Superhero Politics Podcast
Welcome to the Superhero Politics Podcast, where we delve into the fascinating intersection of politics and superheroes! Join us as we explore the parallel worlds of caped crusaders and the corridors of power, dissecting how our favorite superheroes and their stories mirror real-world political dilemmas.
From the ethical implications of vigilante justice to the politics of government oversight, we navigate the thrilling landscapes of comic book universes to uncover the profound social commentary lurking beneath the spandex. Whether you're a political junkie or a superhero aficionado, this podcast is your passport to an exhilarating journey where superheroes and politics collide!
Superhero Politics Podcast
Superhero Politics Podcast: Live From Galaxycon!
Have you ever contemplated the power of comics? How they've been used throughout centuries to narrate potent political messages, shape societal beliefs, and even question the norm? We bring you an episode that will make you see comics in a different light. From our electrifying panel experience at Galaxy Con Rally to the analysis of the first comic strip created in the 1700s, we unravel the complexity and depth of comics. We also invite you, our listeners, to share your thoughts and questions ignited by our discussion.
We have an honest conversation about the vital issue of representation in comics and wider society. The impact of recent legislation, Supreme Court decisions, and their potential to erase history and reverse progress is alarming. We discuss such instances as the controversy surrounding Chadwick Boseman’s covered face in the Asian release of Black Panther. The narrative of how comics can serve as a medium of self-expression and celebration, particularly for children, wraps up this part.
The topic of race-swapping in pop culture is a contentious one. We delve into representations of darker-skinned characters in historical art pieces and the implications of race-swaps today. Representation in media and comics has the potential to shape societal beliefs and opinions. We touch on the Bud Light controversy and the impact of actor strikes, illustrating the power of storytelling. The episode concludes with a deep look into diversity in X-Men comics, the upcoming Blue Beetle series, and how the 'otherness' phenomenon unites people against a common adversary. Tune in for an insightful, enlightening, and thought-provoking conversation.
Hi everyone and welcome to the latest episode of superhero politics. This is your host, michael Holmes, and this is a very special episode because what you guys are going to be hearing is the audio from the Phantom panel, that superhero politics podcast conducted at galaxy con rally two weeks ago. Just how this happened? A little backstory. Galaxy con comes to rally every year same time in July and I'm always busy, like I'm always traveling or I'm always always doing something. I never have a chance to go and so obviously this year you know by this podcast been around for a while I really interested in seeing as possibly we could get become part of the convention. So I reached out to the organizers and they said, hey, let's talk about it. We did a you know, really quick zoom and they said well, we'll get back to you and you know really at that point.
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah, I mean, this is, this is guys kind of like there, they're really not gonna, you know really do anything with this.
Speaker 1:And so, to my surprise, they did. They came back and they approved the panel and I went down and, you know, just with very low expectations about attendance, and you know, over the course of the time waiting, I saw, you know, a few people started starting to pick up a little bit. You know, two and three and four, and the next thing, you know, it was up to 20 and then it was 28 and 30, and so I looked at, was like wow, 30 people who have, you know, savings on there to do listen to the convention. And so I got in and got set up and then I realized I looked up and I was like, oh my god, it was like a hundred plus people in the room and People were standing and so really great and great gauge crowd, lots of laughing, lots of really cool questions.
Speaker 1:And so what we're gonna do now is we're gonna play the audio for you and what you're gonna hear is the presentation that we did and then the Q&A from the Attendees at the panel. And so if there's any questions that you guys have sparked from this, please feel free to email us at superpolitics and gmailcom. You can follow us and see the video of the panel on our YouTube channel, and you can also follow us on all social media Facebook, instagram, tiktok, twitter. You can see all of that there and follow all that there, and so, guys, you can contact us in, dm us through our social or Email us directly. So I really want to thank you guys for all the support, the downloads and everything that you guys have done supporting the podcast over the last couple years, and it's growing because of you, and so we just thank you so much, and so sit back and enjoy this really cool opportunity that we had as a podcast team here and Just remember you don't have to be superhuman to be a superhuman.
Speaker 2:That's our motto, and so we'll see you next time, thanks, so you guys be gentle.
Speaker 1:This is my first panel ever. So you guys be gentle, thank you, thank you. So this is my little pandemic baby that I'm. I'm debuting here in Isolation. This idea came to me to do so. I bought a mic off Amazon and here I am three years later at a con. So, hey, anything can happen, right, okay? So I don't know what the time is, but we'll go ahead and get started. So thank you for coming.
Speaker 1:Everybody, my name is Michael Holmes. This is superhero politics podcast and, just like I was, just thank you so much. Just like I was saying earlier, I had this idea during the, during the pandemic, I was talking to a friend about the state of the country and you know she couldn't believe what was going on and I said well, you know, there's comic book references to that, and so the reason why I saw superhero politics is born is I'm a veteran of Politics. I've been in it since I was 15, worked on my first political campaign when I was 15 years old, I've collected more than 80,000 and traded more than 80,000 comic books in my life, and so early on, I noticed the Parallels between what was happening in comic books and what was happening in real life and vice versa, and so I Am an elected official. I am actually a politician. I'm in office right now in High Point, north Carolina. I serve on city council. I was elected in 2019. So, therefore, the superhero politics, thank you, I am up. I'm up through reelection this year. So, homes for high point. Calm, if you want to check out my campaign.
Speaker 1:But I, as you can see, have loved comic books my whole life and have been working in politics my whole life, because I believe that if there's one Superpower that everyone has, it's the ability to vote and and to affect change and to move our democracy. So, but just like everything in this country, we are super divided, things are super toxic and in every, every topic that we discuss seems to go the route of political discourse and into the cesspool Of what our politics is today. So, when we talk about our the latest Marvel film, or whether it's secret invasion, or whether it's what kind of forever? Or whether it's it's uh, the, the guardian series, or whether it's the flash, everything has a political bent, and immediately someone will always say I hate how political comics are now. Like, like, I hate how, I hate how political comics are now and I'm just like, if you're just now realizing their comics are political, reading is fundamental, and it's not fundamental to you Because your comprehension is a little bit on the slower side, because Comics have been political since the very first comic strip was born, and so in about 1700 or something like that, political satire came out, and that was essentially a comic strip and it it Showed a political message.
