That said, there’s some very subjective logic to be found here.

By Mr. Brevoort’s own wording (as stated earlier in the CBR column), in order for an AVENGERS book to feel like an AVENGERS book-proper, his “rule of thumb was that to feel like ‘Avengers,’ you needed at least two of the founders around.” In line-ups where you didn’t have a founder present, having characters of similar stature (Spider-Man, Wolverine), or with a “silhouette” similar to AVENGERS-associated characters (Ant-Man, War Machine), or possessing AVENGERS-associated “history” (The Beast, Valkyrie) justified a book being deemed authentic.

Which no matter how one slices it, is pretty darn subjective. And a publisher is allowed to be be subjective. But let’s be clear on this point: BLACK AVENGERS would be no less viable than the majority of other MARVEL books, at least in high-concept.

Luke Cage, The Black Panther and Monica Rambeau each have Avengers history. (Mr. Brevoort notes how integral Cage has become to the team under Bendis’ run. The Panther is a featured player on the current animated series, and some years ago, Rambeau was team leader for a time in the book.)

Mr. Brevoort himself notes that War Machine “looks like he fits” the role of an Avenger. He’s also got such a strong tie to Iron-Man, he could be deemed an Avenger-once-removed.

The Falcon is a former Avenger with similarly strong ties to Captain America.

Storm has at least as much stature as The Beast, and is arguably MARVEL’s most recognizable female character overall.

There’s nothing subjective in observing that these characters more than meet the elusive criteria it takes to merit an AVENGERS book (sans a viable script, of course). Far flimsier premises for books have been thrust upon readers.

I think MARVEL should trust their readers to decide if such a grouping would be contrived or not.

Not cool in the slightest, and in no way respectable behavior.

Anybody who’d like to read teh full exchange, in context, ought to be able to look it up for at least the next day or so on twitter. @TomBrevoort

Sonofbaldwin, you undercut the ethos of your position when you pull crap like this.

Tom B

@TomBrevoort If an all-black Avengers team is contrived, why isn’t an all-white Avengers team contrived?

@SonofBaldwin Because 99% of all super heroes are white. It’s the law of averages.

@TomBrevoort Except, it’s not really a “law” at all, but rather the product of severely limited imaginations.

@TomBrevoort I can’t b mad at ur excuse, only sad. And it’s that sadness that leads me, as of this moment, 2 stop supporting ur product.

Oh, wait a minute… got that wrong. It’s not funny at all, just sad. And telling.

Someone trotted out the old “If you selected randomly from a group of comic book heroes from Marvel or DC, by the nature of how many white male heroes there are, you’re likely to get more white males than anything else. That’s why an all-white male team isn’t contrived” defense that many people evoke whenever white male domination is questioned. It’s a nice, neat defense that relies on “objective statistics” to prove a point that it doesn’t really prove at all because 1. No one EVER picks characters at random on these comic books. No, in fact, the characters are chosen quite specifically by editors and writers and artists; and 2. there is an insidious reason why most comic book characters are white males and it has EVERYTHING to do with racism and white supremacy.

typo.

sorry.

That is a false notion and, as with all false notions, is not born out by reality.

In comics simply having two non-whites on a team (not related by blood or marriage) creating loud whining in the “fan” community that the creators are pandering and indulging in tokenism.

It’s crap. Total racist crap. People don’t like that label hung on them but are completely unwilling to do anything to obviate the facts that make the label stick. Now, granted, MARVEL’s racial inclusion and gender inclusion policy makes DC look like the KKK, they still have a lot more work to do across the board.

Anyway, I remember also thinking of a “Black Avengers” team when Marvel started that “50 State Initiative” thing after Civil War. They could easily set a team in some predominatly Black city, and have a team made of mostly Black heroes. And the theme is that they’re called “The Black Avengers” by the local press, even though they’re officially named something else, who don’t take them seriously because they’re mostly Black. So they have to fight crime and fight public perception. There’s other ways to do it too, which would seem “organic.” Like Black Panther and Storm forming an international team of Avengers, as a counter to the possible global power imbalance of America’s registered heroes, which would have Black and other ethnic heroes from around the Globe. All it takes is a little imagination, which you would think would be plentiful @ the House of Ideas.

