00:01:18.453 --> 00:01:21.373
in understanding the alter ego

25
00:01:21.456 --> 00:01:24.501
is the most important
part of the superhero.

26
00:01:33.510 --> 00:01:36.138
BRIAN BENDIS:
<i>As old a tradition as telling of stories,</i>

27
00:01:36.221 --> 00:01:37.639
there's always been a story about

28
00:01:37.723 --> 00:01:40.893
a human with other powers
teaching us something.

29
00:01:41.852 --> 00:01:44.563
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST: <i>It's the power</i>
<i>of fantasy. I was hoping</i>

30
00:01:44.646 --> 00:01:47.441
<i>that the hero would show up and rescue me.</i>

31
00:01:47.524 --> 00:01:49.026
In real life that rarely happens,

32
00:01:49.109 --> 00:01:51.904
but in comics
it happens every 30 days.

33
00:01:51.987 --> 00:01:54.156
DAVID WALKER: <i>Comic book superheroes,</i>

34
00:01:54.239 --> 00:01:57.117
they serve as our moral compasses,

35
00:01:57.201 --> 00:02:01.121
<i>they allow us to make sense</i>
<i>of the world that we live in.</i>

36
00:02:02.456 --> 00:02:05.501
ROY THOMAS: <i>Every comic book generation</i>
<i>gets the comics it deserves.</i>

37
00:02:05.584 --> 00:02:07.628
You can't expect today's Spider-Man

38
00:02:07.711 --> 00:02:10.005
<i>to be exactly what it was 20 years ago.</i>

39
00:02:10.088 --> 00:02:11.340
Things change.

40
00:02:11.423 --> 00:02:12.883
Who puts that mask on?

41
00:02:13.592 --> 00:02:17.387
<i>That's really what inspires me</i>
<i>about superhero stories.</i>

42
00:02:17.471 --> 00:02:20.432
<i>They are fundamentally</i>
<i>about figuring out who you are.</i>

43
00:02:22.643 --> 00:02:24.436
QUESADA:
<i>You look at any great Marvel story,</i>

44
00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:26.480
<i>I don't care who the character is,</i>

45
00:02:26.563 --> 00:02:27.856
<i>what the team is,</i>

46
00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:31.193
it's always a great story
about the person behind the mask.

47
00:02:47.751 --> 00:02:51.004
NARRATOR:
<i>In this 1941 edition of</i> Captain America,

48
00:02:51.088 --> 00:02:54.842
<i>the Captain was up against</i>
<i>a Nazi villain called the Red Skull</i>

49
00:02:54.925 --> 00:02:56.927
<i>and the dialogue went like this,</i>

50
00:02:57.010 --> 00:03:01.431
<i>"This nation was founded by dissidents,</i>
<i>by people who wanted something better."</i>

51
00:03:02.724 --> 00:03:06.270
I think superheroes have always
been there in American culture,

52
00:03:06.353 --> 00:03:10.524
at least since the concept was first
introduced in the late 1930s.

53
00:03:10.607 --> 00:03:13.193
<i>Superheroes got us through</i>
<i>the tail end of The Depression,</i>

54
00:03:13.277 --> 00:03:18.198
<i>through World War Two, through</i>
<i>the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s.</i>

55
00:03:18.282 --> 00:03:21.034
<i>Every moment along the way,</i>
<i>the superhero has offered us</i>

56
00:03:21.118 --> 00:03:25.247
a language to think about our political,
civic, and personal identities.

57
00:03:26.623 --> 00:03:29.459
Comics, as a medium,
speak very symbolically.

58
00:03:30.419 --> 00:03:34.965
<i>I think because they're so</i>
<i>larger than life and are so allegorical.</i>

59
00:03:36.008 --> 00:03:39.845
You have this opportunity to
build interesting social narratives.

60
00:03:40.762 --> 00:03:43.390
JENKINS: <i>At the core,</i>
<i>are fundamentally civic questions.</i>

61
00:03:43.473 --> 00:03:46.518
Questions about how we govern our society.

62
00:03:47.019 --> 00:03:50.314
<i>Is it a vigilante? Is it someone</i>
<i>in the service of the police?</i>

63
00:03:50.397 --> 00:03:53.942
<i>Is it a man? Is it a woman?</i>
<i>Is he Black? Is she white?</i>

64
00:03:54.026 --> 00:03:58.614
<i>All of those questions are fundamentally</i>
<i>questions about identity.</i>

65
00:03:58.697 --> 00:04:02.784
And Marvel's universe is right smack
in the middle of those questions.

66
00:04:05.871 --> 00:04:07.831
PETER SANDERSON:
<i>Marvel from the very beginning,</i>

67
00:04:07.915 --> 00:04:10.876
<i>was radically different</i>
<i>as a comic book company.</i>

68
00:04:12.169 --> 00:04:14.421
<i>You had characters who sort of foreshadow</i>

69
00:04:14.505 --> 00:04:17.716
<i>what the classic Marvel hero</i>
<i>in the '60s became.</i>

70
00:04:19.760 --> 00:04:21.970
First of all,
you had the original Human Torch.

71
00:04:22.054 --> 00:04:25.140
Not to be confused with the later
version in the <i>Fantastic Four.</i>

72
00:04:25.766 --> 00:04:28.727
<i>Despite the original Human Torch's name,</i>
<i>he wasn't human.</i>

73
00:04:29.603 --> 00:04:32.856
<i>He was an Android,</i>
<i>an artificially created being,</i>

74
00:04:32.940 --> 00:04:36.193
<i>who tried to pass</i>
<i>as human and, in fact, did.</i>

75
00:04:37.444 --> 00:04:41.073
<i>But you already have the idea</i>
<i>of what became Marvel tradition</i>

76
00:04:41.156 --> 00:04:43.617
of the hero who is an outsider,

77
00:04:43.700 --> 00:04:46.870
who is in some way alienated
from the rest of the human race,

78
00:04:46.954 --> 00:04:48.747
who, nonetheless, tries to fit in.

79
00:04:49.998 --> 00:04:55.045
<i>Who tries to help a society that,</i>
<i>at times, was afraid of him.</i>

80
00:04:57.506 --> 00:04:59.091
SANA AMANAT: <i>What Marvel does really well</i>

81
00:04:59.174 --> 00:05:00.759
is play with secret identities

82
00:05:00.843 --> 00:05:04.054
and plays with the concept
of what an identity is.

83
00:05:04.137 --> 00:05:06.682
And what that really means is about

84
00:05:06.765 --> 00:05:09.768
the dualities that we all
encompass, right?

85
00:05:09.852 --> 00:05:13.230
<i>At work, we're one person,</i>
<i>when we're at home, we're another person.</i>

86
00:05:13.313 --> 00:05:16.233
<i>And I think, specifically,</i>
<i>within the Marvel landscape,</i>

87
00:05:16.316 --> 00:05:18.986
it's not necessarily
about hiding yourself,

88
00:05:19.069 --> 00:05:20.654
it's about uncovering yourself.

89
00:05:23.782 --> 00:05:26.785
SANDERSON: <i>Characters donning masks</i>
<i>to become superheroes.</i>

90
00:05:26.869 --> 00:05:30.747
This is the guise in which
they can exercise their higher power.

91
00:05:31.790 --> 00:05:34.168
<i>The concept didn't originate in comics.</i>

92
00:05:34.251 --> 00:05:36.545
<i>Before the rise of superheroes,</i>
<i>you had Zorro.</i>

93
00:05:36.628 --> 00:05:39.214
<i>The idea of a person</i>
<i>who takes on </i>

94
00:05:39.298 --> 00:05:42.134
<i>another heroic identity</i>
<i>that's unknown to the general public.</i>

95
00:05:42.217 --> 00:05:45.179
If a man must die,
it's up to the law to decide that.

96
00:05:47.139 --> 00:05:48.599
SANDERSON:
<i>It's not just a disguise.</i>

97
00:05:48.682 --> 00:05:52.019
A mask, the costume, enable a person

98
00:05:52.102 --> 00:05:56.315
to express a side of himself that is not
visible in his ordinary identity.

99
00:05:57.733 --> 00:06:00.736
JENNINGS: <i>One of the reasons</i>
<i>the idea of a secret or dual identity</i>

100
00:06:00.819 --> 00:06:02.529
<i>is so powerful is 'cause we all have</i>

101
00:06:02.613 --> 00:06:05.199
these multiple notions
about ourselves, right?

102
00:06:06.158 --> 00:06:09.077
<i>And, so, someone like Spider-Man</i>
<i>kind of becomes every man.</i>

103
00:06:09.912 --> 00:06:12.581
This notion that, in our mundane world,

104
00:06:12.664 --> 00:06:15.542
we're also capable
of something far greater.

105
00:06:15.626 --> 00:06:18.337
That's the thing,
especially with Marvel characters,

106
00:06:18.420 --> 00:06:20.797
where so many of them were mundane people.

107
00:06:20.881 --> 00:06:23.509
<i>And I think that double consciousness</i>

108
00:06:23.592 --> 00:06:27.971
allowed these larger-than-life characters
to also be very relatable

109
00:06:28.055 --> 00:06:30.349
on a personal, human level.

110
00:06:32.226 --> 00:06:35.687
We try to, just,
ask the reader to accept one thing.

111
00:06:35.771 --> 00:06:38.482
That a person has a superhuman power.

112
00:06:38.565 --> 00:06:41.610
He can scale a wall or has the strength
of 10 men or whatever.

113
00:06:41.693 --> 00:06:46.448
But once accepting that, we then try
to write it as realistically as possible.

114
00:06:46.532 --> 00:06:48.951
<i>The mere fact</i>
<i>that he has superhuman power</i>

115
00:06:49.034 --> 00:06:50.994
<i>doesn't mean that he may not have acne,</i>

116
00:06:51.078 --> 00:06:53.038
<i>or he may not have trouble</i>
<i>with his girlfriend,</i>

117
00:06:53.121 --> 00:06:55.457
<i>or get a sinus attack</i>
<i>in the middle of a fight,</i>

118
00:06:55.541 --> 00:06:57.417
<i>or perhaps have money troubles, you see?</i>

119
00:06:57.501 --> 00:07:00.128
<i>We don't just make them big and powerful</i>

120
00:07:00.212 --> 00:07:02.881
<i>and they always win the case</i>
<i>and everything is fine.</i>

121
00:07:04.216 --> 00:07:07.970
WALKER: <i>You look at a lot of the creators</i>
<i>in the '30s,'40s and '50s,</i>

122
00:07:08.053 --> 00:07:11.598
<i>many were Jewish immigrants,</i>
<i>either born in America</i>

123
00:07:11.682 --> 00:07:14.393
first generation or some of them
came over from parts of Europe.

124
00:07:14.476 --> 00:07:16.603
<i>And, you know, when you're an immigrant,</i>

125
00:07:16.687 --> 00:07:18.939
<i>they lived, to a certain extent,</i>
<i>a dual identity.</i>

126
00:07:20.148 --> 00:07:24.027
WEINSTEIN: <i>I think it's no coincidence</i>
<i>that Stan Lee was born Stanley Lieber</i>

127
00:07:24.111 --> 00:07:28.073
<i>or Jack Kirby was born,</i>
<i>you know, Jacob Kurtzberg,</i>

128
00:07:28.156 --> 00:07:32.911
and they themselves create characters
who have double identity.

129
00:07:32.995 --> 00:07:37.624
One identity at home
and another identity in the workplace.

130
00:07:41.461 --> 00:07:44.798
NEAL KIRBY: <i>My father, uh...</i>
<i>Growing up, it was a rough life.</i>

131
00:07:47.092 --> 00:07:50.262
Street gangs back then were...
You had a Jewish street gang,

132
00:07:50.345 --> 00:07:52.931
an Irish street gang,
an Italian street gang,

133
00:07:53.015 --> 00:07:55.851
<i>and it just depended</i>
<i>which block you lived on,</i>

134
00:07:55.934 --> 00:08:00.105
<i>and comic books in the late '30s</i>
<i>were just coming out,</i>

135
00:08:00.189 --> 00:08:05.319
and he saw that as an avenue
to escape the Lower East Side.

136
00:08:07.237 --> 00:08:11.450
The late 1930s were
a particularly anti-Semitic period.

137
00:08:11.533 --> 00:08:13.994
<i>Jews were barred</i>
<i>from many Ivy League schools,</i>

138
00:08:14.077 --> 00:08:16.663
<i>country clubs, even entire neighborhoods.</i>

139
00:08:17.372 --> 00:08:18.999
<i>So I think...</i>

140
00:08:19.082 --> 00:08:23.962
<i>Their creations, in many ways,</i>
<i>paralleled their own lives</i>

141
00:08:24.046 --> 00:08:27.508
<i>and what was happening in the world</i>
<i>at that time.</i>

142
00:08:27.591 --> 00:08:28.926
(INAUDIBLE)

143
00:08:30.969 --> 00:08:34.056
JENKINS: <i>For those groups that had been</i>
<i>excluded from the political mainstream,</i>

144
00:08:34.139 --> 00:08:38.018
<i>those metaphors of ripping your coat off</i>
<i>and being a superhero,</i>

145
00:08:38.101 --> 00:08:40.771
<i>putting on a mask</i>
<i>and going out into the night.</i>

146
00:08:40.854 --> 00:08:44.858
Those metaphors are incredibly powerful
ways of thinking

147
00:08:44.942 --> 00:08:48.612
<i>what you could contribute</i>
<i>to a society that's in turmoil.</i>

148
00:08:52.407 --> 00:08:53.700
WEINSTEIN: <i>It's no coincidence</i>

149
00:08:53.784 --> 00:08:56.620
<i>that the front cover of </i>Captain America #1
<i>sees, you know,</i>

150
00:08:56.703 --> 00:08:59.831
<i>Captain America smashing</i>
<i>Hitler across the face.</i>

151
00:08:59.915 --> 00:09:01.792
What a powerful image.

152
00:09:02.501 --> 00:09:06.964
<i>I think that's one of the most important</i>
<i>images of American pop culture history.</i>

153
00:09:07.047 --> 00:09:12.010
<i>And who better to be commenting</i>
<i>than assimilated Jewish immigrants.</i>

154
00:09:13.470 --> 00:09:16.056
KIRBY: <i>A lot of people were looking</i>
<i>at them like, "Wait a minute."</i>

155
00:09:16.139 --> 00:09:21.061
We have an American character punching
a foreign head of state in the face.

156
00:09:21.144 --> 00:09:22.521
We weren't at war with them yet.

