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Stan Lee was an essential part of Miya Crummell's childhood. A black girl and follower of pop culture herself, she saw that Lee was ahead of his time.
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"At the time, he was writing" Black Panther "while segregation was still heavy, "said the 27-year-old New Yorker who gives Lee a decisive influence. to become a graphic designer and cartoonist. "It was a bit unusual to have a black main character, let alone a main character and not just a type of secondary partner."
Lee, the master and creator of Marvel's greatest superheroes, died Monday at the age of 95. . While fans are celebrating his contributions to the canon of pop culture, some have also revisited the way the Marvel magician felt that with great comics, a great responsibility came back. When blacks risked their lives in the 1960s to protest discrimination where they lived and worked, Lee set up integration with the first traditional black superhero. Black Panther, with the X-Men and Luke Cage, are now heroes on the screen. But at the time, they were the soldiers in Lee's battle against the real enemies of racism and xenophobia.
Under Lee's direction, Marvel Comics presented a generation of comic readers to the African prince who reigns in a mythically and technologically advanced realm, the ex-black prisoner whose dark skin repels bullets and guns. X-Men, a group of heroes whose superpowers were as different as their cultural backgrounds.
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The works and ideas of Lee and the artists behind T & # 39; Challa, the black panther; Luke Cage, hero for rent; and the band of happy mutants of Professor Xavier – revolutionary in the 1960s and 1970s – have become a cultural force that removes barriers to inclusion.
Lee had his fingers in everything that Marvel had produced, but some of the characters and intrigues "came from the inspiring artists of what was happening in the '60s," said the writer independent Alex Simmons.
White comic distributors have nonetheless reacted critically to black heroes and characters. Some lots of Marvel Comics were fired because some distributors were unprepared for the Black Panther and Wakanda Kingdom developed by artist and co-creator Jack Kirby.
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" Stan had to take those risks, "said Simmons." There was a liberation movement, and I think Marvel is became the voice of the people, linked to this rebellious energy and accompanied it. "
Lee also directly told readers of the irrationality of hate.In 1968, tumultuous year that saw the Martin Luther King Jr.'s badbadination, Lee wrote one of his most virulent columns, "Stan's Soap Box," calling bigotry and racism "the deadliest social ills that beset the world today." "
unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can not be stopped with a punch, nor with a zapper with a ray gun," wrote Lee.
Marvel's characters have always been at the forefront of racial conflict management. and other forms of discrimination, according to Mikhail Lyubansky, who teaches the psychology of race and ethnicity at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. With the X-Men, many readers saw the mutants, ostracized for their powers, explain how Americans treated blacks and whoever was perceived as "the other."
WATCH OUT: Marvel comic book creator Stan Lee dies at the age of 95
"The original X-Men were less racially focused and more about cultural differences" said Lyubansky. "Black Panther and some of the movies (Marvel) have taken over and have addressed the racial problem in a way that I think was not Stan's intention. But they have been an excellent vehicle.
Some of the efforts to get out the minority characters have not aged well. Marvel characters like the evil Fu Manchu-esque, The Mandarin, and American sports hero Wyatt Wingfoot were considered innovative in the '60s and' 70s, but may seem outdated and too stereotypical in the 21st century.
"It's interesting. Stan Lee takes some sort of merit and blame, depending on the character, "said William Foster III, who helped create the Black Age Convention of Comics on the East Coast and is a professor of 39, English at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, Connecticut. [19659002] READ MORE:
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Foster, who began reading Marvel Comics in the 1960s, said that even doing something as minor as including people of color in the background was monumental.
"Stan Lee had the attitude of" We are in New York. How can we not have blacks in New York? ", Foster said,"
Blacks have begun to badume the role of heroes and villains. "According to Foster, some characters may have been perceived as" symbolism, "but this is sometimes where progress must be made.
In 10 years, Marvel Cinematic Universe's films have grossed more than $ 17.6 billion in global revenue, and the movie "Black Panther" garnered more than $ 200 million in its first weekend Earlier this year, next year, actress Brie Larson will take flight under the name "Captain Marvel." An animated film centered on Miles Morales, a teenager both black and mid-Puerto Rican who inherits the Spider-Man suit, will disappear next month and Kamala Khan and Mrs. Marvel, the first Muslim superhero, continue to spark interest.
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"I've had a lot of white friends growing up," said freelance writer Simmons, of race black. "We watched Batman" and "The Mod Squad". I personally believe that if you put the material in front of people and they connect, they will connect to it. "
For many fans and consumers, it's the product and not the skin color or the badual orientation of the character," he added.
Crummell, designer comics, said that she thought that the representation of minorities and women in comics improved.
"I think now they see that everyone reads comics. It's not a specific group now, "Crummell said," It's not just the Afro-American people, it's the women, it's the Asians, the Hispanic characters now. "I would say this is due to Stan Lee, who somehow broke the barrier. "
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