Speaker 1:It was propaganda. Prop comics were used in Germany for propaganda. It's been used time and time again to convey political messages. And so you know, you look here you see Superman with Ronald Reagan, and then also you see the, the very racist 1932 max fleischer superman, where he's choking, the very caricature Drone Asian guy, and it was super racist back in the day where, you know, the the black people had like really big pronounced lips and bones and huge noses, and it was super racist. But it was also political propaganda. And then you see, obviously, captain America and the Reds goal. I mean you can't get any more Propagandistic than that. And so there was even a series called the super presidents, where a few of the presidents were crime fighters. And so If you're just now coming to the realization that comic books and politics are intertwined. I suggest taking a reading comprehension course.
Speaker 1:But for me, uh, I'm uh 50 years old. I grew up in the 70s and the 80s reading comic books and early on the the the some of the seminal moments that I really realized that comics had a political vent was Superfriends. They just, god bless them. God bless hannah barbara. They tried so hard for representation. I mean, they tried so hard. I mean a patchy cheese, good lord, like try to run that one today, right? Uh, black, black hulking. And I'm trying to figure out why every Com or every superhero has black in it and almost every black superhero has electric powers, like stop stereo. It's like we can, like we're not just fast and have electricity guys Like, come on, let us do something else. And then you know, we've got samurai here with the top knot and, uh, you've got el dorado with this Very stereotypical mayan type deal. But it's they tried to. They, their intentions were good, because they really tried to make sure that little kids like me who grew up loving comic books but didn't see themselves representing comic books, they didn't see themselves, and so they tried to do that. They were just very, very misguided in how they did it. And so, um, my first, the comic book, the first comic book I ever purchased that I really got into.
Speaker 1:Besides the superman truth, justice in american way was the trial of the flash. And like um, flash and and Earbar thawed, there they're racing around he's gonna try to kill linda park and flash snaps his neck and I'm like, well, he did everything he could, you know. Like that was good. But then it was justice right, like he killed someone and so he as a hero had to stand trial and it's just like, wow, this is the real thing about how power Is held accountable. It's a real thing, um.
Speaker 1:And then the first time, honestly, like you look at the, the issues of race and um, you look at x-men and the allegories between the civil rights movement and um and mutant rights, and then the first time I ever saw the n word written in in In print was kitty pride, and she said it quite a few times. I was, I'm worried about kitty, like she said it a few times in the books, but um, but yeah, those are the first times when you really got the sense that that life was leading art and and art was leading life. And so, um, comics have always been on the leading edge. They've always been there, um, not only just in the sense of popular culture, but also, um, fighting for representation of marginalized groups, um, the, the, whether it's women, right, women's rights, making sure that women have, um, you know, positive representations. I mean, honestly, I don't know how we got the got through having every comic, but what black canaries and fishnets and heels and a boosty a fighting crime like Batman's an armor, like he's an armor and she's in a boosty a and fishnets, like something is a, something is a miss here. And so you look at how women, uh, minorities, are portrayed. At one point, almost every origin story of the black character In comics was a street kid who got saved by you know some white billionaire and and given a chance to, to better their lives. And so not having these representations of you know positive, uh, female figures and and uh, positive affirmations of african-americans in our society, um, that was because the rooms and the writers didn't reflect the characters that they were writing, and so this is why you know folks like duane mcduffy coming along and developing you know, static shock in that universe, and having one that is reflective of the, the genre and the culture and the people who write it, has been so important, and so comics have touched on everything from women's rights to religion. I mean, you've got, you know, kamala Khan and you've got lucifer represented in comic books. You've got the source, the one above all, you know night crawlers at the bout christian. You know, you've got so many times where, uh, politics and Religion and other aspects come into comic books and they actually have a place where we can have a Conversation about those.
Speaker 1:But, just like everything else in our society today, it gets drugged down, like, if you've ever been in the comment section of, like a youtube video, it's like the bar scene in star wars, right, it's just like. It's like the, it's successful, and so you can't really comment on how you feel about something without somebody throwing in. You know, uh, you know let's go brand-in, or you know trump 2024 or something like that. But here's the thing like, this is supposed to be the space where we can imagine Anything is possible, like you're, you're supposed to be able to say, well, here's this super powered alien that came to earth and now he's a hero saving everybody, but he just can't be black or gay or Transient, like literally shape shifting alien, but he can't be trans. You know it. Just it doesn't make sense because somebody's going to be offended, because they're not centered in the politics and so Everything that I've ever it's almost like you know, you know how the simpsons always predict stuff Like comic books.
Speaker 1:Has they've done that, like I remember, like the legacy virus, uh, and the amazel virus in in dc and marvel, and what do we have in 2019? We had a pandemic like with a crazy virus and you know. And then we had, you know, obviously, the nationalistic things like Um, every comic took on 9, 11, every hero Villain, everyone was in you know that at the ground zero in new york and it was those nationalists, um undertones that came forth in the writing, like it reflected popular culture and it galvanized us to some extent, but nothing ever really lasts long because we go back to our respective ideological corners. And so for us, for me, particularly speaking as an African-American male, like I didn't see really my first real super superhero till John Stuart in about the 70s, and then Storm came along and then I really got into Black Panther and so I really started. I didn't really see those and then as we got later into the 80s and 90s, it started to be a little bit more prevalent. That I saw myself in comics, and that's the one thing about politics that a lot of people that we're fighting today.
Speaker 1:We're fighting to make sure that we maintain representation. We're trying not to push people back into the closet. We're trying to make sure accurate history is being taught. We're trying to make sure that kids have an opportunity to be able to learn about our history and then make choices for themselves. But because we're so divided, we're trying to rewrite history.
Speaker 1:I just did an episode, latest episode on the Flash movie and how Barry goes back in time and he tries this Flashpoint, he tries to reset that. And we look at the legislation that's just passed, we look at Supreme Court justice decisions and they're rolling back 50 half centuries of precedent. They're trying to rewrite the civil rights era. The VRA Voting Rights Act, provisions four and five got gutted. You got the Dove's decision. That roll back, roll. You just had affirmative action roll back. And so they're essentially trying to undo the civil rights era. And if they get their hands on it, they're gonna undo the new deal when it comes to social security and Medicare. And so they're trying to undo like the last century of political progress.
Speaker 1:And so when we talk about reality warping and going back in time and resetting things.