157
00:09:23.313 --> 00:09:27.067
<i>But if there's one thing</i>
<i>my father did not like, it was bullies.</i>

158
00:09:27.150 --> 00:09:31.196
<i>And Steve Rogers became</i>
<i>a, you know, like, the vehicle for that.</i>

159
00:09:31.655 --> 00:09:34.533
"Punch me as many times as you like
and I'm still getting up."

160
00:09:34.616 --> 00:09:36.034
So, that was my father.

161
00:09:36.743 --> 00:09:39.371
ALL: One nation, indivisible,

162
00:09:39.454 --> 00:09:42.499
with liberty and justice for all.

163
00:09:42.583 --> 00:09:44.376
WEINSTEIN:
<i>I think, you know, the superhero</i>

164
00:09:44.459 --> 00:09:47.045
<i>can be looked at</i>
<i>as an assimilation archetype.</i>

165
00:09:47.129 --> 00:09:49.631
It's wanting to belong.

166
00:09:50.507 --> 00:09:52.885
<i>I mean, you know, like,</i>
<i>look at Captain America.</i>

167
00:09:52.968 --> 00:09:57.014
<i>He's the flag embellished as costume.</i>

168
00:09:57.097 --> 00:09:59.349
You know, he's Rockwell,
he's apple pie.

169
00:09:59.433 --> 00:10:04.229
<i>But, really, he's the wish fulfillment</i>
<i>of assimilated Jewish artists</i>

170
00:10:04.313 --> 00:10:08.400
<i>who wanted to be accepted as All-American.</i>

171
00:10:08.483 --> 00:10:10.569
I think it's interesting
that if you look at

172
00:10:10.652 --> 00:10:14.156
<i>a lot of early characters, they fit in.</i>

173
00:10:16.116 --> 00:10:18.368
<i>But if you look at those</i>
<i>particular characters</i>

174
00:10:18.452 --> 00:10:20.370
<i>that actually couldn't hide</i>
<i>their mutation,</i>

175
00:10:20.454 --> 00:10:22.831
<i>that were created after</i>
<i>the Golden Age of Comics...</i>

176
00:10:23.415 --> 00:10:27.711
<i>To me, that actually starts to map itself</i>
<i>onto other notions of otherness.</i>

177
00:10:28.504 --> 00:10:29.796
<i>Then we're talking about, like,</i>

178
00:10:29.880 --> 00:10:32.216
<i>"Well, you get isolated</i>
<i>because of what you look like."</i>

179
00:10:33.342 --> 00:10:36.386
WALKER: <i>The way I grew up,</i>
<i>I always felt like the odd one out.</i>

180
00:10:36.470 --> 00:10:39.848
<i>Someone who didn't quite fit in,</i>
<i>no matter how hard he wanted to.</i>

181
00:10:39.932 --> 00:10:42.726
Judged a lot by the way he looks, that...

182
00:10:42.809 --> 00:10:45.103
You know, the clothes
that I wore, you know?

183
00:10:45.187 --> 00:10:46.563
And just wanting to be yourself.

184
00:10:47.564 --> 00:10:50.275
<i>Dwayne McDuffie and I</i>
<i>had a conversation many years ago.</i>

185
00:10:50.359 --> 00:10:51.944
<i>"Who's your favorite</i>
<i>Black superhero?"</i>

186
00:10:52.027 --> 00:10:55.364
<i>My favorite, you know,</i>
<i>Black superhero is The Thing,</i>

187
00:10:55.447 --> 00:10:56.907
<i>and he was, like, "Okay. Why?"</i>

188
00:10:56.990 --> 00:10:59.952
<i>And I said, because he's the one</i>
<i>that always stands out in a room,</i>

189
00:11:00.035 --> 00:11:01.119
<i>no matter where he's at.</i>

190
00:11:01.203 --> 00:11:04.957
And he's always going to be judged
by how he looks

191
00:11:05.040 --> 00:11:06.792
before he's judged by who he is.

192
00:11:06.875 --> 00:11:11.255
<i>And, to me,</i>
<i>that's something that's very universal</i>

193
00:11:11.338 --> 00:11:13.257
<i>to my experience as a Black man.</i>

194
00:11:14.508 --> 00:11:16.260
You know, The Thing was my father.

195
00:11:17.094 --> 00:11:20.556
<i>Ben Grimm kind of acted the same way</i>
<i>my father would act.</i>

196
00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:22.724
<i>Or my father would act the way</i>
<i>Ben Grimm would.</i>

197
00:11:22.808 --> 00:11:24.476
<i>You could interchange the two.</i>

198
00:11:25.269 --> 00:11:29.940
<i>I think, in some ways,</i>
<i>my father almost envisioned himself.</i>

199
00:11:30.023 --> 00:11:36.697
This humanoid, tough guy creature
that could protect people.

200
00:11:39.324 --> 00:11:41.827
<i>You know, you have the story of the golem.</i>

201
00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:45.330
<i>A mythical creature from the mud</i>

202
00:11:45.414 --> 00:11:48.876
<i>that would somehow</i>
<i>save the Jews of Eastern Europe.</i>

203
00:11:49.334 --> 00:11:52.671
I think it's very simple that writers
write about what they know about.

204
00:11:52.754 --> 00:11:59.261
And many of these themes in superhero
narrative are rooted in Biblical story.

205
00:12:00.220 --> 00:12:01.805
<i>For example, The Hulk.</i>

206
00:12:01.889 --> 00:12:03.932
<i>The Hulk was originally gray.</i>

207
00:12:04.016 --> 00:12:08.395
<i>Gray being the golem, which actually</i>
<i>formed the blueprint of Frankenstein.</i>

208
00:12:08.478 --> 00:12:11.481
<i>And many characters in pop culture...</i>

209
00:12:11.565 --> 00:12:13.734
<i>The golem figure...</i>

210
00:12:13.817 --> 00:12:15.527
<i>He's not really a bad guy.</i>

211
00:12:15.611 --> 00:12:18.864
<i>He's just... He looks different,</i>
<i>and because he looks different,</i>

212
00:12:18.947 --> 00:12:21.575
<i>you know, he's feared, he's misunderstood,</i>

213
00:12:21.658 --> 00:12:23.535
<i>he's the rootless wanderer.</i>

214
00:12:23.619 --> 00:12:26.121
So, I think there is a particularly
Jewish worldview.

215
00:12:28.373 --> 00:12:31.168
JENNINGS: <i>To me, Hulk is a man of color,</i>
<i>to a certain degree. </i>(CHUCKLES)

216
00:12:31.251 --> 00:12:34.838
And, so, when you look at constructions
around The Hulk and Monstrosity

217
00:12:34.922 --> 00:12:38.050
<i>and how Black men are kind of</i>
<i>put into that particular box,</i>

218
00:12:38.133 --> 00:12:40.260
<i>I can't help but think</i>
<i>of the James Baldwin quote,</i>

219
00:12:40.344 --> 00:12:44.056
"To be Black and conscious in America
is to live in a constant state of rage."

220
00:12:44.973 --> 00:12:47.643
GREG PAK: <i>Well, Bruce Banner</i>
<i>has this terror of The Hulk.</i>

221
00:12:47.726 --> 00:12:49.061
<i>He sees The Hulk as a monster.</i>

222
00:12:49.645 --> 00:12:53.398
But The Hulk is part of him,
and Banner himself is a hero.

223
00:12:53.482 --> 00:12:55.817
<i>You've got this very simple kernel,</i>

224
00:12:55.901 --> 00:12:58.987
<i>which is that anger</i>
<i>triggers you turning into a monster.</i>

225
00:12:59.071 --> 00:13:02.074
But what if this part of him
is the only part that's out there

226
00:13:02.157 --> 00:13:04.034
<i>and is thrust into a situation</i>

227
00:13:04.117 --> 00:13:09.248
<i>where his anger</i>
<i>and his strength are seen as virtues?</i>

228
00:13:09.331 --> 00:13:11.708
<i>And that very simple thing</i>
<i>allows you to look at this</i>

229
00:13:11.792 --> 00:13:15.838
<i>monstrous version of ourselves and see</i>
<i>how the thing that we look in ourselves</i>

230
00:13:15.921 --> 00:13:18.382
<i>and call a monster,</i>
<i>actually is redeemable.</i>

231
00:13:18.465 --> 00:13:20.634
I love that element of superheroes.

232
00:13:20.717 --> 00:13:24.680
When you have a simple rule,
a very simple set-up like that,

233
00:13:24.763 --> 00:13:28.308
it allows you to dig deep
and just do a lot with subtext

234
00:13:28.392 --> 00:13:30.269
and with the emotional story.

235
00:13:30.894 --> 00:13:34.064
PETER: <i>Uncle Ben is dead and, in a sense,</i>
<i>it's really I who killed him</i>

236
00:13:34.147 --> 00:13:36.149
<i>because I didn't realize in time...</i>

237
00:13:36.233 --> 00:13:38.652
REGINALD HUDLIN:
<i>When you look at the Marvel characters</i>

238
00:13:38.735 --> 00:13:40.696
<i>created in the '60s and '70s,</i>

239
00:13:40.779 --> 00:13:44.074
<i>versus the DC characters</i>
<i>that were created in the '40s,</i>

240
00:13:44.157 --> 00:13:46.535
the big difference
is the introduction of psychology.

241
00:13:47.703 --> 00:13:50.539
You have Spider-Man. He's a superhero,
but he's neurotic.

242
00:13:51.290 --> 00:13:55.085
<i>You have The Fantastic Four</i>
<i>who's this dysfunctional family.</i>

243
00:13:55.169 --> 00:13:58.380
So you get a new angle on things

244
00:13:58.463 --> 00:14:01.466
that you didn't see
in those archetypes created in the '40s.

245
00:14:02.759 --> 00:14:05.679
TOM BREVOORT: <i>The thing that Stan and Jack</i>
<i>kind of brought, at least initially,</i>

246
00:14:05.762 --> 00:14:08.599
was they made the characters,
at the least, two-dimensional.

247
00:14:08.682 --> 00:14:11.685
<i>Which is to say,</i>
<i>they were more focused on them</i>

248
00:14:11.768 --> 00:14:16.064
<i>as the people</i>
<i>inside the costumes and their problems</i>

249
00:14:16.148 --> 00:14:20.652
than they were in the overriding tropes
of superhero comics.

250
00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:23.989
QUESADA: <i>Batman. Young Bruce Wayne</i>
<i>walks out of the movie theater,</i>

251
00:14:24.072 --> 00:14:25.991
a criminal comes in,
shoots his parents dead.

252
00:14:26.074 --> 00:14:28.327
From that moment on,
literally from that moment on,

253
00:14:28.410 --> 00:14:30.245
little Bruce Wayne is dead.

254
00:14:30.329 --> 00:14:32.539
Batman then becomes Batman

255
00:14:32.623 --> 00:14:35.584
and as his life goes on,
he uses Bruce Wayne

256
00:14:35.667 --> 00:14:38.629
in order to facilitate what Batman does.

257
00:14:38.712 --> 00:14:41.173
Bruce Wayne is the mask.
Batman is the real character.

258
00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:45.093
<i>What Marvel did in the '60s</i>
<i>was they switched the paradigm.</i>

259
00:14:45.177 --> 00:14:47.221
It's Peter Parker who's really important,

260
00:14:47.304 --> 00:14:50.807
<i>and when he puts on the mask,</i>
<i>that becomes the facade.</i>

261
00:14:50.891 --> 00:14:52.851
<i>He becomes somebody completely different.</i>

262
00:14:52.935 --> 00:14:55.354
<i>He's able to quip.</i>
<i>He's no more the shy kid from school.</i>

263
00:14:55.437 --> 00:14:57.606
<i>He's able to do all these different things</i>

264
00:14:57.689 --> 00:15:00.275
<i>that he's not able to do</i>
<i>in his regular world.</i>

265
00:15:01.485 --> 00:15:03.529
RALPH MACCHIO: <i>With</i> Spider-Man,
<i>for example,</i>

266
00:15:03.612 --> 00:15:05.656
<i>you were really interested</i>
<i>in Peter Parker.</i>

267
00:15:05.739 --> 00:15:09.076
You were more interested in his life
than what he did as Spider-Man.

268
00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:11.245
<i>It was "What was</i>
<i>going to happen with Aunt May?</i>

269
00:15:11.328 --> 00:15:13.288
<i>"Was he gonna be able to pay the bills?</i>

270
00:15:13.372 --> 00:15:15.749
<i>"What was his romantic life</i>
<i>going to be like?"</i>

271
00:15:15.832 --> 00:15:19.336
<i>You had Flash Thompson</i>
<i>who is this high school jock</i>

272
00:15:19.419 --> 00:15:22.756
<i>and he despised Peter Parker</i>
<i>and he mercilessly picked on him.</i>

273
00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:25.467
But Flash Thompson
was a huge fan of Spider-Man.

274
00:15:25.551 --> 00:15:26.969
So, that was great.

275
00:15:27.594 --> 00:15:31.723
<i>That was just another way of Stan playing</i>
<i>with the idea of secret identities again.</i>

276
00:15:32.266 --> 00:15:35.269
What lonely kid,
and if you're not a lonely kid

277
00:15:35.352 --> 00:15:37.437
you have no business reading comic books.

278
00:15:37.521 --> 00:15:40.858
What lonely kid
has not loved the idea of...

279
00:15:40.941 --> 00:15:43.360
"Oh, if they only knew who I really was"?

280
00:15:44.653 --> 00:15:46.989
<i>Peter Parker, classic example, you know?</i>

281
00:15:47.072 --> 00:15:50.701
<i>The kid everybody bullies</i>
<i>and picks on and takes lightly.</i>

282
00:15:50.784 --> 00:15:55.038
And he puts on the mask, he's not
just this great athlete and a superhero,

283
00:15:55.122 --> 00:15:56.248
he's a smart aleck.

284
00:15:57.332 --> 00:15:59.334
JENKINS:
<i>I love that Peter Parker is tongue-tied</i>

285
00:15:59.418 --> 00:16:02.212
<i>and Spider-Man zings</i>
<i>one-liners right and left.</i>

286
00:16:02.296 --> 00:16:05.924
<i>It's circling the villain</i>
<i>and just making total nonsense</i>

287
00:16:06.008 --> 00:16:10.179
<i>of his ability to even think as he's</i>
<i>trying to do his grandiose monologue.</i>

288
00:16:10.262 --> 00:16:13.265
But that gap between
the tongue-tied Peter Parker

289
00:16:13.348 --> 00:16:16.643
and the zinger-slinging Spider-Man

290
00:16:16.727 --> 00:16:20.105
sort of captures something
of the ways we see ourselves.

