Marvel’s Diverse Universe: raceAhead
And with one mighty snap, the entertainment universe just got a lot more interesting.
There was plenty of good news for fans of all ages from this year’s Comic-Con extravaganza in San Diego. But the Phase 4 slate of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had some delightfully inclusive twists.
While comic fans have already welcomed a black Captain America, television viewers can look forward to Anthony Mackie picking up the Captain’s shield in 2020. (If you’re not up on Avengers lore, or don’t have the patience to figure out the time traveling mechanism that helped restore the white Captain America to his rightful place in the space/time continuum and made room for a black one, then just wait for the debut of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier television series on Disney+, and the inevitable racist explainer-bots who will break it all down for you.)
Other notable announcements:
Actor Simu Liu will play Shang-Chi in Marvel’s film Shang-Chi: And the Legend of the Ten Rings. The film sports an all-Asian cast.
In 2021, Natalie Portman will become the first female Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder. Even better, Tessa Thompson, who plays Valkyrie, will be a featured player in the film. Thompson also confirmed that her character would be the first superhero in the MCU to be openly LGBTQ+. “As king, [Valkyrie] needs to find her queen. So that’ll be her first order of business, she has some ideas,” she said as the crowd went wild.
An upcoming film called The Eternals features Lauren Ridloff as part of a very attractive ensemble of moody immortals. The Tony Award nominee will become the first deaf superhero in Marvel’s world.
And Blade fans rejoice! The vampire-hunting vampire once played by Wesley Snipes is coming back! He will now be played by two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, an exciting addition to an increasingly diverse body of work.
All that said, everyone else can relax. Most of the other cis, white superheroes who still want to work remain gainfully employed by Marvel (even the dead ones), proof positive that diversity isn’t a takeaway.
But representation can mean so much.
“I got a lot of messages, especially from young women, who were so happy to see themselves on screen, they were so happy to see someone making science and technology cool,” says Letitia Wright, who played the teen genius Shuri in Black Panther. “So many young girls saw themselves like, that’s me, that’s how I pick on my brother, that’s how I think about things, that’s how I get excited about creating.”