April's ethnicity moving forward

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

Sweetie honey, auburn and magenta fall under the spectrum of "red" .

Magenta fall under red as much as purple and pink does, “sweetie”. And Archie April’s auburn hair was all over the spectrum from downright brown, to caramel to more reddish.

But by all means, 2K3 April had a more naturals red rcolor in BttS, stars maybe that was her real hair color

[Dejablue]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

Magenta fall under red as much as purple and pink does, “sweetie”. And Archie April’s auburn hair was all over the spectrum from downright brown, to caramel to more reddish.

But by all means, 2K3 April had a more naturals red rcolor in BttS, stars maybe that was her real hair color

If she had pink or purple hair then we'd say she was an anime character. She clearly didn't. Its just common sense to look at April across most iterations and say "yeah she's had red or red-ish hair". Saying it was "magenta" or "auburn" like it really makes that big of a difference is being pointlessly pedantic.

[Redeemer]

Originally Posted by Dane E5R

So, this conversation is 85% likely to just piss me off in the end, but what the heck. It doesn’t matter to me what race she is. When I saw that she would be black, I was excited; unfortunately, I hate Rise. C’est la vie.

When it comes to her last name, it’s whatever. My last name is German; and that’s because the slave owners who owned my ancestors were German. Simple as that.

When it comes to race changing- The “create new characters” gripe annoys me. When new POC characters are introduced, they generally don’t last. White comic fans decide its a “black” book, and ignore it. The way to get new black characters with a possibility of sticking around? Slip them into something you’re already consuming like a pill coated in peanut butter.

Sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes we get Sam jackson playing Nick Fury and an Oscar winning Spider-Man film.

Nick Fury was actually black before Samual Jackson and there are actually two Nick Furys! There is the Original Nick Fury who was white and had a black son who lost his eye like his father and ran shield and then there is Nick Series from the ultimate universe who is black. The MCU Nick Fury is based on "Ultimate" version Nick Fury. I don't have a problem when they re-skin very minor/ non-mainstream characters like this bc from my understanding Ultimate Nick Fury is a completely different character in all but name.

But I have to disagree with you on re-skinning characters in general. It is a lazy way to be more diverse and I don't believe it will help a character to stick around at all if anything it causes severe backlash at time. Unless someone has stats that say other wise. But if they just re-skinned characters we would not have some of the best super-heroes like Black Panther, Myles Morales, Static Shock, John Stewart Green Lantern (The best Lantern!), Storm, Cyborg ect...

I hope you don't get to upset about this thread or my comments but I just feel its a terrible idea for to simply re-skin characters especially given how the comic industry relies so heavily on using the same characters. I think it will ultimate make the industry stagnant.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

I am not against the re-skinning of characters in general, but I really do not like it when its done just for the sake of diversity, with the quality of the story being an afterthought.

Like its clear that one of the first things that came into the creator's minds when creating Rise April, was to make her black rather than focus on her personality first.

As a consequence, it feels like her character is not that well-written, and just comes off as obnoxious a lot of the time.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

I am not against the re-skinning of characters in general, but I really do not like it when its done just for the sake of diversity, with the quality of the story being an afterthought.

I'm weird about this. Some race or gender swaps, I'm totally cool with.

Starbuck was a dude in original Battlestar Galactica, but she's a badass chick in nuBSG and I loved her. Pissed a lot of other people off, though.

If April or Casey go from Caucasian to African-American, I don't care. The characters could be anyone, because New York City is a huge melting pot of diversity.

Whereas, if Bruce Wayne ever got race-swapped? No thank you. Bruce Wayne is supposed to be privileged upper-crust 1% of the 1%. That's simply got to be whiter than Wonderbread. And I'd have a hard time wrapping my head around a black Superman.

Black Johnny Storm but white Sue Storm? Out of the ordinary, but I was willing to hear them out. Then the movie turned out to be an atrocity against all mankind.

It's a case by case basis, as far as I'm concerned.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

I don't know jack about Starbuck, but I'm sure that you liked her first and foremost, because she was a badass rather than because she's a woman.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

I don't know jack about Starbuck, but I'm sure that you liked her first and foremost, because she was a badass rather than because she's a woman.

