Marvel and Hegemony

What do Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, and Mr. Fantastic all have in common. Well many things. One is their all the flagship heroes of Marvel Comics and their all white males. This isn't a shock, many of these characters were created in the 60's, a time when woman, African-Americans and other marginalized groups were still looked down upon.

However, even in today's more diverse world, Marvels heroes still lacked diversity. People were wondering why the heroes of Marvel, or at least the mainstream ones, were still primarily white males. This did not go unseen, as many began to demand more diversity with Marvel's heroes. Marvel, actually took note of this, and began rebooting their characters.

In 2011, Marvel introduced the new Spiderman, Miles Morales, to replace Peter Parker.

In 2014, they did the same and replaced Miles with, Gwen Stacey, the Spider-woman.

In the same, Thor lost his powers and his hammer. His powers and hammer were soon claimed by his love interest, Jane Poster (Nataile Portman's character in the movies).

In 2016, the Iron Man mantle was abandoned by Tony Stark. It was in turn taken up by Riri Williams, an African-American engineering student.

All four characters and examples were met with praise from readers and critics alike. These changes showed not only was Marvel willing to listen to it's readers, but change with the times and accept diversity in the pages of comics.