Munkky wrote:OptimusPrimeval wrote:Whilst I'm over the moon to finally have a continuity start in G1 and get all the way to some proper Beast Wars, I'm not feeling that recordicon-looking art style. It's done the long-awaited introduction of some favourite characters a disservice! I mean, who doesn't list Manta Ray and Sonar among their most anticipated Beast era toys/characters to return? It's a real missed opportunity.
I get the impression that Manta Ray and Sonar were picked specifically because they're female, and not really because they're interesting or well-liked characters. You can easily replace them with Terrorsaur and Depth Charge in that scene and it wouldn't change much. Mairghred Scott seems to have a major thing for female representation in comics, she's even said on her Tumblr that she writes Windblade specifically for the female fans. To be clear, I have no problem with female characters (Airazor was one of my first Transformer toys when I was a kid) or female fans (so long as they leave their identity politics at the door, same goes for male fans).
The Windblade comic does like to emphasise how gynocentric (made by women, for women, about women) it is, and it wouldn't surprise me if Scott or someone else in IDW genuinely believes the
LIE that comic, gaming and geek culture is a misogynistic boy's club that excludes women. Having read a few of her Tumblr posts and interviews, Scott strikes me as the kind of writer who cares more about equality and diversity in entertainment than she does about story and characterisation.
Oh, boy. I know I look forward to discussing identity politics when reading Transformers comics.
If Scott's goal really is to write a comic for women, I think that's misguided. I can understand wanting to broaden the demographic and increase sales, but I don't see how injecting a quota of diversity is necessary in a series where the principal cast already includes characters who can turn into dinosaurs as readily as they turn into jets and the personalities of said characters run the gamut. In my opinion, the inclusion of gender specific tropes doesn't add diversity to this fictional universe, it
detracts from it by making it more like ours' without the benefit of making characters more relatable, just more easily shoehorned into one other broad character archetype.
A quick and non-scientific perusal of board members who identify as female in our own Cartoon and Comics forum indicates female fans actually enjoy MTMTE most of all, and that series has a principally "male" cast (and an entirely "male" cast for Season 1). I don't know all of said female fans' thoughts on the Windblade miniseries, but at least one of them doesn't care for Windblade and her occasional Mary Sue traits. I don't have access to IDW's own data, but I'd be very surprised if an increase in female readership could be attributed to the Windblade introduction and/or miniseries rather than they got more female readership thanks to better quality work in general from Barber and Roberts than they had under Mike Costa.
I remember the fuss made about the Windblade miniseries and the historic event of an all female creative team and wondering why this was so significant it merited celebration, because to me the gender of the author or artist is immaterial to enjoying their work and I still feel treating the creative output of an all female team as something special and unique undermines the value of the story they're telling and adds another unnecessary burden of expectation. Treating an all female team as you would an all male team sounds egalitarian to me. Treating it as special reminds us all that it's different, that it's "other", and I don't feel that's to anyone's benefit. Probably made for a nice press release, I suppose.
If Scott wants to bring in more diversity, fine, it's her book. I just don't see that goal as conducive to expanding the TF universe. Want more female characters? We did that last year. More beastformers? We already have a bunch whose origins haven't been fully detailed. Still, Beast Wars homages sell... but we already have one as a major character with an arc under Barber's pen, and one Scott has appearing in her work for no other reason than to be comic relief.
Upon reading the preview I didn't feel like any of these characters were specifically chosen for their gender, though I certainly felt it was odd that Depth Charge wasn't chosen to lead the water beastformers. I can't imagine Hasbro has toys in the pipe for non-show Beast Wars characters, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
TL; DR: Scott, just tell a good story. If you insist on adding "diversity" that doesn't significantly improve your narrative, that hurts not only your series, but the larger universe.