It also helps that I never watched original BSG.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

I am not against the re-skinning of characters in general, but I really do not like it when its done just for the sake of diversity, with the quality of the story being an afterthought.

Unfortunately nearly all race changes are done for the sake of diversity not to give the character new life. We need diversity in new characters not changing old characters race for the sake of changing their race. That includes not white replacements. Brand new characters in general. Nick Fury is one of the few that have worked out really well with a new take on an old character.

[Dejablue]

Originally Posted by Redeemer

Nick Fury was actually black before Samual Jackson and there are actually two Nick Furys! There is the Original Nick Fury who was white and had a black son who lost his eye like his father and ran shield and then there is Nick Series from the ultimate universe who is black. The MCU Nick Fury is based on "Ultimate" version Nick Fury. I don't have a problem when they re-skin very minor/ non-mainstream characters like this bc from my understanding Ultimate Nick Fury is a completely different character in all but name.

But I have to disagree with you on re-skinning characters in general. It is a lazy way to be more diverse and I don't believe it will help a character to stick around at all if anything it causes severe backlash at time. Unless someone has stats that say other wise. But if they just re-skinned characters we would not have some of the best super-heroes like Black Panther, Myles Morales, Static Shock, John Stewart Green Lantern (The best Lantern!), Storm, Cyborg ect...

I hope you don't get to upset about this thread or my comments but I just feel its a terrible idea for to simply re-skin characters especially given how the comic industry relies so heavily on using the same characters. I think it will ultimate make the industry stagnant.

I have to ask tho, how beholden to race do characters have to be in a multiverse scenario? Since TMNT runs on one. And isn't that the whole point of the Spiderverse? Peter Parker is a spiderman out of infinite spidermans.

I want to reiterate that I'm confident April will be white in the majority of her appearances. But I find it disturbing that in a proven multiverse scenario like this, people get so angry about 1 race change. When the skin color is the least important thing about who they are, and on top of that, April is radically different iteration to iteration.

[Zog The Magnificent]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

I have to ask tho, how beholden to race do characters have to be in a multiverse scenario? Since TMNT runs on one. And isn't that the whole point of the Spiderverse? Peter Parker is a spiderman out of infinite spidermans.

Even in your example though, there is no black Peter Parker. There's Miles Morales, who is a completely different and unique character. It also helps that the Spiderman identity is a legacy mantle, while April O'Neil is one specific person.

Personally, I think that characters should just be what they are. If they're white, make them white. If they're black, make them black. If Rise wanted more "diversity," they should have just used Angel, a prexisting black character who could have easily filled the niche they wanted to fill, rather than recoloring an existing character. Diversity, as it is typically thought of these days, shouldn't really be an issue. Rather than trying to check off all the boxes and make sure they have one of each group, storywriters should just write a story and let the characters be what they need to be.

[Dejablue]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Even in your example though, there is no black Peter Parker. There's Miles Morales, who is a completely different and unique character. It also helps that the Spiderman identity is a legacy mantle, while April O'Neil is one specific person.

Personally, I think that characters should just be what they are. If they're white, make them white. If they're black, make them black. If Rise wanted more "diversity," they should have just used Angel, a prexisting black character who could have easily filled the niche they wanted to fill, rather than recoloring an existing character. Diversity, as it is typically thought of these days, shouldn't really be an issue. Rather than trying to check off all the boxes and make sure they have one of each group, storywriters should just write a story and let the characters be what they need to be.

Well okay. Just let the characters be what they need to be. But what if a black April was a great character? Would you accept that? Like "Hey this version of April is pretty great." or "Gawd I'm so ****ing annoyed that she's not white."

[Zog The Magnificent]

If April in that show was a great character, I don't think it would be because she was black. Characters aren't great because they're a specific ethnicity, they're great and they happen to be a specific ethnicity. It's more just an issue of change for the sake of change. If you want to make her black, there should be a reason for it. By making her black in this case, it's a clear deviation from source material, and it's done for no other reason than because they wanted to be diverse. For this to be a justified change, they need to actually do something with it. As it is currently presented? I find it a bit annoying. But if she was black in this version because she and Angel were sisters, or because she was Baxter Stockman's niece or something, or if they wanted to tell some sort of story about the hardships that being part of an ethinc group can bring? That would be cool. But they aren't doing anything with here. Here, she's just black because they wanted to show off how diverse they are.