291
00:16:20.189 --> 00:16:23.942
The person we see ourselves as being
and the person we'd like to be

292
00:16:24.026 --> 00:16:26.695
are both brought together
around the same figure.

293
00:16:26.778 --> 00:16:29.072
When I would pick up
a Marvel comic book,

294
00:16:29.698 --> 00:16:34.411
it taught me to, in life,
describe yourself with an adjective

295
00:16:34.494 --> 00:16:36.205
and tell the world who you are.

296
00:16:36.288 --> 00:16:39.708
<i>For instance, </i>The Amazing Spider-Man,

297
00:16:39.791 --> 00:16:43.629
The Incredible Hulk,
The Invincible Iron Man.

298
00:16:43.712 --> 00:16:48.217
And I remembered the description
of those characters always stuck in me,

299
00:16:48.300 --> 00:16:51.094
you know, to the point where, sometimes,

300
00:16:51.178 --> 00:16:53.514
when I would have to walk
from my house to school,

301
00:16:53.597 --> 00:16:56.558
I would say, "Today I'ma be
The Invincible Iron Man,"

302
00:16:56.642 --> 00:16:59.728
and if these bullies
come mess with me or, you know...

303
00:16:59.811 --> 00:17:02.231
"I'ma be stealth today.
I'ma be like Spider-Man."

304
00:17:02.314 --> 00:17:04.483
<i>So when hip-hop came over,</i>
<i>well, to me it was like,</i>

305
00:17:04.566 --> 00:17:08.362
<i>"Oh, my God, you can</i>
<i>tell stories about yourself over music?"</i>

306
00:17:08.445 --> 00:17:11.990
So my whole career,
I was just pretending to be

307
00:17:12.074 --> 00:17:15.536
"the most powerful entity
in the hip-hop universe."

308
00:17:15.619 --> 00:17:20.916
And that imaginative
creation of character and identity

309
00:17:20.999 --> 00:17:22.376
was all because of comic books.

310
00:17:23.085 --> 00:17:24.211
<i>When I get on that mic,</i>

311
00:17:24.294 --> 00:17:26.964
<i>I'm no longer mild-mannered,</i>
<i>Catholic school kid </i>

312
00:17:27.047 --> 00:17:29.883
<i>wearing glasses, nerdy,</i>
<i>comic-book-reading, straight-A student.</i>

313
00:17:29.967 --> 00:17:32.970
I transform into the mighty...

314
00:17:33.053 --> 00:17:35.013
DMC doesn't mean Darryl McDaniels anymore.

315
00:17:35.097 --> 00:17:39.101
Now it means
"The Devastating, Mic-Controlling," DMC.

316
00:17:39.184 --> 00:17:42.312
McDANIELS: (RAPPING)
<i>A superhero like D when it comes to war</i>

317
00:17:42.396 --> 00:17:44.982
<i>I come in like The Hulk</i>
<i>and The Mighty Thor</i>

318
00:17:45.065 --> 00:17:49.611
<i>The most powerful</i>
<i>in the hip-hop universe </i>

319
00:17:52.906 --> 00:17:55.450
BREVOORT: <i>The one choice</i>
<i>that got made very early on</i>

320
00:17:55.534 --> 00:17:59.288
<i>was Stan and Jack put</i>
<i>The Fantastic Four and then Spider-Man</i>

321
00:17:59.371 --> 00:18:03.208
<i>and then The Hulk and then Iron Man,</i>
<i>and so forth in the real world.</i>

322
00:18:03.292 --> 00:18:05.002
<i>"Well, what's the big deal about that?"</i>

323
00:18:05.085 --> 00:18:08.380
<i>Up to that point, superheroes existed</i>
<i>in sort of fantasy worlds.</i>

324
00:18:08.463 --> 00:18:11.383
Superman lived in Metropolis,
which was not a real city.

325
00:18:11.466 --> 00:18:14.511
It was an idealized version
of whatever New York was,

326
00:18:14.595 --> 00:18:16.430
<i>but not a real place.</i>

327
00:18:16.513 --> 00:18:22.394
It blew my mind
when Peter Parker really lived in Queens.

328
00:18:22.477 --> 00:18:27.149
<i>Stan Lee was a genius because the</i>
<i>superheroes was really in New York City.</i>

329
00:18:27.232 --> 00:18:29.776
So, it wasn't pretend to me. It was real.

330
00:18:29.860 --> 00:18:31.069
(CROWD CLAMORING)

331
00:18:35.782 --> 00:18:37.451
QUESADA:
<i>Stan was so ahead of the curve.</i>

332
00:18:37.534 --> 00:18:40.412
And to me, that was ultimately
the hope of Marvel comics.

333
00:18:40.495 --> 00:18:43.832
'Cause if you're growing up in the '60s,
in those incredibly turbulent times.

334
00:18:43.916 --> 00:18:46.043
<i>The civil rights movement,</i>
<i>the women's lib movement.</i>

335
00:18:46.126 --> 00:18:47.419
<i>Everything was just bubbling.</i>

336
00:18:47.503 --> 00:18:50.005
<i>And Stan and Jack</i>
<i>and everyone that was there,</i>

337
00:18:50.088 --> 00:18:52.466
they present a world in which it just is.

338
00:18:53.425 --> 00:18:56.178
BREVOORT: <i>Stuff is going on everywhere.</i>
<i>It's in the news.</i>

339
00:18:56.261 --> 00:19:00.974
And both Stan and Jack, in their own ways,
are aware of it and respond to it.

340
00:19:01.058 --> 00:19:05.312
Steve Ditko, he would just start sticking
characters of color into crowd scenes.

341
00:19:05.896 --> 00:19:09.107
<i>There'd be a bunch of kids</i>
<i>at Peter Parker's high school</i>

342
00:19:09.191 --> 00:19:10.901
<i>and there'd be Black kids.</i>

343
00:19:10.984 --> 00:19:13.487
<i>He would just draw them</i>
<i>that way and there they were.</i>

344
00:19:13.570 --> 00:19:15.614
<i>And there would be</i>
<i>no comment about it, you know?</i>

345
00:19:15.697 --> 00:19:18.659
<i>Nobody would address it or anything.</i>
<i>They were just there.</i>

346
00:19:18.742 --> 00:19:20.035
<i>There's an issue of </i>Spider-Man

347
00:19:20.118 --> 00:19:23.914
<i>where Spider-Man has been trapped</i>
<i>by the Green Goblin and the Crime Master</i>

348
00:19:23.997 --> 00:19:26.416
<i>and these, like, two or three beat cops</i>

349
00:19:26.500 --> 00:19:29.461
<i>come to help him out</i>
<i>and one of them is African-American.</i>

350
00:19:30.087 --> 00:19:33.882
Has the comic book industry
been pressured much by Black people

351
00:19:33.966 --> 00:19:37.094
to get more Blacks into the comics
or does that have anything to do with it?

352
00:19:37.177 --> 00:19:40.013
Again, I can't really talk
to the whole comic book industry,

353
00:19:40.097 --> 00:19:42.808
but as far as we're concerned,
it didn't require any pressure.

354
00:19:42.891 --> 00:19:45.769
We were doing it before there was
talk of the Black Movement.

355
00:19:47.563 --> 00:19:50.983
<i>Ten years ago we had a book called</i>
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos.

356
00:19:51.066 --> 00:19:54.653
<i>We billed it as the war magazine</i>
<i>for people who hate war magazines.</i>

357
00:19:54.736 --> 00:19:56.947
We didn't try to play up
Black people particularly,

358
00:19:57.030 --> 00:19:58.532
but we tried to make it realistic.

359
00:19:58.615 --> 00:20:02.744
<i>And Sgt. Fury's platoon</i>
<i>had a Jewish boy named Izzy Cohen,</i>

360
00:20:02.828 --> 00:20:06.874
<i>an Italian named Dino Manelli,</i>
<i>a Black soldier named Gabe Jones,</i>

361
00:20:06.957 --> 00:20:08.458
<i>and we've been doing it ever since.</i>

362
00:20:08.542 --> 00:20:12.004
Just about every one of our books
has Black people in it

363
00:20:12.087 --> 00:20:13.380
and people of all types.

364
00:20:13.463 --> 00:20:15.632
And not in a token way

365
00:20:15.716 --> 00:20:18.927
but, my God, there are people
of all types in the world we live in.

366
00:20:20.846 --> 00:20:22.055
(INAUDIBLE)

367
00:20:32.733 --> 00:20:35.903
And the one that sort of
changed the game in terms of,

368
00:20:35.986 --> 00:20:40.324
yeah, bringing characters of color into
the superhero world is the Black Panther.

369
00:20:40.407 --> 00:20:44.203
<i>He was debuted in</i> Fantastic Four,
<i>and</i> Fantastic Four <i>was, at the time,</i>

370
00:20:44.286 --> 00:20:45.746
<i>Marvel's best-selling comic.</i>

371
00:20:45.829 --> 00:20:49.750
<i>And in that first issue, Panther</i>
<i>is treated like any other character.</i>

372
00:20:49.833 --> 00:20:51.502
<i>In a sense, surprisingly well.</i>

373
00:20:51.585 --> 00:20:56.256
<i>The fact that he is</i>
<i>an African hero is almost secondary.</i>

374
00:20:56.340 --> 00:20:58.634
<i>He shows up.</i>
<i>At first, he's a mysterious player,</i>

375
00:20:58.717 --> 00:21:01.887
<i>he invites</i>
<i>the Fantastic Four to his country.</i>

376
00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:05.849
<i>He immediately jumps them and spends</i>
<i>20 pages beating the hell out of them.</i>

377
00:21:06.475 --> 00:21:08.977
<i>It turns out, by the end of the thing,</i>
<i>he's not a villain,</i>

378
00:21:09.061 --> 00:21:12.314
<i>he's actually a good guy,</i>
<i>and he's doing this to test himself,</i>

379
00:21:12.397 --> 00:21:15.484
<i>you know, which is kind of a</i>
<i>crappy thing to do to the Fantastic Four,</i>

380
00:21:15.567 --> 00:21:16.735
<i>but they're superheroes.</i>

381
00:21:16.818 --> 00:21:19.238
<i>It's all part of the job,</i>
<i>and by the end of the issue,</i>

382
00:21:19.321 --> 00:21:21.823
<i>he takes off his cowl</i>
<i>in front of the Fantastic Four</i>

383
00:21:21.907 --> 00:21:24.201
<i>and they're all like,</i>
<i>"It's the King of Wakanda,"</i>

384
00:21:24.284 --> 00:21:28.622
and nobody says a word about the fact
that he's a Black man.

385
00:21:29.748 --> 00:21:33.669
QUESADA: <i>For the readers, you know,</i>
<i>when T'Challa takes off his mask,</i>

386
00:21:33.752 --> 00:21:37.714
the readers go,
"Oh, my God. It's a Black superhero."

387
00:21:37.798 --> 00:21:40.175
<i>But the Fantastic Four,</i>
<i>they don't say that.</i>

388
00:21:40.259 --> 00:21:43.762
<i>The beauty of it was that it just was.</i>

389
00:21:43.846 --> 00:21:46.056
<i>So if you're in the middle</i>
<i>of all this strife,</i>

390
00:21:46.139 --> 00:21:47.933
<i>in the middle of all this upheaval,</i>

391
00:21:48.016 --> 00:21:51.562
you read those books and you go,
"That's the world I want to live in.

392
00:21:51.645 --> 00:21:52.896
"That's where I want to be."

393
00:21:54.314 --> 00:21:57.401
SANDERSON:
<i>The Black Panther, T'Challa, is a king.</i>

394
00:21:57.985 --> 00:22:00.070
I think this was
a conscious choice to make,

395
00:22:00.153 --> 00:22:01.947
that the Black Panther is very impressive.

396
00:22:02.030 --> 00:22:04.992
That is, in effect,
the point of the first story.

397
00:22:05.576 --> 00:22:10.330
<i>I think it is meant to bowl the readers</i>
<i>over, to impress them with this guy.</i>

398
00:22:11.373 --> 00:22:14.501
What's amazing about
a lot of the early superheroes

399
00:22:14.585 --> 00:22:20.215
is that sometimes those
early characters came out perfect, right?

400
00:22:20.299 --> 00:22:22.926
It's like, normally,
the first pancake isn't so good,

401
00:22:23.010 --> 00:22:26.054
but Superman, perfect.

402
00:22:26.597 --> 00:22:28.098
Batman, perfect.

403
00:22:28.182 --> 00:22:31.643
(CHUCKLES) Wonder Woman, perfect.
Captain America, perfect.

404
00:22:31.727 --> 00:22:37.274
So the first Black superhero,
Black Panther, comes out perfect.

405
00:22:37.357 --> 00:22:42.237
<i>He's this cool, elegant,</i>
<i>handsome guy who's just got it on locked.</i>

406
00:22:42.321 --> 00:22:46.158
I love it! This is the guy who has it all.

407
00:22:46.742 --> 00:22:51.205
<i>And one by one, he beats</i>
<i>each member of the Fantastic Four.</i>

408
00:22:51.788 --> 00:22:56.752
<i>Now, a few issues ago,</i>
<i>they beat Galactus, who eats planets.</i>

409
00:22:57.586 --> 00:23:01.548
So Black Panther beats the guys
who beat Galactus.

410
00:23:02.174 --> 00:23:06.845
Ergo, Black Panther is the baddest cat
in the Marvel Universe. The end.

411
00:23:08.472 --> 00:23:10.516
BREVOORT:
<i>Now, by '66, it was pretty clear</i>

412
00:23:10.599 --> 00:23:13.393
<i>that the Marvel approach</i>
<i>to doing comics was working.</i>

413
00:23:13.477 --> 00:23:15.729
<i>Stan and Jack and Steve,</i>
<i>everybody realized,</i>

414
00:23:15.812 --> 00:23:18.524
<i>like, "Something's going on here.</i>
<i>We're selling really well</i>

415
00:23:18.607 --> 00:23:21.401
<i>"and proportionately selling</i>
<i>better than everybody else."</i>

416
00:23:21.485 --> 00:23:24.738
And, in fact, it would be 10 years

417
00:23:24.821 --> 00:23:30.452
before rival companies had any ongoing
Black characters in a lot of cases.