Speaker 1:It's not just in comic books like literally through political power, you're able to rewind and erase people in all the progress that they've been able to make. And so this is why, honestly, as a legislator, as someone who's worked on more than 50 campaigns in my life, I understand how important it is to be able to make sure that people don't lose the power to affect their communities, and so thank you so much. I appreciate that. But comic books are so pivotal in how young people are able to feel themselves represented in our society. I mean, you think about this the first openly gay character in comics was North Star and an X-Men, and then we've got now we've got trans represented on TV Dreamer Natalie Mayn's play Dreamer on the Supergirl as a trans woman, and then this is the one that really set people ablaze. John Kent came out as bisexual, like oh my God, and there was one of the super folks who was they played Superman. I mean, I don't know how y'all feel about him, but he came out and said Superman can't be gay.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry about that.
Speaker 1:Sorry about that, yeah, and he said Superman can't be gay. And I was like dude, he's not real. Like he's not real, he can literally be anything Like. He can fly to the end of the universe. And you worried about, he can't be gay, like it's really.
Speaker 1:The sad part about it is that we can't imagine because we're so ideologically arrogant that we can't imagine that even the characters that are portrayed they have to be exactly like us, or we're offended or everything's woke. I am so tired of hearing that damn word Like it's a noun and a verb, and woke Like every single thing, every single time you hear something is woke, legislation is woke, judges is woke, this and we don't even understand what it means. And we're actually making laws and we're affecting popular culture and we're fighting against artistry and creativity because we think that it's somehow going to change our kids. I'm gonna tell you right now I grew up on Looney Tunes and I ain't never dropped an anvil on anybody's head. All right, like you know, I've never tried to solve my like shoot a 12 gauge shotgun in my brother's face to see if his head was spinning around. I didn't do any of that, and I mean think about all the things that we witnessed, as at Looney Tunes, like you know, everybody dressed in drag, like Bugs Bunny was in drag every episode and, jesus Christ, peppy Lapue was rapey, like he was just like a, like he was like sexually assaulting everybody and like we didn't all grow up to like become like you know, like assaultors, like we didn't happen and we watched this every day. So the idea that we can't disseminate information and have it not change who we are fundamentally is just weird. And so you know, we're having this conversation about representation and comic books. They're fighting a good fight, because everywhere else in our country, lawmakers are fighting to push us back. And so if we don't have some medium, some platform to be able to say to kids it's okay, you're fine, there's nothing wrong with you, you're a good person If we don't have that, if kids can't see themselves reflected, then we're gonna take a step back, a generation back, and so you know it's.
Speaker 1:But there's always backlash, Like you remember, like in Asia when Black Panther debuted I see you in the back, wakanda, forever, my brother, I see Black Panther in the back. And so when it debuted in South Korea and China, they covered up Chadwick's, bozeman's face because they didn't want to show a Black character. This is what you see on the right is the American release photo, and what you see on the left is what they showed in Asia, is what they showed in China and South Korea. They didn't show Halle Bailey, the little mermaid. They didn't show that because she was not the typical white area. And so like, even now, like, as representation happens, this is Bitterroot. It's a really great indie comic and they just recently did a Juneteenth episode and it called Flag and Backlash. I mean, juneteenth is the recognizing the days that the last slaves in this country got their freedom, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and Bitterroot. There's now a national flag and Bitterroot did a story on it.
Speaker 1:And I mean, even now, you know my adventures with Superman, which is a really cute little anime style story. They racially swapped Jimmy Olson right, he's now a brown kid and every single time that you see comments on it it's like, well, why did you have to change him? Well, why the hell not? You know what's it matter in? Jimmy Olson is brown, it doesn't, it wouldn't matter if Superman was brown. It didn't matter is because you know it's a character. It's Superman is a mantle. You know there's a bunch of different Superman out there that you can talk about, whether it's Calvin Ellis or Val Zad or anybody else that you can do that you can talk about. Superman can be anybody.
Speaker 1:Now don't get me wrong. There's some characters that I think there's such that aspects of their makeup and their origin are so seminal that I don't think you should mess with. Like I honestly would really oppose anybody changing Magneto's backstory. Like I'd hate that, like I'd really hate that. I mean, cause you know, if as a, as a survivor of the Holocaust, it is, it is just pivotal to who he is. Now I don't give a damn about Charles Xavier. Like you can be, anything, like you know he can. He can be Kenyan, I don't really care. But Magneto, you, you have to keep that Like that is a huge part of who that character is and how they came to be. So you know, for me I just say, like, as you continue to dig into politics, as you continue to dig in, think about those communities, think about, when you have conversations with your families and friends, who, who you can have and stand up for.
Speaker 1:The motto of our podcast is you don't have to be superhuman to be a superhuman. Right, you can be good to somebody, you can be good to people. You have the power to be positive. Because here's the thing Like, if we don't stay vigilant, some crazy shit can happen. Like, really, like, really. I mean honestly, I this was Trump was the reason this podcast actually took off.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you guys a story. So when I was talking to my friend about it, about how you know politics often is reflected in comic books, I said, you know, she said to me like hey, I can't believe we elected this guy. I said, well, you know there's comic book presidents, right, like Lex Luthor became president in in Superman comics. I said, but the difference is, like he divested from Lex's, for you know, like he at least, like can you imagine like being, can you imagine being less ethical than a comic book supervillain? Like, like, can you like literally, can you imagine being less ethical? Like you know, like Trump didn't even stop running his business out of the old office, and so Lex at least had the good sense to be worried about a monument's causes. But you know, that's so. That's how funny it is.
Speaker 1:And like you look at, like how Trump literally saw Barack Obama as this Superman that he had to take it down, so much so that he ran for president to do it, and so it was really life reflecting art, and so that's kind of how we got here, folks, and what I want to do with the remainder of our time is really open up the floor for questions. I'm glad y'all got that, man. I'm glad y'all got that last pen. Like y'all, my people, I am home, like I am home. I'm glad y'all got that last, that last slide. So questions anybody want questions? Come, please, come forward. I think there's a mic right here. I want to make sure that you guys, my guy top notch, top notch, top notch, my guy, top notch. I love it. Yes, sir.
Speaker 4:Well.