But it’s all acedemic anyway. I’ve been reading comics for 30 years. I’ve given up on the idea that we’ll ever see real divesity from the mainstream comic-book industry.

What Tom said still somewhat stands If you look at the fact that according to comic vines ultimate list of super heroes and villains (and I am sure in this case bit characters) Marvel has 13,298 characters. According to Wiki pedias list or black super heroes (had no idea such a list existed) there are give or take about 100 or so (104 by my count but i could be off by 1 or 2) black super heroes.
So even if 10,000 of those characters are bit, villains, or otherwise not counted that still means that 100 of the 3298 super heroes are black. (some of which are bit characters) which is give or take 3% of marvels Hero population in this sample.
So no its not shocking when there is a whole team of white heroes or of mainly white heroes just due to the sheer numbers of it.
Marvel should be able to do better, contrived or not a Black Avengers or what I would prefer a Minority Avengers with Iron Fist as their token white guy (if you have luke cage you should have iron fist its too good a pair to pass up as a package deal) would allow them to elevate some of the more obscure Minority heroes to a much higher status, whats the worst that happens the book fails and you cancel it?

I have, off the top of my head, three distinct and workable ways an all-black Avengers team is a viable commodity. Outside of hockey (and not even there always) there’s no such thing as an all-white team. Not cops. Not the army. not the fire department. not the post office. not NASA. not the FBI. Not the CIA. not even the white house.

I’m not promoting the idea or discrediting the idea of an all-black Avengers team but the FACT is, any good writer can make ANY story work if the desire is there to do so. Hiding behind the smokescreen of “Well, minority groupings are contrived, white is the default” is not intellectually or, frankly, creatively sound.

Either find another, better, argument to make or start producing teams with more brown and “yellow” faces on them. Y’know, like it happens in the real world.

From TomBrevoort: @SonofBaldwin No, an all-black Avengers team is contrived. Nothing more, nothing less.

@TomBrevoort If an all-black Avengers team is contrived, why isn’t an all-white Avengers team contrived?

@TomBrevoort It’s no less racist to believe all-white is “natural” or “default.” Passive racism is still racism.

@TomBrevoort White supremacy may contradict me, but diversity isn’t 5 white guys, 1 black guy, and 1 woman.

@TomBrevoort sees nothing wrong with an all-white team. But a bunch of blacks joining together to do good is unbelievable. #Gotcha

(By the way, Young Avengers? Avengers Academy? Avengers: The Initiative? Secret Avengers? I’m pretty sure the name “Avengers” isn’t any more special than, say, putting “X” in the title of a superteam book at this point).

I thought it was crap then, and I think it’s crap now.

Unless the concept was somehow stereotypical (a street-level, urban team takes on drug lords and gangs, for instance), or they actually called it the Black Avengers, I think it can just be filed under “Cool Ideas”.

What is kinda racist is that a book featuring a team of black Avengers would likely be regarded as a novelty or niche title, but it’s perfectly fine that there’s only one person of color (out of 20-plus heroes) on the three current Avengers teams.

then they could move on to other groups. jewish avengers. lesbian avengers. “special” avengers (retards).

Josiah X, the son of the Black Captain America Isaiah Bradley from the Truth and Young Avenger Patriot’s uncle, was Black. James “Rhodey” Rhodes, AKA War Machine is Black, and Kasper Cole, once Black Panther’s stand-in and working as the White Tiger in the Crew, was the son of Black man and Jewish woman, and though light skinned, was still a Black man.

Junta, AKA Danny Vincent, was Latino, not Black, but he was the only member of the team who wasn’t.

I’m not trying to trivialize the team or book, I was a huge fan of the title, but many more than one of the books leads was Black.