418
00:23:30.536 --> 00:23:33.914
ARCHIE GOODWIN: These are character
sketches I had John Romita work on for us.

419
00:23:33.997 --> 00:23:35.999
Great. Now this is the way he really is.

420
00:23:36.083 --> 00:23:37.793
-This is it in real life.
-Yeah.

421
00:23:37.876 --> 00:23:40.170
And this is how
Johnny's tried to glamorize it a bit.

422
00:23:40.254 --> 00:23:45.175
LEE: I like the pilot very much, yeah.
She's a Black girl. That's good.

423
00:23:45.259 --> 00:23:47.928
MAGGIE THOMPSON: <i>One of the problems</i>
<i>with diversity in comics</i>

424
00:23:48.011 --> 00:23:53.642
is that though the creators may seek to
have diverse characters in their stories

425
00:23:53.725 --> 00:23:55.269
and diverse storylines

426
00:23:56.061 --> 00:24:00.732
for years and years and years,
the primary writers and artists

427
00:24:00.816 --> 00:24:04.152
were white guys
in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

428
00:24:04.862 --> 00:24:07.322
PRIEST:
<i>I'm the first African-American editor,</i>

429
00:24:07.406 --> 00:24:10.158
and to my knowledge,
the first African-American writer

430
00:24:10.242 --> 00:24:12.911
in, what we consider,
modern superhero comics.

431
00:24:13.495 --> 00:24:15.497
<i>I was 17 years old</i>
<i>when I started working there.</i>

432
00:24:15.581 --> 00:24:19.126
<i>I had no idea that I was</i>
<i>the first Black guy in the front office.</i>

433
00:24:19.209 --> 00:24:21.461
<i>I remember one morning,</i>
<i>I came out of subway</i>

434
00:24:21.545 --> 00:24:25.299
and I was skipping down Madison Avenue.

435
00:24:25.382 --> 00:24:29.178
I was skipping to work,
'cause I couldn't wait to get there.

436
00:24:29.261 --> 00:24:31.805
At some point, a couple blocks,
I realized I was skipping

437
00:24:31.889 --> 00:24:33.557
and I said, "Black people don't skip."

438
00:24:36.268 --> 00:24:39.313
DENYS COWAN: <i>Rich offered</i>
<i>to take me to DC Comics</i>

439
00:24:39.396 --> 00:24:42.399
<i>and introduce me</i>
<i>to editors there to show my work,</i>

440
00:24:42.482 --> 00:24:45.444
and the first person he took me in
to was the art director at DC.

441
00:24:45.527 --> 00:24:47.613
I went and showed this guy my work.

442
00:24:47.696 --> 00:24:49.823
It was a white guy. Everyone was white.

443
00:24:50.657 --> 00:24:54.203
Nodded at me and he looked at it,
put it all together, handed it back,

444
00:24:54.286 --> 00:24:56.288
and he said, "This is really great, kid,

445
00:24:56.371 --> 00:24:58.957
"but we already got
a colored artist working here."

446
00:25:04.505 --> 00:25:09.218
<i>Shortly after that, I was up at Marvel</i>
<i>and I met the editor at the time.</i>

447
00:25:09.301 --> 00:25:12.346
<i>I think it was Jim Shooter.</i>
<i>And he didn't call me a colored artist.</i>

448
00:25:12.429 --> 00:25:16.642
<i>He just said, "Go see this editor</i>
<i>and they'll see what they can do for you."</i>

449
00:25:16.725 --> 00:25:18.977
NOCENTI: <i>People always say,</i>
<i>"Was there sexism?"</i>

450
00:25:19.061 --> 00:25:20.896
<i>There was kind of the opposite of sexism.</i>

451
00:25:20.979 --> 00:25:24.816
Even though there
weren't many female fans yet,

452
00:25:25.609 --> 00:25:30.447
and, probably, the percentage
of the office was mostly guys,

453
00:25:30.531 --> 00:25:32.324
everybody was a mentor.

454
00:25:32.407 --> 00:25:36.954
<i>On any typical day at Marvel Comic,</i>
<i>there was an open door policy,</i>

455
00:25:37.037 --> 00:25:41.124
<i>any kid could come in with</i>
<i>his portfolio and annoy us long enough</i>

456
00:25:41.208 --> 00:25:43.293
<i>'til somebody would pick it up and go,</i>

457
00:25:44.211 --> 00:25:46.964
<i>"Okay. Well, here's a sample page.</i>
<i>Try inking that."</i>

458
00:25:47.047 --> 00:25:50.509
<i>And then as the day went on, you'd get</i>
<i>the bottle of whiskey out of the drawer</i>

459
00:25:50.592 --> 00:25:53.637
and, you know, and then (BLEEP) happens.

460
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:54.847
Story ideas come up.

461
00:25:55.931 --> 00:26:02.020
PRIEST: <i>I can't express enough how much</i>
<i>fun these lunatics were who worked there.</i>

462
00:26:02.104 --> 00:26:04.857
<i>Everybody was just a lunatic at Marvel.</i>

463
00:26:04.940 --> 00:26:07.568
<i>It was completely unpolitically correct.</i>

464
00:26:07.651 --> 00:26:09.319
<i>Yes, there were Black jokes,</i>

465
00:26:09.403 --> 00:26:12.739
but there were Polish jokes, there were
Italian jokes, there were Jewish jokes.

466
00:26:12.823 --> 00:26:16.159
<i>So I had no sense,</i>
<i>when I started writing Black characters,</i>

467
00:26:16.243 --> 00:26:19.162
of changing a paradigm
or making a statement.

468
00:26:20.080 --> 00:26:21.707
BREVOORT: <i>Moving into the '70s,</i>

469
00:26:21.790 --> 00:26:25.836
<i>as there was more of an interest in</i>
<i>developing further superheroes of color,</i>

470
00:26:25.919 --> 00:26:28.922
<i>I don't know how much</i>
<i>anybody was thinking that hard</i>

471
00:26:29.006 --> 00:26:31.175
<i>about a lot of the choices that were made.</i>

472
00:26:31.258 --> 00:26:34.219
A lot of the writers
and artists were very young.

473
00:26:34.303 --> 00:26:38.557
<i>So, even the amount of life experience</i>
<i>that a number of these people had</i>

474
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:41.518
<i>probably colored the way</i>
<i>they depicted things.</i>

475
00:26:41.602 --> 00:26:44.646
<i>They absorbed the culture</i>
<i>that was around them like everybody else,</i>

476
00:26:44.730 --> 00:26:47.107
<i>and it filtered through</i>
<i>the work that they did.</i>

477
00:26:47.191 --> 00:26:51.862
<i>So there are definitely instances</i>
<i>where people didn't present characters</i>

478
00:26:51.945 --> 00:26:53.822
<i>as well as they could have.</i>

479
00:26:53.906 --> 00:26:57.367
<i>You know, Luke Cage in particular,</i>
<i>he was intended to be, effectively,</i>

480
00:26:57.451 --> 00:26:58.869
<i>a blaxploitation character.</i>

481
00:27:00.120 --> 00:27:02.039
<i>Luke Cage </i>was created
because of <i>Shaft.</i>

482
00:27:03.415 --> 00:27:06.084
<i>That's what led</i>
<i>to that blaxploitation period.</i>

483
00:27:07.878 --> 00:27:10.464
PRIEST: <i>Marvel went through</i>
<i>a blaxploitation phase</i>

484
00:27:10.547 --> 00:27:15.385
with Brother VooDoo and Luke Cage,
you know, "Sweet Christmas."

485
00:27:15.469 --> 00:27:18.388
TONY ISABELLA: <i>I was very drawn</i>
<i>to characters of color.</i>

486
00:27:18.472 --> 00:27:20.807
And this stems
from my growing up in Cleveland,

487
00:27:20.891 --> 00:27:23.727
which was a very segregated town,

488
00:27:23.810 --> 00:27:27.731
and my first Black friends
were comic book fans,

489
00:27:27.814 --> 00:27:29.525
<i>and I thought it was really unfair</i>

490
00:27:29.608 --> 00:27:31.860
<i>that there weren't</i>
<i>more Black characters for them.</i>

491
00:27:31.944 --> 00:27:35.781
WALKER: Luke Cage,<i> as a child, was one of</i>
<i>my most favorite books at Marvel.</i>

492
00:27:35.864 --> 00:27:38.200
<i>My cousin and I</i>
<i>discovered </i>Luke Cage <i>together</i>

493
00:27:38.283 --> 00:27:40.744
<i>at a 7-Eleven in the '70s</i>
<i>when we were kids.</i>

494
00:27:40.827 --> 00:27:42.829
We read that comic until it fell apart.

495
00:27:43.705 --> 00:27:47.835
DUFFY: <i>I think it's because he was one</i>
<i>of the first African-American superheroes</i>

496
00:27:47.918 --> 00:27:49.545
<i>that they didn't wanna mask him.</i>

497
00:27:49.628 --> 00:27:52.297
It's like,
they were so doing the right thing,

498
00:27:52.381 --> 00:27:56.593
finally having heroes of color, it was,
like, yeah, they wanted people to see

499
00:27:56.677 --> 00:28:00.514
<i>this strong, handsome champion</i>
<i>of justice who was also a man of color.</i>

500
00:28:00.597 --> 00:28:02.307
If you read the<i> Luke Cage</i> comics,

501
00:28:02.391 --> 00:28:06.770
there's nothing about Luke Cage
that is actually a Black person, right?

502
00:28:06.854 --> 00:28:08.564
<i>The way he talks, the way he acts,</i>

503
00:28:08.647 --> 00:28:12.234
<i>there's this bizarre notion</i>
<i>of what "Blackness" is supposed to be.</i>

504
00:28:12.317 --> 00:28:14.611
PRIEST:<i> A lot of artists,</i>
<i>when they approach Black characters,</i>

505
00:28:14.695 --> 00:28:18.448
they give them this sort of slang.
And it's not real slang.

506
00:28:18.532 --> 00:28:21.618
<i>It's like what white people</i>
<i>think slang is.</i>

507
00:28:21.702 --> 00:28:25.038
WALKER: <i>A lot of times you square with,</i>
<i>what I call, the lack of humanity</i>

508
00:28:25.122 --> 00:28:28.000
<i>in some of these characters</i>
<i>the same way you reconcile</i>

509
00:28:28.083 --> 00:28:32.504
your childhood love of a James Bond movie
and then watch it as an adult and go,

510
00:28:32.588 --> 00:28:35.966
"Ooh, wait a sec. James Bond
is hugely problematic, right?"

511
00:28:37.134 --> 00:28:39.887
ISABELLA: <i>When I was writing</i>
Luke Cage <i>in the '70s,</i>

512
00:28:39.970 --> 00:28:42.890
I wasn't, as they say,
as woke as I am now.

513
00:28:42.973 --> 00:28:46.977
I tried to tell good stories
that respected the character,

514
00:28:47.060 --> 00:28:52.107
<i>that treated him not as</i>
<i>something special but just a great hero.</i>

515
00:28:52.191 --> 00:28:54.860
<i>This was a growth process for all of us.</i>

516
00:28:54.943 --> 00:28:59.114
<i>You don't suddenly wake up</i>
<i>to the world around you and go,</i>

517
00:28:59.198 --> 00:29:02.242
"This is how it should be."
You work your way towards there.

518
00:29:03.535 --> 00:29:06.121
PRIEST: <i>It's rare for me to craft a story</i>

519
00:29:06.205 --> 00:29:08.874
<i>from the perspective</i>
<i>of being a Black writer,</i>

520
00:29:08.957 --> 00:29:12.336
because I don't
consider myself a "Black writer."

521
00:29:12.419 --> 00:29:14.087
I'm a writer. I can write anything.

522
00:29:15.464 --> 00:29:17.674
<i>I wrote</i> Luke Cage <i>for a long time.</i>

523
00:29:18.425 --> 00:29:20.802
<i>Eventually I said, "Well, on demerits,</i>

524
00:29:20.886 --> 00:29:23.347
<i>"how should this person</i>
<i>present themselves?"</i>

525
00:29:23.430 --> 00:29:27.726
I didn't have him using the King's speech,
but some of that stuff had to go.

526
00:29:30.562 --> 00:29:32.981
JENNINGS: <i>I think that it does start out</i>
<i>as this exploitative piece,</i>

527
00:29:33.065 --> 00:29:36.568
but through, like, reappropriation,
we can actually start to sample

528
00:29:36.652 --> 00:29:38.695
and remix these things
and make them our own.

529
00:29:40.197 --> 00:29:42.616
<i>To go from, say,</i>
<i>like this kind of jive-talkin',</i>

530
00:29:42.699 --> 00:29:44.368
<i>steel-hard skin-having character</i>

531
00:29:44.451 --> 00:29:47.955
<i>to this really complex</i>
<i>father figure and leader</i>

532
00:29:48.038 --> 00:29:50.999
<i>who resonates with</i>
<i>a lot of people who live in this country.</i>

533
00:29:52.042 --> 00:29:53.293
I love <i>Luke Cage,</i> you know?

534
00:29:55.003 --> 00:29:57.214
NICOLE GEORGES:
<i>I think identity in comics is huge.</i>

535
00:29:57.297 --> 00:30:00.133
<i>'Cause when you're a kid,</i>
<i>those are the people you look up to,</i>

536
00:30:00.217 --> 00:30:01.927
<i>'cause they represent good.</i>

537
00:30:02.010 --> 00:30:05.055
On the page, it's like,
"This person's good, this person's evil."

538
00:30:05.138 --> 00:30:07.182
<i>I think everyone deserves</i>
<i>to see themselves</i>

539
00:30:07.266 --> 00:30:09.059
<i>reflected in the media they consume,</i>

540
00:30:09.142 --> 00:30:11.395
<i>and it is crazy to think</i>

541
00:30:11.478 --> 00:30:14.022
<i>that people would spend</i>
<i>so much money on entertainment</i>

542
00:30:14.106 --> 00:30:16.525
<i>that does not at all</i>
<i>reflect back their body type,</i>

543
00:30:16.608 --> 00:30:19.611
<i>their class background,</i>
<i>their race, their sexuality, their gender.</i>

544
00:30:19.695 --> 00:30:23.323
<i>It's wild that people have been</i>
<i>entertained solely by products</i>

545
00:30:23.407 --> 00:30:25.576
that didn't reflect
any of those things back to them,

546
00:30:25.659 --> 00:30:28.495
or did in like a real homogeneous way,
for years and years.