Speaker 6:I did have a question about like racial swap for Johnny Storm.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, the recent ish Fantastic Four and I kind of was like a little conflicted about it yeah, yeah, his origins.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 6:So I kind of want to know, like what you were feeling about him being a racial swap while his sister was still carnage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think in that, I think they really wanted Michael B Jordan as an actor to carry that because he was such a popular actor, but the script was so bad and like it, just the script was so bad. There was no like you could have had, like you could have had, like Lawrence Olivier and those, those roles, and it wouldn't have saved it. Like it was a really strong cast. But I think what they tried to do was they tried to modernize it, they tried to bring it up and use the power of a very popular actor to carry that film. But you there's, there's only so much you can do with the source material before you lose people and like, honestly, what they did to Dr Doom in that film was tragic. It was, it was tragic, it was abomination.
Speaker 1:The only thing I hate more than what they did to Dr Doom in that movie was what they did to the Mandarin Iron man 3. That's the only thing I hate more. That's the only thing I hate more. It's the only thing that's more unforgivable than what they did to Dr Doom in the Fantastic Four movie. So I think, overall, I think he played the character well and, to be honest with you, just a brash kind of you know, cocky type of a dude. That's just who Johnny Storm is. He's a daredevil, he's a hothead, and so that's reflected in the powers that he gained from the cosmic radiation. And so they tried it. It just didn't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't watch that film ever. So if that tells, you if that tells you how I feel about it. I don't ever watch that film, and if someone gave that to me as a gift, we would no longer be friends, but that's how I feel about it. They tried it, it was, it was a, it was a good effort, but it just, it just didn't fly Right. Yeah, thanks bro, absolutely great, great costume.
Speaker 2:Thank you yeah, please, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7:So my question is surrounding, like the history, surrounding how politics is often interacted with art, because I remember because, going back to how you mentioned, politics and comics, even then propaganda in the form of politics, going back to 1700s, I remember watching a little video talking about Georgian fashion and they did a propaganda, and propaganda was about that, where women had those elaborate wigs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 7:They talked like if the naval battle was done by the British Navy, the women would have ships done on their hair and that sort of thing, and I wanted to know how far this goes back, because when I was thinking about it I I'm a very big Shakespeare fan. But even then I understood that some of it was questionable. Like if you look at Othello, othello is a great character and no one really knows why Iago really went after him, but a lot of people just assume that Iago was probably racist and there are racist allegations against Othello. That's one of the reasons why Desdemona's father doesn't want her wearing him. But there are, like other racial. There are a couple of other racial characters where the race is is either included or it's implied and for those other cases that I found, none of them were like racially positive.
Speaker 7:They were really racially negative. So that's the same for Jews in the merchant events. So my question to you is how far do you think this conversation could really go back if we wanted to look at our general?
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. That's a. That's a great question, I think, as far as the ability for people to communicate through written word or art. I think it goes back that far, when you like, the one thing that we have now. I mean, we've had this pendulum right where we had to draw things because we didn't have photos, and then we had photos that could capture life like images, and now we have AI that can create life like images. And so now what?
Speaker 1:What we look at is the power to shape opinions. Right, we look at the power to change reality. So, when we think about folks like Franklin Richards and we think about folks like Mad Jim Jaspers, and we think about those folks who carry, like this reality warping power to be able to change reality, want to maximum, like to be able to to change reality as they see fit, this is what we have now with the ability to care, characterize folks in written and art, right, and so we want to shape people's opinions of what we think. Like you think about Othello and Iago, like it wasn't hard because Othello, being a more being a darker skinned folks, you, you're automatically folks were afraid of, well, I mean his stature and everything, his voice, his power. And so it wasn't easy, it wasn't hard to make folks afraid of him. You just had to sew a little bit of doubt.
Speaker 1:And so this is what you do when you control the power of the pen, right, when you can write things about folks, when you can present folks in a, in a, in a, in a different way, like how they used to draw Jews back in the day darker skin, very, you know, very menacing type looks, and it made people afraid of them. And so, as long as people have had opinions and as long as people were able to perceive information, the ability to change people's opinion through art and comics has existed. So it can go back as far as being able to put pen to paper. Yeah, good evening.
Speaker 6:Good evening. I'm Chris.
Speaker 2:Hey.
Speaker 6:Chris, I do think it's interesting. We brought up a fellow and ironically, the best rendition of him ever was Lawrence O'Lantern.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. That's right, hey man.
Speaker 4:Hey absolutely.
Speaker 6:But the thing that I wanted to bring up is I had an experience. I just kind of want you to talk to me, so concentrate more on the artistry at that time. Yeah, so when I'm looking at comics, right, and I'm seeing characters be drawn, yeah it drives me nuts when artists put the same generic face on every character. Right, there's no effort made sometimes, and and you see, you see all sorts of times.
Speaker 6:A really good example this is Sylocke being drawn with the same face as every other character. Yeah Right, and yet she's supposed to be Asian.
Speaker 1:Well, she's actually transracial. Well, you know, you think about it. Betsy Braddock started out as a British woman.
Speaker 6:She's not in the Betsy Braddock body. She's supposed to look Asian, exactly, exactly. I had an experience and so you know. To me I thought OK, well, this makes sense If I'm doing a jam piece or something like this at a con. I love. I love buying art or getting a commission done Right If I talk to somebody that shares that background yeah they're going to be able to capture the essence of those ethnicities and the details Right Like I remember seeing a version of Sylocke that David Nakayama did.
Speaker 6:And he's from Hawaii, right, and so tons of Asians, right and so, and I remember, as I was putting together this jam piece, there was an artist that I talked to. The guy was a black guy and I made a comment about him adding storm and I thought that he would be able to capture storm, really well.
Speaker 6:And he took some offense to that. Yeah, and I was, I was kind of surprised and I just kind of felt like it was this moment where it was kind of like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. And you just sometimes, with these political issues within society and culture, it just seems like there's no way to get the right answer, even when you, when you, try to be sincere.
Speaker 3:And so.
Speaker 6:I wanted to tee you up with that. And then one other thought is do you have any issue with the fact that, with a lot of the race swaps in in characters throughout pop culture, that it always seems to be that the black actors are replacing redhead characters?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I've heard it, I've heard this.
Speaker 6:I'm who are more genetically rare than folks that are black right Like redheads. Only make up point. Only make up two percent of the population.
