Marvel Executive Says Comic Readers ‘Didn’t Want Any More Diversity’ or Female Characters
Despite comic book movies being a constant presence in multiplexes, it appears that sales of actual comic books aren’t keeping pace with their silver screen adaptations. That’s true of Marvel, at least, whose cinematic universe seems likely to keep expanding until it swallows us all and experiences an inevitable, merciful heat death.
In a new interview, the company’s vice president of sales says that readers might not be fully onboard with the more diverse approach Marvel has adopted in recent years.
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“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not,” said David Gabriel.
“I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against. That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked,” he continued.
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A number of superhero movies not about white dudes are slated for release in the next few years: “Wonder Woman,” “Black Panther,” “Captain Marvel,” “Batgirl.”
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