547
00:30:28.579 --> 00:30:30.289
(SINGING) <i>Rubbley-ub-dub,</i>

548
00:30:30.372 --> 00:30:32.624
<i>Oh, how she'll get ya with her</i>
<i>Rubbley-ub-dub</i>

549
00:30:33.333 --> 00:30:35.586
<i>She'll really throw ya with her</i>
<i>Rubbley-ub-dub,</i>

550
00:30:36.128 --> 00:30:38.547
<i>Hear them yelling...</i>

551
00:30:38.630 --> 00:30:42.217
JENNINGS: <i>Comics in particular,</i>
<i>they utilize stereotypes to tell stories.</i>

552
00:30:42.301 --> 00:30:45.637
That's one of the reasons why
you have so many problematic constructions

553
00:30:45.721 --> 00:30:49.474
around race in comics because they're
generally borrowing from social norms.

554
00:30:49.558 --> 00:30:52.311
<i>For instance, at the end of the heyday</i>
<i>of the Golden Age of comics,</i>

555
00:30:52.394 --> 00:30:55.147
<i>you have these really,</i>
<i>really horrific racial stereotypes.</i>

556
00:30:55.230 --> 00:30:58.692
<i>A lot of the propaganda around</i>
<i>Asian people during the Second World War.</i>

557
00:30:59.735 --> 00:31:02.946
PAK: <i>There was a time when Asian people</i>
<i>in comics were colored yellow.</i>

558
00:31:03.030 --> 00:31:04.698
They literally used yellow.

559
00:31:05.532 --> 00:31:06.950
<i>Larry Hama talks about this.</i>

560
00:31:07.034 --> 00:31:12.247
I would just say, "Hey, maybe we should
stop coloring Asian people bright yellow."

561
00:31:13.916 --> 00:31:17.586
<i>"Well, why do we do that?"</i>
<i>"Oh, well, we've always done that."</i>

562
00:31:17.669 --> 00:31:22.049
"Well, uh, maybe it's time
we stopped doing that." (CHUCKLES)

563
00:31:22.883 --> 00:31:26.178
BREVOORT: <i>The very first issue of</i>
Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos,

564
00:31:26.261 --> 00:31:28.138
<i>Gabe Jones is colored Caucasian.</i>

565
00:31:28.722 --> 00:31:32.643
<i>And he's colored Caucasian</i>
<i>because essentially up to that point,</i>

566
00:31:32.726 --> 00:31:37.189
there really had not been,
in comic books, a character of color.

567
00:31:37.272 --> 00:31:39.316
There were no Black people

568
00:31:39.399 --> 00:31:44.112
apart from <i>Amos 'n Andy,</i>
stereotypical, bug-eyed, big-lipped,

569
00:31:44.196 --> 00:31:46.448
<i>Stepin Fetchit kind of caricatures.</i>

570
00:31:46.532 --> 00:31:49.701
And so, the book was sent
to the printer and the color separator,

571
00:31:49.785 --> 00:31:52.996
and the color separator went,
"This must be a mistake,"

572
00:31:53.080 --> 00:31:55.123
colored him Caucasian like everybody else.

573
00:31:55.207 --> 00:31:58.335
<i>And Stan had to call him up</i>
<i>and kind of ream them out over it</i>

574
00:31:58.418 --> 00:32:00.337
<i>and get it corrected for future issues.</i>

575
00:32:00.420 --> 00:32:03.507
And, in fact, in those early issues
and in those early years,

576
00:32:03.590 --> 00:32:07.302
they don't even quite have
a skin tone that works.

577
00:32:07.386 --> 00:32:12.349
<i>Gabe Jones ends up looking more gray</i>
<i>and more like stone in a lot of issues</i>

578
00:32:12.432 --> 00:32:16.478
<i>than he does</i>
<i>a true, rich African-American brown,</i>

579
00:32:16.562 --> 00:32:20.232
because literally they just couldn't
figure out what's the combination

580
00:32:20.315 --> 00:32:25.153
of red, yellow, blue
to get a skin tone that works.

581
00:32:26.071 --> 00:32:28.907
HAMA: <i>You can yell and pound the desk</i>
<i>all you want.</i>

582
00:32:28.991 --> 00:32:34.872
What that type of aggression does
is it steels people against you.

583
00:32:34.955 --> 00:32:39.168
<i>It's more lasting and it has more meaning</i>
<i>if you become part of what it is</i>

584
00:32:39.251 --> 00:32:40.836
<i>and change it internally.</i>

585
00:32:41.879 --> 00:32:43.922
When I went to work at Marvel on staff,

586
00:32:44.006 --> 00:32:47.050
they were reprinting stories
from the 1950s,

587
00:32:47.134 --> 00:32:49.428
and one of the books
was <i>Jungle Action.</i>

588
00:32:50.596 --> 00:32:51.805
<i>And in those books,</i>

589
00:32:51.889 --> 00:32:54.391
<i>they were reprinting</i>
<i>a lot of these really racist</i>

590
00:32:54.474 --> 00:32:57.311
<i>jungle blonde Gods and Goddesses</i>

591
00:32:57.394 --> 00:32:59.271
<i>saving the natives stories.</i>

592
00:32:59.354 --> 00:33:02.149
(CHUCKLES) I would say to editorial,

593
00:33:02.232 --> 00:33:08.113
"I can't believe <i>Marvel</i>
is publishing this stuff in 1973.

594
00:33:08.197 --> 00:33:09.781
"What are you guys, crazy?"

595
00:33:09.865 --> 00:33:12.951
<i>And I know I must have</i>
<i>said something like,</i>

596
00:33:13.035 --> 00:33:17.289
<i>"Can't you at least have an African</i>
<i>character be the hero?"</i> (CHUCKLES)

597
00:33:17.372 --> 00:33:18.373
<i>They came and said,</i>

598
00:33:18.457 --> 00:33:21.627
<i>"We're gonna put</i>
<i>the Black Panther into </i>Jungle Action."

599
00:33:21.710 --> 00:33:25.130
I don't think editorial
had really thought what that meant.

600
00:33:25.756 --> 00:33:28.634
<i>Since everybody in the cast was Wakandan,</i>

601
00:33:28.717 --> 00:33:30.928
<i>it was going to be</i>
<i>an all-Black cast of characters.</i>

602
00:33:31.011 --> 00:33:35.641
This has never been done
in an American comic book series before.

603
00:33:41.855 --> 00:33:45.651
SANDERSON: <i>Don McGregor, his</i> Black Panther
<i>was a cutting-edge series at the time.</i>

604
00:33:45.734 --> 00:33:47.277
<i>He's the one who really created</i>

605
00:33:47.361 --> 00:33:51.406
<i>this incredibly futuristic,</i>
<i>super-scientific society.</i>

606
00:33:51.490 --> 00:33:53.617
<i>The world, the civilization of Wakanda.</i>

607
00:33:54.785 --> 00:33:58.497
DOUGLAS WOLK: <i>One thing that</i> Marvel
<i>did a lot that's fantastic</i>

608
00:33:58.580 --> 00:34:03.001
is they loved to play with tropes
and they loved to turn them upside down.

609
00:34:03.085 --> 00:34:07.130
<i>So the Black Panther, he's in Africa.</i>
<i>It's deep, dark Africa.</i>

610
00:34:07.214 --> 00:34:10.467
<i>This unexplored place.</i>
<i>Trope, trope, tropety-trope.</i>

611
00:34:10.551 --> 00:34:14.888
And Wakanda is a technological paradise
and the most wealthy country in the world.

612
00:34:14.972 --> 00:34:17.808
<i>Wait a second.</i>
<i>This is not a trope anymore.</i>

613
00:34:19.685 --> 00:34:23.355
JENNINGS: <i>The most interesting thing</i>
<i>I think about the</i> Black Panther <i>story</i>

614
00:34:23.438 --> 00:34:26.650
<i>is this idea of an untouched Black space.</i>

615
00:34:26.733 --> 00:34:29.653
<i>It's a space of power</i>
<i>and it's a space of celebration.</i>

616
00:34:30.404 --> 00:34:34.157
<i>Seeing this open, technologically</i>
<i>advanced, beautiful society,</i>

617
00:34:34.241 --> 00:34:36.326
it brought me to tears
almost instantaneously.

618
00:34:41.623 --> 00:34:44.626
DON McGREGOR: <i>There was a resurgence</i>
<i>of the Ku Klux Klan at the time...</i>

619
00:34:45.544 --> 00:34:49.298
<i>and that's how</i>
<i>the Panther versus the Klan came about.</i>

620
00:34:50.674 --> 00:34:52.384
<i>T'Challa is with Monica Lynne,</i>

621
00:34:52.467 --> 00:34:54.428
<i>who's the woman</i>
<i>he is with at that timeframe.</i>

622
00:34:54.511 --> 00:34:58.473
<i>And they start talking about an uncle</i>
<i>she had during the Reconstruction period,</i>

623
00:34:58.557 --> 00:35:01.226
<i>after the Civil War, in the United States.</i>

624
00:35:01.310 --> 00:35:03.812
<i>And when the mother tells the story,</i>

625
00:35:03.896 --> 00:35:07.566
<i>she's telling what historically happened</i>
<i>to her Uncle Caleb.</i>

626
00:35:08.317 --> 00:35:12.487
<i>And in alternate pages,</i>
<i>we have Monica thinking of it the way,</i>

627
00:35:12.571 --> 00:35:16.575
<i>if T'Challa existed</i>
<i>back in 1868 Reconstruction America.</i>

628
00:35:20.662 --> 00:35:22.289
<i>This goes right to the heart of,</i>

629
00:35:22.372 --> 00:35:25.959
"Why do people love costume
and superheroes in comics?"

630
00:35:26.043 --> 00:35:28.295
'Cause T'Challa makes it come out right.

631
00:35:28.378 --> 00:35:30.839
And in the real world, Caleb gets hung.

632
00:35:34.259 --> 00:35:37.179
As the books went along,
it became more and more apparent

633
00:35:37.262 --> 00:35:39.723
that they did not want
an all-Black cast of characters.

634
00:35:39.806 --> 00:35:41.600
<i>They wanted</i>
<i>the Avengers to be brought in</i>

635
00:35:41.683 --> 00:35:43.352
<i>to help the Black Panther out.</i>

636
00:35:43.435 --> 00:35:44.937
<i>I said, "No, this is not that book.</i>

637
00:35:45.020 --> 00:35:47.481
<i>"I don't want it to be a book</i>
<i>where the white guys come in</i>

638
00:35:47.564 --> 00:35:49.816
<i>"and help the Black guy</i>
<i>'cause he can't do it.</i>

639
00:35:49.900 --> 00:35:51.151
"T'Challa can take care of it.

640
00:35:51.235 --> 00:35:53.529
"He doesn't need
anybody else to be coming in there.

641
00:35:53.612 --> 00:35:55.697
"And he'll take care
of the important issues."

642
00:35:56.573 --> 00:36:00.077
ISABELLA: <i>There was a time when</i>
The Black Panther <i>became</i> The Black Leopard

643
00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:02.246
<i>because Marvel was afraid</i>

644
00:36:02.329 --> 00:36:05.207
<i>that he'd be associated</i>
<i>with the Black Panther party.</i>

645
00:36:05.290 --> 00:36:10.087
<i>There was a time when T'Challa</i>
<i>became a school teacher in America,</i>

646
00:36:10.170 --> 00:36:15.717
and that seemed to me
not quite right for an African king.

647
00:36:16.218 --> 00:36:18.303
Everybody makes mistakes.

648
00:36:18.387 --> 00:36:20.639
The question is
what you do from those mistakes.

649
00:36:20.722 --> 00:36:21.723
Do you learn from them?

650
00:36:26.937 --> 00:36:28.063
Stay quiet!

651
00:36:28.981 --> 00:36:33.360
CONWAY: <i>There was a tendency under Stan,</i>
<i>and whatever his strengths were,</i>

652
00:36:34.278 --> 00:36:36.989
writing strong
female characters were not among them.

653
00:36:37.072 --> 00:36:39.783
He tended to treat
all of the female characters

654
00:36:39.867 --> 00:36:43.453
as the lady scientist
in bad 1950s horror movies.

655
00:36:44.413 --> 00:36:48.375
<i>Beautiful, but not too bright.</i>
<i>A female character has to be rescued.</i>

656
00:36:48.959 --> 00:36:50.127
(SCREAMS)

657
00:36:53.797 --> 00:36:56.383
WOLK: <i>So one really interesting thing</i>
<i>about Marvel's history</i>

658
00:36:56.466 --> 00:36:58.927
<i>is that at the same time</i>

659
00:36:59.011 --> 00:37:02.472
as their superhero line
was starting in the early '60s,

660
00:37:02.556 --> 00:37:05.726
<i>the other half of the line</i>
<i>that they were publishing</i>

661
00:37:05.809 --> 00:37:07.769
<i>was comics about young women.</i>

662
00:37:07.853 --> 00:37:11.565
<i>They were doing</i> Patsy Walker
<i>and</i> Patsy and Hedy.

663
00:37:11.648 --> 00:37:14.443
<i>They were doing</i>
Linda Carter, Student Nurse,

664
00:37:14.526 --> 00:37:18.697
<i>the comedy romance</i>
<i>medical adventures of a student nurse.</i>

665
00:37:18.780 --> 00:37:22.618
<i>And there's a way</i>
<i>in which those got integrated</i>

666
00:37:22.701 --> 00:37:24.953
into the superhero stories.

667
00:37:25.787 --> 00:37:29.124
SANDERSON:
<i>The heroines tend to have lesser powers.</i>

668
00:37:29.208 --> 00:37:34.254
<i>The Wasp got to shrink down</i>
<i>and sting people and fly around.</i>

669
00:37:34.338 --> 00:37:37.674
Sue Storm was sort of
like the housewife at the Fantastic Four.

670
00:37:37.758 --> 00:37:39.843
<i>Originally,</i>
<i>her power was basically to hide.</i>

671
00:37:39.927 --> 00:37:41.094
<i>She turns invisible.</i>

672
00:37:41.678 --> 00:37:44.848
Male characters
were given the very physical powers,

673
00:37:44.932 --> 00:37:49.436
and female characters have
these sort of point and pose powers.

674
00:37:49.520 --> 00:37:50.812
So these powers where

675
00:37:50.896 --> 00:37:53.106
you just stand and look nice,
and you point,

676
00:37:53.190 --> 00:37:55.067
and you can do something with your mind.