Speaker 1:Hey, I have. I thank you for that. Thank you for both those questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah like, actually, I'll take that one first. Like, honestly, I think I think there is an un, I think it's an, I think there's a kind of an unspoken like what, who? Who's the last group that we can pick on Right? Like who's the? Who's the last group that we can pick on? Like we can't go after, you know, we can't necessarily visibly go after black people or or Jews, or so who's the group that we can pick on? And I think that, yeah, and I think the, I think the idea is that there's been so few black characters and there's and for some reason there was a dirt the redheaded characters, like a lot of them, like you know, like like Jean Gray, and there was so many redheaded characters like, well, you're not going to miss one or two if they, if they go right, like, you're not going to miss one or two. And so I think what's happening now is that we're so hypersensitive to things like that that if we have a character that we've traditionally, traditionally followed, and they race, swap them, it's like, hey, you're taking it for me, you know, and so we don't look at the totality of it.
Speaker 1:Look, I, I certainly am for creating new characters. I think it keeps the industry fresh. I think it keeps the genre fresh. I think it allows for the writers to be able to expand their creative minds, to come up with new power sets and new scales and things of that nature. Like I really think that's what should happen, but I think, in terms of timeframe, I think they don't want to do it. I think it takes so long to get a character to print and into the public consciousness. They don't want to take the time to do it. So it's so much easier to take a character that exists, with a, with a back story, and just swap them, like you remember, like Wallace West, like you remember, you all, like you all remember when Wallace West came out and everybody was like, well, damn, y'all took Wally, another redhead right, and like now he's black, and so I think it's the time that it takes to get a character into the public consciousness that they don't want to do. So it's easier to race swap.
Speaker 6:Now your earlier question and, if you want, about people drawing yes yes, not being able to feel like you can find the right balance, right and.
Speaker 1:I think what happens is that artists are very temperamental and they say, well, look, I should you know, for lack of yeah, artists are very temperamental and they don't want to be pigeonholed Right Like I'm a black artist, I'm a black, I'm an artist who happens to be black, I'm not a black artist, and so I should be able to draw any character if I had the skill to do it. Now to your point. I think the issue is when you run into people who are not surrounded by a community to give them guidance Because, honestly, like I just read a what if? Where Miles Morales becomes Thor and it sounded like a black sportation film, Like Jive Turkey Sucka, like you know, it was awful and I was like there was no black people in the room, there was no black people in the writers room, Like there's no way this could have gotten past black people.
Speaker 1:And then he said about the power of my faith, yeah, the power of my faith.
Speaker 1:Like he, literally, yes, it was that awful, yeah, and that's what I'm saying Like there was no, there was nobody in the room to be able to do that, to be able to to, to prove that and say, look, you know, we, we don't, we don't say that, bro, like, we don't talk like that Like, but in the sense of when you're talking about representation visually, you need to have folks who understand the nuances of how a race looks, because you would have thought the only hairstyle black people had was either bald or a shag, like for the longest time.
Speaker 1:Like because the folks who were drawing black people couldn't understand the nuance of black hair. And so, like, if you guys have seen, like, the pictures that I've shown of myself here, you can see, like that's my secret identity, I can change my hair really quickly, so, like, I go from the fade to braids, like, and so that's one thing that's nuanced in our community is like our hair, and when you don't have folks in the room, you miss that and it alienates readers from that community because you're like yo, like we either have afro or with ball, or you know we have very tiny eyes, or very, very big eyes. You know it's so it's not. It's the nuance that I think is not there if you don't have folks in the room.
Speaker 6:So do you think that it would be considered discriminatory if somebody that's an editor in Chief of Marvel is assigning characters that have their own books people like Sam Wilson?
Speaker 2:and.
Speaker 6:Miles Morales and they're assigning them to black Hispanic artists. Do you think that they would get backlash on that and say, well, why do you only give these characters to a black artist?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I think I think, in a way, there are a lot of, there are a lot of folks who work on every book, right. So I think your team has got to be diverse. Like outside of my public life, I work in corporate America, like in human resources, and so I understand like diversity, equity, inclusion is a real thing. And why do you have it is because if you have folks from the same background and same experience, you're going to get the same type of thoughts and same ideas and the same outcomes. Like it's just a group thing type of a thing. You cannot avoid it. And even if you have folks who have generally different ideas about problem solving, eventually your learned experiences are going to bring you to the same place. And it's just sociology, it's just how things work.
Speaker 1:And so this is why having a team of diversity like when they did that, that, what if with Miles? Like they should have just literally called up any black person they knew and was like, hey, listen to this, and it would have stopped immediately, it would have never gotten out of the room. Like no matter what, like it, and I think that's what they have to do. Like they have to have the leads as people from that community, but then feel in because guess what? Each one teach one, because what happens is that team understands from those folks how to view things and it helps. It helps everybody grow. Yeah, I think they should do it, but I think they should diversify those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's your cool, cool Cost, by the way, thank you.
Speaker 3:Comic codes of America. Do you think everyone heard their healthy comic book industry in general after it first came out, that's from whatever it like, what come from wildly like, even in World War two. But then it, after comics codes America, I mean they got a negative rast. Yeah, I've got some psychologists that said, oh, it was worse, hitler, come on. Yeah, and then it wasn't all comes code America heard and everything got team, or until I would say 1990s and 2000s, yeah, and even DC on the upended the comic code America back in 2011.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think here's the thing and I'm someone who's a firm believer in that there's a, there's a positive role that government can play, but there's just some things that government shouldn't do, and I think one of the things is regulating art and free speech to a degree when you try to drive a message, and I think that's what happened with the comic codes. It's like, hey, we need this nationalism, we need to, we need to make this homogenous message that comes out of all, all comics, and what happens is folks are turned off by that. Because, guess what? If I don't feel that way, I'm not gonna read that. If I feel like I'm being manipulated, I'm not gonna read that. If I feel like you're trying to indoctrinate me, I'm gonna reject it.
Speaker 1:And so I think one of the things that we have to do is this is the. This is the last kind of a bastion of Creativity. This is where you should be able to have the imagination to imagine anything. And so, when you get into a point where you're saying that a comic has to check this box, this box and this box, then you, what you do is you limit the creativity and the imagination of the authors and the writers. And so for me, I think it was heavy-handed and I think, whatever mission that they had with the comic codes it, it wasn't for the benefit of the genre or the community and I think it almost killed the comic industry. So I Don't, I'm not a supporter of that, because I think Art and artists they should be guided by creativity and not necessarily someone telling them what they have to say in the message.
