I was shocked, then rather pleased, when the action in the middle of the book cut to a scene set in Manila, Philippines! It showed the following team of Philippine superheroes, being officially thanked for helping save lives when a tsunami hit Philippine shores:
And I thought, Wow! A Marvel writer portraying non-American, non-British heroes? That's incredible!
It wasn't just that these were Philippine superheroes. It was more that Marvel as a universe almost always portrayed its heroes entirely set in the United States. Even superheroes from other nations ended up in the US, so the feeling of a global superhero community in the MArvel universe is practically nonexistent.
This was a pleasant, if fleeting change, I mused.
Fleeting indeed. Because two pages later, we have this:
Nice. Introduce some new faces to show that other nations have costumed heroes too, then blow them up with human bombs dressed as local monks to demonstrate how badass the villain is. Buddhist monks! In the Philippines! A primarily CATHOLIC country! In front of a Catholic Church. Something does not compute here. I guess the local superheroes never noticed.
What doubly sucks is that this sets it up so that our white, mustached, armored hero can justifiably fry the villain's hide in some later issue.
Okay. I'm griping a bit. At least Matt Fraction did his research on the proper words to the burial rites. And he did give honor to at least one of the fallen heroes by having this guy show up for Anitun's funeral:
Thor even gave a nice verbal tribute to her right in Tony's face...
Still feels odd. Kinda like I've been indirectly slighted.
Rest in peace guys. Long live the Triumph Division (wonder how that translates in the local vernacular).
3 comments:
hey doc! david here, your alorican qa mate. hehe. how life? it's been a while since we last seen each other. hows ya wife and kid? anyway, a catholic church with monks nearby doesn't really connect in any way. i haven't seen or read this comic you're talking about but seeing ironman and thor in manila interests me. reading your thoughts here feels like seeing you in person. it's you, same as before or better than ever, whichever is applicable. hehehe. if i guessed it right, the "5-color" thing is all about magic's red, blue, black, white and green colors. hehe. whatever. this blog's fun to read. i'll be adding you up in my blog's links when i find the time to. alright! take care doc. cheers!:-)
http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/showthread.php?t=140426&page=96
read fraction's reply to your criticisms.
THe death of Triump Division is not really stated as it is that they were actually dead. So there are possibilities that they have survived, they had a wishing man as a team mate right it could be possible that he had already wished something to intervene a wish or spell that may ressurect them on a given time perhaps. Fraction already stated that he was already planning to introduce them twice or maybe more than that. Anitun is just a mortal embodiment an emissary of the Goddess Anitun Tabu more likely to say only her embodiment died not the Goddess herself, so she can always be resurrected anytime. Anyway if they will only kill them then what's the purpose of making 6 superheros just to blow them away for 2 pages of fame not even a brief introduction of the powers they possesses.
I'm going to have to agree with you here, completely. I think Marvel (and any large entertainment company in particular) has the responsibility to represent minorities as accurately as possible - many people read these books, and for a lot of them, it'll be their first impressions of the culture being portrayed.
Mind if I mention you in an upcoming blog post about it?
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