677
00:37:55.692 --> 00:37:59.780
<i>The power where you can look good</i>
<i>while affecting those around you.</i>

678
00:38:00.489 --> 00:38:03.992
Every time that gender and sexuality
has been addressed in Marvel comics,

679
00:38:04.076 --> 00:38:07.871
it's very representative
of popular thinking at the time.

680
00:38:08.580 --> 00:38:12.125
<i>And strides have been made</i>
<i>with every subsequent generation.</i>

681
00:38:12.209 --> 00:38:13.836
WOMAN: What do we want?
CROWD: E-R-A!

682
00:38:13.919 --> 00:38:16.630
-When do we want it?
-Now!

683
00:38:16.713 --> 00:38:19.883
Stan wanted me
to create a female superhero

684
00:38:19.967 --> 00:38:22.761
that would have the Marvel name
in her character name,

685
00:38:22.845 --> 00:38:28.183
<i>and I brought together elements</i>
<i>from other books that were pre-existing,</i>

686
00:38:28.267 --> 00:38:29.685
<i>such as Carol Danvers,</i>

687
00:38:29.768 --> 00:38:33.397
<i>and gave her an origin story that tied her</i>
<i>into the </i>Captain Marvel <i>series</i>

688
00:38:33.480 --> 00:38:37.818
<i>and tried to create</i>
<i>a feminist superheroine.</i>

689
00:38:38.443 --> 00:38:43.490
When the strip was started in 1976,
like most of the things Marvel did in '76,

690
00:38:43.574 --> 00:38:46.952
it was an attempt to tap into
whatever was going on in the zeitgeist.

691
00:38:47.035 --> 00:38:50.414
<i>Women's lib was big.</i>
<i>We'll do a female super.</i>

692
00:38:50.497 --> 00:38:53.166
<i>She'll be Ms. Marvel.</i>
<i>That will be current.</i>

693
00:38:53.250 --> 00:38:57.629
<i>The first issue cover had a blurb like,</i>
<i>"This female fights back."</i>

694
00:38:58.255 --> 00:39:01.925
My goal was to write a feminist superhero.

695
00:39:02.009 --> 00:39:04.052
In fact, in the first issue,

696
00:39:04.136 --> 00:39:07.097
<i>there's a moment where,</i>
<i>there's a girl with her mom, she says,</i>

697
00:39:07.181 --> 00:39:08.765
<i>"I wanna be like her when I grow up."</i>

698
00:39:08.849 --> 00:39:11.476
<i>And I thought that was</i>
<i>an important thing to try to create,</i>

699
00:39:11.560 --> 00:39:15.314
<i>was a strong-willed</i>
<i>powerful female character</i>

700
00:39:15.397 --> 00:39:20.777
<i>who was independent</i>
<i>and not the object of a romantic liaison.</i>

701
00:39:20.861 --> 00:39:24.156
The book was a feminist book,

702
00:39:24.239 --> 00:39:27.326
much more heavy-handed
than anything I ever did.

703
00:39:27.409 --> 00:39:30.162
<i>She's got the Gloria Steinem glasses</i>
<i>and part down the middle.</i>

704
00:39:30.245 --> 00:39:32.873
<i>And he makes her</i>
<i>an editor of </i>Woman Magazine.

705
00:39:33.790 --> 00:39:38.295
But the Marvel Universe heroes
are ground level heroes.

706
00:39:38.378 --> 00:39:40.506
<i>They are people who have problems</i>

707
00:39:40.589 --> 00:39:44.384
<i>and things go poorly for them</i>
<i>personally, often.</i>

708
00:39:44.468 --> 00:39:49.598
<i>That makes sense to me,</i>
<i>but that also makes Carol a hard fit</i>

709
00:39:50.140 --> 00:39:56.772
<i>because Carol</i>
<i>is this overpowered beautiful blonde.</i>

710
00:39:57.481 --> 00:40:00.776
Like, there's a record scratch there.

711
00:40:00.859 --> 00:40:04.571
Our characters are fundamentally
about who they are behind the mask, right?

712
00:40:04.655 --> 00:40:08.909
<i>But then, anything that anyone knows</i>
<i>about Carol Danvers is the costume.</i>

713
00:40:08.992 --> 00:40:10.285
It's the first thing they look.

714
00:40:10.369 --> 00:40:13.080
It's a bathing suit
with thigh-high boots and a sash,

715
00:40:13.163 --> 00:40:16.375
<i>which I think is the most ineffective way</i>
<i>to beat up bad guys.</i>

716
00:40:16.458 --> 00:40:19.294
And very cold when you're flying
at really high altitudes.

717
00:40:19.878 --> 00:40:24.758
<i>But it was a different time,</i>
<i>and the male gaze was at the forefront.</i>

718
00:40:24.842 --> 00:40:28.053
The way a woman is drawn in a comic
where she has a super skinny waist

719
00:40:28.136 --> 00:40:29.638
and huge bullet boobs.

720
00:40:29.721 --> 00:40:33.183
<i>It's like a different version</i>
<i>of womanhood, and femininity,</i>

721
00:40:33.267 --> 00:40:36.937
<i>and a different version of toughness</i>
<i>because when women are drawn by men,</i>

722
00:40:37.020 --> 00:40:38.480
<i>and trying to show they're tough,</i>

723
00:40:38.564 --> 00:40:41.191
<i>they're often givin' them</i>
<i>male marks of toughness.</i>

724
00:40:41.275 --> 00:40:44.403
Being a woman and being tough
sometimes is different than that,

725
00:40:44.486 --> 00:40:46.572
or more nuanced than that.

726
00:40:48.073 --> 00:40:51.034
JEANINE SCHAEFER: <i>It's not that we need</i>
<i>women to be badasses,</i>

727
00:40:51.118 --> 00:40:55.831
or that we need women
to be strong in some, uh...

728
00:40:55.914 --> 00:40:58.166
socially acceptable way,

729
00:40:58.250 --> 00:41:00.544
<i>but when you have women</i>
<i>who aren't allowed to be flawed,</i>

730
00:41:00.627 --> 00:41:03.755
<i>or they can only look like this,</i>
<i>and they can only do these things,</i>

731
00:41:03.839 --> 00:41:08.343
<i>and they can't make bad choices,</i>
<i>that's boring. You know?</i>

732
00:41:08.427 --> 00:41:10.304
That's nobody's favorite character.

733
00:41:15.893 --> 00:41:20.689
CHRIS CLAREMONT: <i>My mom, when she was</i>
<i>in college, ended up joining the RAF</i>

734
00:41:20.772 --> 00:41:22.524
because she wanted to be a fighter pilot.

735
00:41:22.608 --> 00:41:24.193
They wouldn't let her be one

736
00:41:24.276 --> 00:41:26.236
because women
aren't allowed to fly Spitfires.

737
00:41:26.320 --> 00:41:31.408
So she ended up serving on a radar station
on the south coast of Britain in 1940,

738
00:41:31.491 --> 00:41:36.413
<i>which was an extremely adventurous time</i>
<i>to be in that place, doing that job.</i>

739
00:41:36.496 --> 00:41:40.542
So I figure if I know
people who do this for real,

740
00:41:40.626 --> 00:41:44.296
<i>why can't I put their equivalent on paper?</i>

741
00:41:44.379 --> 00:41:47.758
<i>Why should women in comics</i>
<i>just be girlfriends?</i>

742
00:41:47.841 --> 00:41:49.468
<i>Why can't there be boyfriends?</i>

743
00:41:49.551 --> 00:41:51.553
<i>Why can't you create</i>

744
00:41:51.637 --> 00:41:54.598
<i>idiosyncratic individuals</i>
<i>and then put them through hell?</i>

745
00:41:54.681 --> 00:41:56.350
No one else was doing it, I figured,

746
00:41:56.433 --> 00:41:58.644
"The heck?
I'll take a shot and see what happens."

747
00:42:02.564 --> 00:42:05.692
BREVOORT: <i>It's what we think of as</i>
The All-New, All-Different X-Men

748
00:42:05.776 --> 00:42:07.528
<i>that came in around 1975.</i>

749
00:42:08.237 --> 00:42:09.863
They took a group of characters

750
00:42:09.947 --> 00:42:13.242
who originally
were five white American kids

751
00:42:13.325 --> 00:42:17.079
<i>and replaced them</i>
<i>with an international team.</i>

752
00:42:17.996 --> 00:42:20.874
IVAN VELEZ JR.: <i>When I became a teenager,</i>
<i>the </i>Uncanny X-Men <i>came out</i>

753
00:42:20.958 --> 00:42:23.168
and something just took it
to another level for us.

754
00:42:23.252 --> 00:42:27.506
Maybe it was the time, maybe it was
coming off of the civil rights era

755
00:42:27.589 --> 00:42:29.758
<i>but it just seemed like brown skin</i>

756
00:42:29.842 --> 00:42:33.053
<i>and not even brown skin,</i>
<i>like that Black skin,</i>

757
00:42:33.136 --> 00:42:37.599
and their attempts to do Asian skin,
which was still too yellow for my taste,

758
00:42:37.683 --> 00:42:40.310
but it was just
like a beautiful thing just to see.

759
00:42:40.936 --> 00:42:44.231
<i>The X-Men</i>
of the '70s is totally fascinating,

760
00:42:44.314 --> 00:42:46.650
because it's such an aggressive attempt

761
00:42:46.733 --> 00:42:49.278
at the idea
of a representational diversity.

762
00:42:49.361 --> 00:42:51.321
<i>If we look at the X-Men of the early '60s,</i>

763
00:42:51.405 --> 00:42:53.907
<i>they were supposed to be different</i>
<i>than ordinary humans</i>

764
00:42:53.991 --> 00:42:55.409
<i>by virtue of being mutants,</i>

765
00:42:55.492 --> 00:42:59.746
<i>but they were essentially a group</i>
<i>of white, privileged teenage kids.</i>

766
00:42:59.830 --> 00:43:02.916
And, so, in many ways,
it didn't live up to its own promise.

767
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:08.797
The X-Men<i> of the 1970s reinvigorates</i>
<i>the imagined category of the mutant,</i>

768
00:43:08.881 --> 00:43:11.341
<i>and it says,</i>
<i>"What if there were lots of mutants,</i>

769
00:43:11.425 --> 00:43:14.094
<i>"but they all</i>
<i>were radically different from each other?"</i>

770
00:43:14.178 --> 00:43:16.138
And then they had to create common cause.

771
00:43:17.181 --> 00:43:19.933
CLAREMONT: <i>The whole point for me</i>
<i>of the X-Men has been,</i>

772
00:43:20.017 --> 00:43:22.853
<i>they are the outsiders,</i>
<i>summed up by the phrase,</i>

773
00:43:22.936 --> 00:43:24.897
<i>"Serve and protect</i>
<i>the world that hates them."</i>

774
00:43:24.980 --> 00:43:27.774
And the idea was
that they can never get away from that.

775
00:43:28.525 --> 00:43:31.653
BREVOORT: <i>The X-Men were</i>
<i>the first superheroes who were the same,</i>

776
00:43:31.737 --> 00:43:34.031
<i>whether they were in the costumes or not.</i>

777
00:43:34.114 --> 00:43:35.365
With Wolverine,

778
00:43:35.449 --> 00:43:39.203
it didn't matter whether he was wearing
a plaid shirt and a cowboy hat

779
00:43:39.286 --> 00:43:41.997
<i>or the yellow and blue superhero outfit,</i>

780
00:43:42.080 --> 00:43:46.084
<i>he was the same dude and he reacted</i>
<i>to people exactly the same way.</i>

781
00:43:46.168 --> 00:43:50.631
There wasn't any artifice
of not being the person that you were.

782
00:43:51.590 --> 00:43:54.468
CLAREMONT: <i>The idea of wearing masks,</i>
<i>it just didn't fit.</i>

783
00:43:55.010 --> 00:43:58.680
If I was a normal kid
and I woke up on my 13th birthday

784
00:43:58.764 --> 00:44:01.475
and I'd turned into Nightcrawler,
I'd be pissed.

785
00:44:03.602 --> 00:44:05.479
<i>But if I'm born this way,</i>

786
00:44:05.562 --> 00:44:07.773
<i>if this is what I look like</i>
<i>coming out of the box,</i>

787
00:44:07.856 --> 00:44:09.650
<i>what kind of a person am I?</i>

788
00:44:09.733 --> 00:44:12.903
<i>And then I thought,</i>
<i>"Okay. I might as well make the best of it</i>

789
00:44:12.986 --> 00:44:15.531
<i>"because I can cling to walls,</i>
<i>I can teleport,</i>

790
00:44:15.614 --> 00:44:16.990
<i>"I have a tail that's articulate.</i>

791
00:44:17.074 --> 00:44:19.785
"I'm cool. I am just so cool."

792
00:44:20.744 --> 00:44:25.040
<i>If you're that far</i>
<i>on the outskirts of norm,</i>

793
00:44:25.123 --> 00:44:27.918
<i>it's either an asset or it's a liability,</i>

794
00:44:28.001 --> 00:44:30.254
and why would you want it
to be a liability?

795
00:44:30.963 --> 00:44:32.840
Embrace it and see where it leads.

796
00:44:34.508 --> 00:44:37.177
NOCENTI:
<i>Chris was pretty ahead of the curve</i>

797
00:44:37.261 --> 00:44:40.055
<i>with the diversity</i>
<i>and the female empowerment,</i>

798
00:44:40.138 --> 00:44:42.182
like no one else was.

799
00:44:42.266 --> 00:44:44.601
<i>When you really look back on it,</i>

800
00:44:44.685 --> 00:44:48.772
<i>the female characters</i>
<i>have the best storylines in Chris' </i>X-Men.

801
00:44:49.523 --> 00:44:52.860
He was also doing the early versions

802
00:44:52.943 --> 00:44:56.113
<i>of having people play around</i>
<i>with switching genders</i>

803
00:44:56.196 --> 00:44:58.115
<i>like you have all the time now.</i>

804
00:44:58.198 --> 00:45:04.705
<i>And I remember at one point he wanted</i>
<i>somebody to brainwash Professor Xavier</i>

805
00:45:04.788 --> 00:45:09.042
and have him in a dress with heels,
and I was like, "Chris, that's too far."

806
00:45:12.796 --> 00:45:15.841
FAWAZ: <i>What is so fascinating</i>
<i>about the </i>X-Men <i>in this period,</i>

807
00:45:15.924 --> 00:45:18.468
<i>is that it is very much invested</i>

808
00:45:18.552 --> 00:45:21.346
in the cultures of women's
and gay liberation in the '70s,

809
00:45:21.430 --> 00:45:23.473
even though the series would never mention

810
00:45:23.557 --> 00:45:25.601
any of those terms
in the actual comic book.