Speaker 3:I'm a question Do you think there were ever being a non-straight Superman if the comic code was still being mulled by no, no, no, no, no, not a, not a chance, not a chance.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about this. We just went from truth justice in American way to truth justice and a better tomorrow. Right, like, and what happened? Literally meltdown across the spectrum.
Speaker 1:Like you hate America, like you're, like you're a commie because you want it. And like, to me, superman is. You know, I always say this and folks get mad at me when I talk about Superman and he's my, he's my favorite character to this day. But Superman is an illegal immigrant who had an anchor baby, who just turned out to be gay. Like you think about it, like, seriously, he's a little illegal immigrant. He came here, he didn't have any papers, he was he, he was taken in, he married an earth woman and he had an anchor baby. And so you know he's a DACA kid. I mean, let's be honest, you know so.
Speaker 1:So he's, he's everything that a lot of people hate what you put him forward because he presents as a very powerful white male. And so that's why I think, when you try to change Superman, it's almost like you're trying to change America. You know, it's like when you criticize Superman, it's like you're criticizing America and I love him. But you know, he's the archetype of what we are like. You know, we see ourselves as Superman, but the rest of the world sees us as homelander, you know, like, and so we got to do like we got. Like we got to deal with that, like we got to deal with that. But thank you for the question.
Speaker 8:Great question, yeah, so I wanted to ask you about really the role of companies when it comes to both promoting progressive ideas but also capitalizing on them, for example, Disney.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 8:We have a black little mermaid. We're gonna have a Hispanic Snow White. When it comes to Marvel, they fired. My pro-marital was one of the main people who was getting the? Way of making the black panther, black women movies. The same time you have what my buyer said recently about the rider strike and the actor strike. So when it comes to Getting these progressive ideas out of inclusiveness and diversity and yet, there's still sort of the dark aspect of they're still about the money and they can shed. The bottom line is what's important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think in a lot of ways and we we just recently saw like we saw backlash when companies try to Expand their markets, right, you saw the Bud Light controversy with the trans person on the can. Like it was like did you think it was gonna turn you gay when you sift it? Like like that's kind of dumb, like you've been drinking that beer for you forever and you think, just because the trans person's on the on the can is gonna, it's gonna affect you. But you saw the, you saw the backlash to that, because there are certain things where folks believe that it's forced right and instead of accepting the idea that trans people exist in our society and deserve to be seen, it's almost like you're forcing this thing down my throat. But companies understand that you know being being closed off Hurts your bottom line, like because you're you're segregating Large parts of the population that you can make money from. So it's not really progress and progressive, improgressive ideals in the sense of being progressive. It's more like I need more people to sell stuff to, so I'm gonna open up the markets to so I can get a larger market share of folks coming in, and so I think they in some degrees it works out right and then some degree really hurt, but like already so fixed. Like you know, liberals doesn't really drink blood, like you know, and so you, you had a captive audience and so when they tried to do that, it back backfired.
Speaker 1:But you look at things like Dick's sporting goods when they stopped carrying Shotguns, they're stock went up. When you look at, you know, nike, when they stood behind Colin Kaepernick, they're stopped, went up. When you look at you know Keurig and folks who did pride you know those that their stock went up. Why? Because they had a broader audience and folks felt included in their marketing campaign. So progress, yes, but I think it's also just really just good business, because the more, the more people that you open up your market to, the more opportunity you have to to make money, and so is. I don't know if it's an altruistic, like benevolent type of a move, but hey, what else? Whatever gets us there, gets us there right. And so the more times that we can have people out in our community that feel seen and represented and and have opportunities To to be seen and represented, I think the better. And have it, we get there. I think it's cool.
Speaker 2:And just like to say I don't normally go to these things. Yeah, I've learned a lot actually.
Speaker 6:Oh great.
Speaker 2:It's really been, I guess, helpful to see it from a different perspective.
Speaker 6:But I was wondering what your specific thoughts were about the color changing of specific stories that have to do with specifically like white culture such as Recently in the news it came out that the actress that's gonna play Astrid, yeah the new how to train your dragon movie is going to be. Can't remember if it was mixed or yeah black. But, I was wondering what your thoughts were specifically, as, like the Norse, that whole area and traditionally is very White yeah, and I think to some degree, because you know you had Valkyrie right Like you've.
Speaker 1:All three was changed Tessa Thompson play Valkyrie and I don't think anybody in in, you know, hind all was you, just so I think it's just really kind of dramatic license and I think if you say you know cuz, cuz, you can't really think about like Wakanda and think that you're gonna see, like you know, very blonde hair, blue eyes, people running through Wakanda, and so that's just not really a thing. And so I think there's some, I think you do have some abilities to make sure that you are as accurate as possible. And I and so I Don't think anybody would really be up in arms if you didn't change how to train your dragon, like I don't think anybody would. And I think you know, depending on what they were looking for from the range of the actress, maybe whoever auditioned for that was the best actor, like the like. The casting director for little mermaid said Halle Bailey walked in first and they really could have sent everyone else home Because she walked in and the first time a note came out of her mouth they was like that's it, and so she just happened to be, you know, a very caramel colored, you know young, young woman, and so I think if you're, if you're casting the best actress or actor, I think that is one thing.
Speaker 1:But if you're just trying to say I'm gonna find someone to update a modern artist, my modernize a story, I think you have to look at the story overall and see does it really fit? Because if you don't, if you don't have more than just her, then it looks forced, yeah, and so I think that's the thing. Like the environment of the movie has to be reflective of a change. Like you look at, you look at Asgard and In in the Marvel films, like it's, it's diverse, yeah, it's diverse. So it wasn't a stretch when Tesla Thompson played balkyrie, because you look around through the, through the city of Asgard, and it's diverse, and so nobody really had a big idea. But if you have, you know, one brown actress in a Sea of blonde Vikings, then you're gonna have, then it's gonna feel forced to everyone and I don't think you accomplished the goal that you're trying to do. Yeah, of course, absolutely.
Speaker 5:Yeah, come on, so you talked about it a second ago and I don't feel super, super qualified to talk about this, but Then you fit in with every politician that.