811
00:45:25.684 --> 00:45:28.520
<i>Gay liberation,</i>
<i>that social movement is saying,</i>

812
00:45:28.604 --> 00:45:30.772
<i>"We wanna be</i>
<i>able to perform our identities</i>

813
00:45:30.856 --> 00:45:32.858
<i>"visually in the way we dress,</i>
<i>the way we dance,</i>

814
00:45:32.941 --> 00:45:34.026
<i>"in the way we make love,"</i>

815
00:45:34.109 --> 00:45:37.946
<i>and that comic book said what does it look</i>
<i>like to transform those ideals</i>

816
00:45:38.030 --> 00:45:41.450
<i>into the way</i>
<i>that mutants look on the page?</i>

817
00:45:42.075 --> 00:45:44.244
The characters look
like they're dressed in drag,

818
00:45:44.328 --> 00:45:47.956
<i>their costumes</i>
<i>are extraordinarily flamboyant,</i>

819
00:45:48.040 --> 00:45:52.252
<i>and there are all of these epic scenes</i>
<i>where they go off into space</i>

820
00:45:52.336 --> 00:45:56.340
<i>and they really look like</i>
<i>they're a menagerie of disco divas.</i>

821
00:45:56.423 --> 00:46:00.093
Seeing that joy, it really spoke to me.

822
00:46:00.177 --> 00:46:03.764
<i>Like, "Oh, you can revel in this thing</i>
<i>that makes you different."</i>

823
00:46:03.847 --> 00:46:07.017
<i>The question is just, "Who am I?</i>
<i>Who am I in the world?</i>

824
00:46:07.100 --> 00:46:10.312
<i>"Who am I to the people around me?</i>
<i>Who am I to myself?"</i>

825
00:46:10.395 --> 00:46:13.440
So, sure, the superpowers were fun

826
00:46:13.524 --> 00:46:17.069
<i>'cause you've got big spectacles</i>
<i>and people flying through space</i>

827
00:46:17.152 --> 00:46:18.320
<i>and punching each other.</i>

828
00:46:18.403 --> 00:46:23.033
But really it was all dressing
for the really intimate discovery

829
00:46:23.116 --> 00:46:26.203
of who you were
and who the people around you were.

830
00:46:26.286 --> 00:46:30.749
<i>If you found the X-Men, you suddenly found</i>
<i>a community of people who knew you.</i>

831
00:46:32.417 --> 00:46:35.045
I was raised in the Bronx
and it was a rough time.

832
00:46:36.004 --> 00:46:37.965
<i>Comics were a great place to hide,</i>

833
00:46:38.048 --> 00:46:40.884
especially if you have stuff
to hide about yourself.

834
00:46:42.719 --> 00:46:45.848
<i>So, the queer part of me</i>
<i>always loved the isolation,</i>

835
00:46:45.931 --> 00:46:47.641
<i>and loved the parallels</i>

836
00:46:47.724 --> 00:46:50.018
<i>between being a gay youth</i>
<i>and being a X-Man.</i>

837
00:46:50.769 --> 00:46:53.897
<i>For the first time,</i>
<i>we felt like we were part of the story,</i>

838
00:46:53.981 --> 00:46:57.317
and that was really important
because before that it was like nothing.

839
00:46:57.401 --> 00:47:01.029
CROWD: I turn my back on AIDS.

840
00:47:01.154 --> 00:47:04.950
I turn my back on AIDS.

841
00:47:05.033 --> 00:47:08.328
VELEZ: <i>There was a movement going on</i>
<i>because of the AIDS crisis,</i>

842
00:47:08.412 --> 00:47:11.290
I think Marvel missed an opportunity
to have gay characters there.

843
00:47:12.499 --> 00:47:13.917
FAWAZ: <i>There are different ways</i>

844
00:47:14.001 --> 00:47:17.254
<i>of representing</i>
<i>the experience of human beings.</i>

845
00:47:17.337 --> 00:47:20.549
<i>One way that comics</i>
<i>have been really successful at,</i>

846
00:47:20.632 --> 00:47:25.220
is to produce
elaborate fictional metaphors.

847
00:47:25.304 --> 00:47:29.558
<i>So, you say being a mutant is like being</i>
<i>a racial minority in the United States.</i>

848
00:47:29.641 --> 00:47:32.811
<i>Or you say being a mutant</i>
<i>is like being gay.</i>

849
00:47:32.895 --> 00:47:36.899
At the same time, there comes a point
in which real people say,

850
00:47:36.982 --> 00:47:39.693
"I need to see myself in these texts.

851
00:47:39.776 --> 00:47:44.031
"I can't always be a fictional metaphor
because I'm a living human. "

852
00:47:44.114 --> 00:47:48.744
<i>So another way of representing</i>
<i>the lived experience of human beings</i>

853
00:47:48.827 --> 00:47:50.913
is to actually just represent people.

854
00:47:56.084 --> 00:47:59.171
I mean, they tried. They really did try.

855
00:47:59.254 --> 00:48:01.089
They had that thing
when Northstar came out.

856
00:48:02.382 --> 00:48:06.428
ALLAN HEINBERG: <i>Northstar was</i>
<i>the first out gay Marvel character</i>

857
00:48:06.512 --> 00:48:09.515
<i>and huge for the gay community</i>
<i>in terms of representation.</i>

858
00:48:09.598 --> 00:48:13.018
But the focus was never on his
personal life or his relationship life.

859
00:48:13.101 --> 00:48:15.979
It was always sort of a "I'm gay"
and that was it.

860
00:48:17.773 --> 00:48:19.191
BREVOORT: <i>But the writer of the series</i>

861
00:48:19.274 --> 00:48:22.069
<i>wanted him to go through a journey</i>
<i>where he got AIDS.</i>

862
00:48:22.152 --> 00:48:26.031
<i>And he started that story</i>
<i>and Marvel got skittish about it.</i>

863
00:48:26.114 --> 00:48:29.618
(CHUCKLES) And so that story
got changed in the telling,

864
00:48:29.701 --> 00:48:33.205
and instead
it became this really bizarre thing

865
00:48:33.288 --> 00:48:37.334
where it was actually
that Northstar was half...

866
00:48:37.417 --> 00:48:39.920
And I swear this is true. Half fairy.

867
00:48:40.879 --> 00:48:44.925
<i>It was nobody's intention,</i>
<i>but it's a really bad set of comics.</i>

868
00:48:46.009 --> 00:48:49.137
PAK: <i>If the only characters you see</i>
<i>are the stereotypes,</i>

869
00:48:49.763 --> 00:48:53.392
that's when they become stereotypes.
That's almost the definition of it.

870
00:48:53.475 --> 00:48:57.938
<i>If that's the only image you see</i>
<i>of an entire group of people,</i>

871
00:48:58.438 --> 00:49:01.108
then that's a little bogus.

872
00:49:04.152 --> 00:49:10.033
<i>But you let a character live and breathe</i>
<i>in multiple dimensions, it's a person.</i>

873
00:49:10.909 --> 00:49:13.287
<i>And it's not a stand in for a community.</i>

874
00:49:15.372 --> 00:49:18.750
At the end of the day,
what creators must do

875
00:49:18.834 --> 00:49:22.087
is to simply pay attention
to the world more closely.

876
00:49:22.171 --> 00:49:25.382
<i>To introduce characters</i>
<i>who come from different walks of life,</i>

877
00:49:25.465 --> 00:49:28.802
<i>and then take their own creative license</i>
<i>to take it somewhere else.</i>

878
00:49:29.344 --> 00:49:31.763
<i>So ultimately, the purpose of the creator</i>

879
00:49:31.847 --> 00:49:34.016
<i>is to take what we already know</i>
<i>about the world,</i>

880
00:49:34.099 --> 00:49:35.893
<i>which is that it is diverse,</i>

881
00:49:35.976 --> 00:49:39.271
<i>and to represent it to us</i>
<i>in new and exciting ways.</i>

882
00:49:40.022 --> 00:49:41.982
It's like run 'em through the mill.

883
00:49:42.065 --> 00:49:45.402
Run 'em through the mill
that we run every Marvel character through

884
00:49:45.485 --> 00:49:47.070
no matter who they are.

885
00:49:47.154 --> 00:49:48.655
<i>Go from hero to villain,</i>

886
00:49:48.739 --> 00:49:51.575
<i>die, get resurrected,</i>
<i>get seriously injured,</i>

887
00:49:51.658 --> 00:49:54.286
<i>come back from the injury,</i>
<i>join the Avengers,</i>

888
00:49:54.369 --> 00:49:55.662
<i>get thrown out of the Avengers.</i>

889
00:49:55.746 --> 00:49:59.541
Anything and everything
that's happened to Spider-Man,

890
00:49:59.625 --> 00:50:02.377
Captain America, or Iron Man
over these years,

891
00:50:02.461 --> 00:50:04.880
I want to happen to that character.

892
00:50:04.963 --> 00:50:06.423
<i>Because what it means then,</i>

893
00:50:06.507 --> 00:50:09.551
<i>is that writers</i>
<i>want to write that character,</i>

894
00:50:09.635 --> 00:50:11.678
<i>artists want to draw that character,</i>

895
00:50:11.762 --> 00:50:16.099
and that character now is included
into the fabric of the Marvel Universe.

896
00:50:16.183 --> 00:50:20.521
A lot of people wanna say it's diversity.
I wanna say it's inclusion.

897
00:50:23.398 --> 00:50:26.568
BENDIS: <i>We were sitting around</i>
<i>at lunch. We weren't having a meeting.</i>

898
00:50:26.652 --> 00:50:28.862
We're sitting, talking
about what we'd do differently

899
00:50:28.946 --> 00:50:30.405
with certain things we've done,

900
00:50:30.489 --> 00:50:34.785
and with <i>Ultimate Spider-Man,</i>
it was working fine. It worked great.

901
00:50:34.868 --> 00:50:37.704
It was a hit book for many years.

902
00:50:37.788 --> 00:50:41.792
<i>And we were talking about</i>
<i>if you unpack the origin of Spider-Man,</i>

903
00:50:41.875 --> 00:50:44.920
<i>a New York kid, and he lives</i>
<i>with his aunt, he's a science nerd,</i>

904
00:50:45.003 --> 00:50:47.172
<i>there's really nothing there</i>
<i>that says Caucasian.</i>

905
00:50:47.256 --> 00:50:50.133
There's a lot of things there that say,
just from location

906
00:50:50.217 --> 00:50:54.805
<i>and other things that he may be a kid</i>
<i>with a different kind of background.</i>

907
00:50:54.888 --> 00:50:59.017
<i>And then, once that idea is in your head,</i>
<i>it's hard to let go of it.</i>

908
00:50:59.101 --> 00:51:03.021
Like, if we did this again,
we would have made this kid a kid of color

909
00:51:03.105 --> 00:51:05.232
and developed a completely new voice.

910
00:51:05.315 --> 00:51:08.277
And we were like, "Yeah."
I'm like, "Hmm. Why don't we do that?"

911
00:51:10.362 --> 00:51:13.282
<i>Peter Parker passed away</i>
<i>in a very heroic way</i>

912
00:51:13.365 --> 00:51:16.743
<i>of saving Aunt May's life in the way</i>
<i>he couldn't save Uncle Ben's,</i>

913
00:51:17.411 --> 00:51:20.122
<i>but he didn't know that another young man</i>

914
00:51:20.205 --> 00:51:23.667
<i>had also been bitten by a spider</i>
<i>and his name is Miles Morales.</i>

915
00:51:28.714 --> 00:51:32.509
<i>As everyone dealt</i>
<i>with the shocking death of Spider-Man,</i>

916
00:51:33.177 --> 00:51:35.971
<i>Miles pulls off his mask</i>
<i>just to get some air</i>

917
00:51:36.054 --> 00:51:37.639
<i>and that's when we see who he is.</i>

918
00:51:40.809 --> 00:51:43.854
George Lucas said, the easiest thing
a writer could do is kill a puppy

919
00:51:43.937 --> 00:51:45.731
'cause everyone's gonna go, "Oh!"

920
00:51:45.814 --> 00:51:48.692
So by killing Peter Parker,
I had killed the puppy.

921
00:51:48.775 --> 00:51:50.402
<i>That wasn't a good enough story.</i>

922
00:51:50.485 --> 00:51:53.530
<i>But when it became that Peter Parker dying</i>

923
00:51:53.614 --> 00:51:57.034
<i>inspired Miles</i>
<i>the way Uncle Ben inspired Peter,</i>

924
00:51:57.117 --> 00:52:01.163
I knew this story
had elevated beyond dead puppies.

925
00:52:02.080 --> 00:52:04.374
<i>Miles was looking at the theme</i>

926
00:52:04.458 --> 00:52:06.585
<i>of "With great power</i>
<i>comes great responsibility"</i>

927
00:52:06.668 --> 00:52:10.672
<i>from a completely different point of view</i>
<i>than the way Peter Parker did.</i>

928
00:52:11.882 --> 00:52:15.636
The idea of these roles
being taken over by other characters

929
00:52:15.719 --> 00:52:17.137
is something we've seen before.

930
00:52:17.221 --> 00:52:21.266
The difference in this round
of the stories that we're seeing,

931
00:52:21.350 --> 00:52:27.940
<i>it is more a cast that reflects</i>
<i>the world that we actually live in.</i>

932
00:52:28.649 --> 00:52:34.780
So, with Carol, I go back to
what is at the center of her identity?

933
00:52:34.863 --> 00:52:36.281
<i>Where does her pain come from?</i>

934
00:52:36.365 --> 00:52:39.284
How can I make her
not just aspirational but relatable?

935
00:52:40.118 --> 00:52:41.411
She has to (BLEEP) up.

936
00:52:41.495 --> 00:52:44.373
She has to fall down,
she has to get back up,

937
00:52:44.456 --> 00:52:46.458
she has to have her ass handed to her.