Speaker 5:So black role models, like black kids in America and pretty much everywhere, actually in comics, yeah, I'd say right now, the main one that comes to mind when people think about that is miles, sure. Do you think that, even with his like, it's been a blast, I think is what? Yeah, that's an electric power, but do you feel like, yeah, he keeps it up uniqueness and you think that he is a good role model for that? And I added under that if not, is there somebody better? Is there somebody that you would recommend a kid that wants to start getting the comic books that you could?
Speaker 1:just a character you'd be able to point out. Yeah, I think bird, I think I think miles is great. I think miles is. I think miles is great because you know he has a unique set of Skills like his, his abilities to be becoming visible. Yeah, the venom blast is kind of stereotypical, but hey, but look, it's a power set that traditionally Peter Parker didn't have right, and so I think that gives him some delineation away from the original character. But like you think about how far you go, like Miguel O'Hara in 2099, like that guy's a beast man, like like speed, strength, the shoulder showed the venom, these fangs. Like this guy's a beast, like in he's an Hispanic, you know, afro Hispanic guy and so yeah. So I think as long as you make some effort to show some distinction between the characters, I think it's fine. I think miles is a great character.
Speaker 1:I would always recommend someone to check out Virgil Hawkins static shock, if you're gonna get into it. Yeah, if you're gonna get it. If you, if you're a young black kid and you want to get into that, you really start with static shock and I'm so glad that we're gonna get some material Coming from there. Hi me, reyes is blue beetles coming out. So I think that's gonna be fantastic, I'm gonna, I can't wait so there's some really cool young people to be able to get behind that show representation positively. And I think you know miles has a great family structure, jaime has a great family structure, and so I think that's a really cool place to start.
Speaker 5:If you're looking, if young kids are looking for romance, yeah, even with, but you mean most made miles, not that whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah like honestly, like if I ever see the Folks who wrote that like they don't catch hands, like on site like we we're going, like it's on site man Like you, like you really did, because honestly, I love Thor to like I love Thor, like I really love what they were. They've gone with Thor now with with you know the all father, all you know open force and and power, cosmic and and he's like OP with the venom, with the Phoenix Force and everything. I love that. Like I love seeing characters like Reach a crazy OP level like actually comics 1050. Like Superman come back, come, come back from world, world and he's in his juice and I've been fighting for that for years because I feel like they nerfed it. But but I love that. But this, that guy like that, what if miles like that's got to go? Like he's not worthy, so he like he needs to put the hammer down like whatever.
Speaker 5:But yeah, in the right situation.
Speaker 1:I think if you guys see the spider-verse movies like that, miles Is a really, really good role model.
Speaker 1:He's respectful of his parents, he's really, he's really about his community.
Speaker 1:He takes his job in his role with spider-man seriously, he really honors his mentor and the legacy that Peter left, and I think those are those are values, those are core values, and that's one of the things of the underpinnings that should cut through the toxicity of politics Is that there's a core values to end politics. There's there's justice and there's there's there's Helping out those who are weaker, like that's what heroes are supposed to do, and they're not bullies and they're not, you know, imperialist or anything like that, even though they do go in other people's countries without asking. But, but you know, but it's to help people, is for good reasons, and so those are the core values that I can't, for the life of me, understand that how it got so consumed in this toxic mess that we're in right now, because this should be the space where we can have a conversation, like we're having tonight, and our personal beliefs come into it. We just go back and forth about what we feel about the best thing, about the character.
Speaker 2:So thank you, Thank you yeah, yeah, yeah See.
Speaker 1:We talk miles up. Look, yeah, see.
Speaker 2:I don't feel to talk about it, okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, so it's kind of a loaded question. Sure, the X-Men have just recently had like they got Kakoa going on. They just recently had a shakeup in like the past weeks issue and a lot of people did not like how they handled it right. A lot of people have been asking for more diversity in the X-Men team and they finally get diversity in something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 4:So, in your opinion, how do you feel like the X-Men can be handled to where? Because it's widely known that they're like an allegory for POCs. And how do they get to a place where they're more famous stories and they're more like more infamous stories aren't solely about like bigotry and always having to because they have the resurrection thing. I kind of feel like some of the writers are using it as a tool to be like okay, we can kill off Yep, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then I do anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what happens is when you have, when you have a title that's so steeped and it's so intertwined with, like a societal issue, like sometimes you feel like you can do almost anything with that and that anything is acceptable because folks understand what that means. But what they miss is that folks don't always understand what that means and so, like Kokoa is one of those things. Like we're having this national debate about reparations, right. Like we're having this debate about how do we make communities that suffered whole, and like one of the things that was promised, you know, after the Civil War was like 40 acres in a mule, like give me this land back so that we can make the best of what we wanted. So there was this idea that we were gonna integrate and society was gonna be great and it didn't happen. And so, if you look at how and honestly, like a lot of folks will always have this thing that you know Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were allegories for Professor X and Magneto, right, and so how do we have this peaceful integration? And or we have separate but equal, and I think there was this idea with Kokoa that hey, we gave it our level best. Humans are just not gonna accept us and so we gotta go off and do our own thing. But you gotta understand is that power is one of those things that can up in anything. And so the struggle within internally and, like you, have debates within the black community about things like reparations. Some folks say we don't want it and other folks say, yeah, we need it. People are not a monolith. The mutants, even though they're different, humans, are not a monolith. And so I think, when you're trying to write things like that, like you have to be able to cover the spectrum of how people feel.
Speaker 1:And I think that arc started off really strong and they tried to do something because you know you do have popular characters it's all good bro and so you have, like, folks who are demanding things like oh, I'd love to see this character I love, and you have an outcry. So you try to fix everything, but you can't do it without destroying the integrity of the story. And so what happens is it takes about one page or one half of a book to ruin the experience of a really super yeah, just happening. And now you can't think about how great the other you know 10 or so issues were. You think about how bad this one is.
Speaker 1:And so I think, honestly, the continuity between the writers, that's something that you also have to think about as well, because another writer can come on and take it in a completely different way. Like, honestly, recently I forget his name he did a run of Black Panther and it was, yeah, John, yes, and it was so bad in how they portrayed T'Challa, and so it's. You know, this guy is like Prasanna Nongrata in the community, because it's like you really really took down a pivotal character in the community, and so it's really about the writer and how they see, because if not, then you can really lose your audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah of course, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Folks, I don't. I think it's 10 o'clock. I don't know what time this is in. I hey, like I'm like cap, I can do this all day.
Speaker 6:But I'm 10, 10 o'clock. Okay, okay yeah, so I'm gonna ask you a hard question Are we good with that? Yeah, so I suppose that you would be fully in support of like interracial couples and comics and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6:I know I will be. I come from an interracial couple and one day I think that our world is gonna exist, with everyone looking like a beautiful tan right, so would you have an issue as well? Kanda becomes more integrated into the world if you have an interracial relationship that produces a child that one day rules or conduct and that child looks white.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't have a problem. I wouldn't have a problem with that at all. I think the I think the issue would be. I think the issue would be maybe amongst the tribes, like I think you would have. Like maybe that outside, I mean because you know, you think about it Like you've got Hunter in there, you've got the white wolf, you've got him. He's part of the royal family, right, and so you know, if all else fails, if every member of the royal family dies, hunter becomes the new black panther and he's white, and so I think, in that regard, I don't think there would be an issue.
Speaker 1:But I do think when you talk about protectionism and you talk about xenophobia and you talk about those things, I think Wakanda forever was a perfect allegory of xenophobia and protectionism. When it comes to like geopolitics, right, like you've got these two powerful nations that don't wanna be bothered because they understand how dangerous it is to have the outside world infiltrate that and so they stay separate into themselves, I think I don't think, because of vibranium and the power that it is, you would see that, but I certainly don't, I certainly wouldn't be against you know, shuri having an interracial relationship and having a baby or a child of remarrying, even though I would cry, cry, cry tears that he's not with Storm. But I wouldn't have a problem with that. I just think that it would be. I think it would be a tough sale to the public.
Speaker 6:Sure sure, but that's a problem. Yeah, yeah, and that's the next.
Speaker 1:No, it shouldn't. No, you're absolutely right, it should not be a tough sale. But I think when we talk about on either side of the issue, there's a certain purity aspect that folks and I hate that word there's a certain purity aspect that folks want to keep with particular characters.
Speaker 6:But it goes down way easier on one side than it does on the other.
Speaker 1:And it does. And I think what happens is when I talked earlier about, like, there's certain characters that you just can't, you should not mess with their origin, and I talked about Magneto, I think T'Challa and Wakanda are some of those characters where the origin is so pivotal to what the character is that you can't really mess with that. But that has nothing to do with generations upon generations that happen after that. So I wouldn't be mad at it, but I don't think. I do think some of those saying that pendulum can swing both ways and it would be a tough sale to the public. Yeah, any other questions guys? Hey, come on, come on, I think we've got a few minutes.
Speaker 2:No, you're good, you're good, he's kidding. So.
Speaker 9:Hey everyone. Yeah, my name is Wanda. When I just had a question about.
Speaker 2:We kind of mentioned that like an allegory for units would be you know rakes. Or another example he likes Utopia, sure Predators would be you know the black people on the side Do you feel that that's an act comparison Cause, like when you consider mutants like mutants are actually a threat. Right, they actually have powers. Some of them, can you know, do the entire universe, Anything you know where the Predators was Utopia. They actually hunt prey. Yeah, I mean they're an actual threat. So do you think that that's an act comparison?
Speaker 1:I think anytime where you have a concentration of power, that scene is predatory, whether that's political power, whether that's wealth or whether that's physical manifestations of race, like if you are seen as powerful, you're seen as a threat. And so I think what's happened is because you either set someone up as powerful to use them for their own end, or you set someone up as powerful so that you can have machinations to control them. And so one of the things that you do is you can scare people by saying, oh, look at this, you know very powerful mutant who can just walk into your house and take anything from you. We've got to control that person. And that was done to black people after slavery and it was done to justify brutality.
Speaker 1:So when you think about the race massacres that happened in this country, it happened because they set black people up as predators. There was either a white woman or something that was accusing someone of physical assault. That justified the culling of neighborhoods like Tulsa and Rosewood, florida and Wilmington, north Carolina, in places like that, because they set this person up as powerful, like look at how they describe like black athletes, you know, look, he's a beast, he's you know. Oh, he's an animal, he's got that dog in him.
Speaker 1:But then you look at how they describe white athletes oh, he's hitting and he's scrapping, and you know it's a very different thing and it's like one denotes power, the other denotes intellect, and so you have these two. You have these two, this juxtaposition between the two, and sometimes people feel justified in treating one one way and treating one another. And so I think when you have that dichotomy in comic books, I think that's how the Friends of Humanity, that's how you know Trask and Striker, that's why you know they went and got Tony Stark to help with the Sentinels, because we've got to have something powerful enough to be able to stand against these mutants, because if not, they're going to overrun us. And so it's either I'm going to set you up as powerful to use YouTube for your own end, or I'm going to set you up as powerful to control you by making people fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9:I had a question. Sure, a lot of the talk that's been going on has been about race and the allegories behind race race swapping, yeah. And I was thinking how it relates to the comic that I read the Visions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 9:And I was thinking how many of the scenes in the comic depicted what I want to call racism, if that's even the correct word because of the context, certainly and specifically the fact that within the comic you could see that people of all races united in the treatment that was portrayed to a division.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9:I wanted to ask for your thoughts. What do you think causes that that kind of vicious cycle?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's the thing I think, if there's someone that's so different and someone that's so outside of the full traditional aspect of what a group is like, there's a certain this is a very diverse room, right. We're different ages, we're different races, we're different sexes, we're different heights, colors, everything, but we all mostly have two eyes and 10 fingers and 10 toes, and like we're human, right. So when you have something that's far outside of that, that's the galvanizing force. Like the Friends of Humanity was a very diverse group, like you know, like they were very diverse but they hated mutants.
Speaker 1:Why Mutants had that one thing that separated them from humanity the Visions, androids, you know, whatever it may be, they were not human and so it was able to galvanize all of humanity, even over their differences, against them. Like there's nothing that this country loves more than an out group, we love to hate that group, right, and so you see it, even now, when you talk about the LGBT community, it unites those in the faith community. Like it can be Southern Baptist, or it can be, you know, black African, you know African American, episcopals it unites them against the LGBT community. So a lot of times, those individual, those similarities, if you have something that's so outside the mainstream, it will unite them against that person. That's what happens with the Visions. Yeah, oh, I'm over time. I'm done, guys, but guys, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for this, guys. I really appreciate it my first time ever, so I really appreciate you guys being kind hey.