938
00:52:49.044 --> 00:52:52.214
<i>So I go back, I read as much as I can</i>
<i>about her biography,</i>

939
00:52:52.297 --> 00:52:58.095
<i>and I find that her father who she loves</i>
<i>and adores has two boys and a girl,</i>

940
00:52:58.178 --> 00:53:01.890
<i>and he can't afford to send everybody</i>
<i>to school, and he's gonna send the boys.</i>

941
00:53:02.558 --> 00:53:06.311
<i>So Carol enlists in the Air Force</i>
<i>to pay for her education</i>

942
00:53:06.395 --> 00:53:10.482
<i>and spends the rest of her life</i>
<i>trying to prove to her father</i>

943
00:53:10.566 --> 00:53:13.694
that she is just as good as the boys.

944
00:53:15.487 --> 00:53:19.867
<i>And that is a thing</i>
<i>that is human and relatable.</i>

945
00:53:19.950 --> 00:53:23.495
And even though she's beautiful,
and even though she's powerful,

946
00:53:24.162 --> 00:53:26.874
like, she has a very real,
very human pain,

947
00:53:27.833 --> 00:53:32.129
<i>and that's how</i>
<i>you make a character you can root for.</i>

948
00:53:33.839 --> 00:53:35.424
When I started writing <i>Black Panther,</i>

949
00:53:35.507 --> 00:53:40.679
<i>I said I'm gonna make the comic book</i>
<i>equivalent of a Public Enemy record.</i>

950
00:53:40.762 --> 00:53:42.472
<i>When they make</i> Bring the Noise,

951
00:53:42.556 --> 00:53:46.393
<i>when they make </i>Party for Your Right
to Fight, It Takes a Nation of Millions,

952
00:53:46.476 --> 00:53:48.645
they're just like, "This is for us

953
00:53:48.729 --> 00:53:53.483
"and our friends,
and we're gonna super satisfy us."

954
00:53:55.068 --> 00:53:56.737
<i>When Hurricane Katrina happened</i>

955
00:53:56.820 --> 00:54:01.283
<i>and it's this incredible tragedy</i>
<i>in a very Black city,</i>

956
00:54:01.366 --> 00:54:03.577
<i>I thought, "Here's a situation</i>

957
00:54:04.411 --> 00:54:09.291
"where we could do a test run
of an idea I really wanted to do

958
00:54:09.374 --> 00:54:10.584
"which is Black Avengers."

959
00:54:12.002 --> 00:54:17.257
<i>Let's get Black Panther,</i>
<i>Luke Cage, Blade, Photon,</i>

960
00:54:17.341 --> 00:54:22.387
<i>put together basically, a Black super team</i>
<i>to come solve this problem.</i>

961
00:54:22.471 --> 00:54:23.805
It's the wish fulfillment

962
00:54:23.889 --> 00:54:26.225
that I've been wanting to see
my whole life

963
00:54:26.308 --> 00:54:27.893
<i>and that's what happened.</i>

964
00:54:29.394 --> 00:54:31.188
PAK: <i>I remember thinking about</i>
<i>Marvel Universe</i>

965
00:54:31.271 --> 00:54:34.566
and realizing that there were
very few Asian American characters

966
00:54:34.650 --> 00:54:37.694
and very few, in particular,
young Asian American male characters,

967
00:54:37.778 --> 00:54:40.489
and I was like,
"That's a niche I'd like to fill."

968
00:54:40.572 --> 00:54:45.702
<i>And, so, Amadeus Cho, this brilliant kid,</i>
<i>he has a close encounter with The Hulk.</i>

969
00:54:45.786 --> 00:54:48.956
<i>He's like, "Okay. Bruce,</i>
<i>you've had enough tragedy in your life.</i>

970
00:54:49.039 --> 00:54:51.291
<i>"I'm gonna cure you of being The Hulk,</i>

971
00:54:51.375 --> 00:54:53.669
"since I'm a cocky kid
who knows everything,

972
00:54:53.752 --> 00:54:55.170
"I'll take the power of The Hulk.

973
00:54:55.254 --> 00:54:56.713
<i>"I'm gonna be the best Hulk.</i>

974
00:54:56.797 --> 00:54:58.257
<i>"The Totally Awesome Hulk." </i>

975
00:54:58.340 --> 00:55:00.509
<i>And that was the book,</i>
The Totally Awesome Hulk.

976
00:55:01.134 --> 00:55:03.846
I was actually in middle school.
I was around 12 years old

977
00:55:03.929 --> 00:55:06.473
<i>when I realized</i>
<i>that people had a perception</i>

978
00:55:06.557 --> 00:55:10.936
<i>of Muslims</i>
<i>that was antagonistic or misunderstood.</i>

979
00:55:11.520 --> 00:55:13.105
Marvel really welcomed me

980
00:55:13.188 --> 00:55:17.109
and encouraged me to use my voice
to tell a different kind of Marvel story.

981
00:55:17.693 --> 00:55:22.322
<i>Kamala Khan, the all new Ms. Marvel,</i>
<i>she is a young, newly discovered inhuman.</i>

982
00:55:22.406 --> 00:55:25.826
<i>She's South Asian,</i>
<i>a Muslim girl from Jersey City,</i>

983
00:55:25.909 --> 00:55:30.747
<i>and Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers happens</i>
<i>to be her most favorite superhero ever.</i>

984
00:55:30.831 --> 00:55:33.417
<i>She is tall, she's blonde,</i>
<i>she has blue eyes,</i>

985
00:55:33.500 --> 00:55:35.878
<i>she's everything that Kamala Khan is not.</i>

986
00:55:35.961 --> 00:55:38.088
<i>First thing that happens</i>
<i>when she gets her powers</i>

987
00:55:38.172 --> 00:55:41.550
<i>is that her body morphs</i>
<i>and she subconsciously decides</i>

988
00:55:41.633 --> 00:55:43.844
<i>that she wants to look like Carol Danvers.</i>

989
00:55:43.927 --> 00:55:46.722
<i>So, her kind of finding</i>
<i>a way back to herself</i>

990
00:55:46.805 --> 00:55:51.143
<i>and her sense of balance within her power</i>
<i>is the beginning of her journey.</i>

991
00:55:52.436 --> 00:55:56.607
From a purely thematic point of view,
the idea of the masked superhero,

992
00:55:56.690 --> 00:55:59.693
the person who is afraid
to reveal themselves,

993
00:55:59.776 --> 00:56:03.155
<i>that doesn't have</i>
<i>as much power as it once did.</i>

994
00:56:03.238 --> 00:56:08.619
<i>I think we're actually seeing a broadening</i>
<i>of acceptance of differences,</i>

995
00:56:08.702 --> 00:56:11.205
<i>and of uniqueness of each individual,</i>

996
00:56:11.288 --> 00:56:14.124
and under those circumstances,
you don't need a dual identity.

997
00:56:14.208 --> 00:56:16.919
You can be yourself.
You don't need to hide who you are.

998
00:56:17.669 --> 00:56:19.922
AMANAT: <i>When we look at Captain America,</i>
<i>we look at Thor,</i>

999
00:56:20.005 --> 00:56:22.007
<i>we look at these big name characters,</i>

1000
00:56:22.090 --> 00:56:24.718
<i>we look at them</i>
<i>through those ideals that they represent.</i>

1001
00:56:24.801 --> 00:56:27.804
<i>These ideals</i>
<i>can really be encompassed by anybody.</i>

1002
00:56:28.514 --> 00:56:32.226
The metaphor of putting on a mask,
and taking off your mask,

1003
00:56:32.309 --> 00:56:35.938
and trying to figure out if you're
a superhero or just a regular person.

1004
00:56:36.021 --> 00:56:38.482
<i>You can be both. And we should be both.</i>

1005
00:56:39.316 --> 00:56:42.027
<i>We have to live in that space in between,</i>

1006
00:56:42.110 --> 00:56:44.112
<i>so that's really</i>
<i>where our power comes from,</i>

1007
00:56:44.196 --> 00:56:46.532
<i>and I think that's what makes</i>
<i>the Marvel Universe</i>

1008
00:56:46.615 --> 00:56:47.991
<i>all the more interesting.</i>

1009
00:56:48.742 --> 00:56:52.579
We got <i>Captain Marvel #6,</i> legacy 140.

1010
00:56:52.663 --> 00:56:54.039
It's <i>The War of Realms</i> tie-in.

1011
00:56:54.122 --> 00:56:56.208
JENKINS: <i>So what happens next,</i>
<i>none of us know.</i>

1012
00:56:56.291 --> 00:56:59.086
I think, though,
the possibility is really exciting

1013
00:56:59.169 --> 00:57:03.048
<i>as we try to find our way through</i>
<i>a demographic transition,</i>

1014
00:57:03.131 --> 00:57:05.551
<i>where, by the end of the next decade,</i>

1015
00:57:05.634 --> 00:57:08.303
<i>America will be</i>
<i>a majority minority culture.</i>

1016
00:57:08.929 --> 00:57:10.389
<i>And how do we live in that world?</i>

1017
00:57:10.472 --> 00:57:15.143
<i>How do we live with each other, I think,</i>
<i>is shaped by the stories we consume.</i>

1018
00:57:16.019 --> 00:57:21.233
I always tell fans of these comic books,
a lot of us think that these heroes,

1019
00:57:21.316 --> 00:57:24.736
<i>and these characters,</i>
<i>and these villains was made for you.</i>

1020
00:57:24.820 --> 00:57:27.739
I said, "No, they're made
because you exist, they exist."

1021
00:57:28.615 --> 00:57:31.034
QUESADA: <i>The real world is our canvas.</i>

1022
00:57:31.118 --> 00:57:35.581
<i>If we stop looking out our window</i>
<i>and noticing what the real world is doing,</i>

1023
00:57:35.664 --> 00:57:39.626
then inevitably our books fail,
and our stories fail.

1024
00:57:39.710 --> 00:57:43.422
HUDLIN: <i>I don't think comics</i>
<i>have an obligation for representation.</i>

1025
00:57:43.505 --> 00:57:45.299
I just think you're a damn fool

1026
00:57:45.382 --> 00:57:49.094
if you don't have representation
as a piece of business,

1027
00:57:49.178 --> 00:57:53.223
<i>as a piece of storytelling.</i>
<i>There's every reason to do it.</i>

1028
00:57:54.057 --> 00:57:56.018
COWAN: <i>It has potential</i>
<i>of being pretty wonderful</i>

1029
00:57:56.101 --> 00:58:00.147
<i>what's happened to</i> Black Panther,
<i>and Hollywood's awareness of inclusion</i>

1030
00:58:00.230 --> 00:58:01.982
<i>and what diversity means.</i>

1031
00:58:02.065 --> 00:58:05.194
I look at it in wonderment
and amazement and I'm like,

1032
00:58:05.277 --> 00:58:06.737
"Oh, this is great."

1033
00:58:06.820 --> 00:58:09.698
<i>The other half of me</i>
<i>looks at it with a squinty eye.</i>

1034
00:58:09.781 --> 00:58:11.533
<i>Because I've been through this before.</i>

1035
00:58:12.284 --> 00:58:16.580
And the door shut
almost as fast as it had opened up.

1036
00:58:17.539 --> 00:58:20.334
<i>But no matter what,</i>
<i>we'll still do what we do.</i>

1037
00:58:21.168 --> 00:58:23.170
<i>We'll still keep doing</i>
<i>these kinda characters</i>

1038
00:58:23.253 --> 00:58:24.880
<i>and telling these kinda stories,</i>

1039
00:58:26.423 --> 00:58:28.133
because it's too important not to.

1040
00:58:29.051 --> 00:58:33.138
AMANAT: <i>With comic book stories in general</i>
<i>and superhero stories specifically,</i>

1041
00:58:33.222 --> 00:58:38.227
<i>there is something so aspirational</i>
<i>and amazing about what the human spirit is</i>

1042
00:58:38.310 --> 00:58:39.770
<i>and what it can become,</i>

1043
00:58:39.853 --> 00:58:42.481
it's that it encourages us
to look within ourselves

1044
00:58:42.564 --> 00:58:43.857
and find what is great.

1045
00:58:43.941 --> 00:58:46.735
<i>We'll dig through all that grit</i>
<i>and that uncertainty,</i>

1046
00:58:46.818 --> 00:58:49.821
<i>and find what it is that makes us unique,</i>

1047
00:58:49.905 --> 00:58:53.825
<i>and what it is that makes us powerful,</i>
<i>and bring that to the forefront.</i>

1048
00:58:54.785 --> 00:58:59.206
In a lot of these superhero stories,
the aspiration is the hero. You know?

1049
00:58:59.289 --> 00:59:03.418
And what always spoke to me about Marvel
was that the aspiration was the human.

1050
00:59:04.461 --> 00:59:07.631
<i>And that's what's really exciting to me,</i>
<i>where we are right now.</i>

1051
00:59:08.382 --> 00:59:10.467
Who are you?
Who do you want yourself to be?

1052
00:59:12.803 --> 00:59:17.057
NARRATOR: <i>Open bulletins,</i>
<i>Stan's Soapbox, February, 1980.</i>

1053
00:59:17.933 --> 00:59:20.769
<i>"Bear with me, gang.</i>
<i>It's philosophy time again!</i>

1054
00:59:20.853 --> 00:59:24.606
<i>"Human nature doesn't change.</i>
<i>It's the environment.</i>

1055
00:59:26.024 --> 00:59:28.986
<i>"What's happened to us is,</i>
<i>the world has been wildly changing,</i>

1056
00:59:29.069 --> 00:59:32.114
<i>"producing new sets of rules</i>
<i>each time you blink your eye.</i>

1057
00:59:33.907 --> 00:59:35.742
<i>"None of us is different from each other.</i>

1058
00:59:35.826 --> 00:59:38.787
<i>"We all want</i>
<i>essentially the same things out of life.</i>

1059
00:59:40.581 --> 00:59:44.293
<i>"A measure of security, some fun,</i>
<i>some romance, friendship,</i>

1060
00:59:44.376 --> 00:59:46.295
<i>"and respect of our contemporaries.</i>

1061
00:59:47.129 --> 00:59:49.798
<i>"That goes for Indians, Chinese, Russians,</i>

1062
00:59:49.882 --> 00:59:53.218
<i>"Jews, Arabs, Catholics, Protestants,</i>

1063
00:59:53.302 --> 00:59:56.388
<i>"Blacks, Browns, whites,</i>
<i>and green-skinned Hulks.</i>

1064
00:59:57.139 --> 01:00:00.559
<i>"So why don't we all stop wasting time</i>
<i>hating the other guys?</i>

1065
01:00:00.642 --> 01:00:04.563
<i>"Just look in the mirror, mister.</i>
<i>That other guy is you.</i>

1066
01:00:05.439 --> 01:00:07.608
<i>"Excelsior! Stan."</i>