[Leo656]

I'm with CKD in that it's case-by-case, but I prefer things being left as they are.

There's exceptions, though. Laurence Fishburne was a great Perry White. I wasn't in love with the "stunt casting" ("A black guy named 'White'! Hilarious!") but he definitely did a good job. I'd honestly prefer that they keep him around at this point rather than recast it.

[Redeemer]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

I have to ask tho, how beholden to race do characters have to be in a multiverse scenario? Since TMNT runs on one. And isn't that the whole point of the Spiderverse? Peter Parker is a spiderman out of infinite spidermans.

I want to reiterate that I'm confident April will be white in the majority of her appearances. But I find it disturbing that in a proven multiverse scenario like this, people get so angry about 1 race change. When the skin color is the least important thing about who they are, and on top of that, April is radically different iteration to iteration.

As Zog said in the Spider-verse there are other characters besides Peter-Parker who are spider-man. Such as Myles Morales or Gwen Stacey who is Spider-Gwen/Woman.

They are completely different characters with completely different stories and back grounds. They are essentially completely different universes and new stories. If they just simply re-skinned Peter-Parker and changed his ethnicity it would be the same character with just a different coloring which is boring and lazy.

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Even in your example though, there is no black Peter Parker. There's Miles Morales, who is a completely different and unique character. It also helps that the Spiderman identity is a legacy mantle, while April O'Neil is one specific person.

Personally, I think that characters should just be what they are. If they're white, make them white. If they're black, make them black. If Rise wanted more "diversity," they should have just used Angel, a prexisting black character who could have easily filled the niche they wanted to fill, rather than recoloring an existing character. Diversity, as it is typically thought of these days, shouldn't really be an issue. Rather than trying to check off all the boxes and make sure they have one of each group, storywriters should just write a story and let the characters be what they need to be.

I pretty much agree with this.

[Dejablue]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

If April in that show was a great character, I don't think it would be because she was black. Characters aren't great because they're a specific ethnicity, they're great and they happen to be a specific ethnicity. It's more just an issue of change for the sake of change. If you want to make her black, there should be a reason for it. By making her black in this case, it's a clear deviation from source material, and it's done for no other reason than because they wanted to be diverse. For this to be a justified change, they need to actually do something with it. As it is currently presented? I find it a bit annoying. But if she was black in this version because she and Angel were sisters, or because she was Baxter Stockman's niece or something, or if they wanted to tell some sort of story about the hardships that being part of an ethinc group can bring? That would be cool. But they aren't doing anything with here. Here, she's just black because they wanted to show off how diverse they are.

I assume you're talking about Rise. Rise April is not really a character. I understand what you mean.
But my question is, even if a character had a race change, like if she was related to Baxter...which is STILL a clear deviation from the source material by the by, would you accept that version of the character or would the race change be too much of a problem for you to accept?

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

I assume you're talking about Rise. Rise April is not really a character. I understand what you mean.
But my question is, even if a character had a race change, like if she was related to Baxter...which is STILL a clear deviation from the source material by the by, would you accept that version of the character or would the race change be too much of a problem for you to accept?

April being related to Baxter?

I actually really like that idea.

Making her black, so she's blood related to Baxter Stockman, would make for some interesting chemistry between the two, and open up a lot of story potential.

Unless this is a white Baxter like the Original Cartoon and then it would make more sense to make April white, but you get my point.

The race change being the byproduct of interesting story ideas, but not the main focus.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

April being related to Baxter?

I actually really like that idea.

Making her black, so she's blood related to Baxter Stockman, would make for some interesting chemistry between the two, and open up a lot of story potential.

That is not only a great way of justifying the idea (making April black)... but yeah, opening up a whole lot of plot and character potential.

[pferreira]

Originally Posted by Chet

I think new ethnicities should be new characters. Reskinning regulars seems pointless.

I agree as well but this is 2019. Since when does common sense override forcing gender swaps and diversity?

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

I don't know jack about Starbuck, but I'm sure that you liked her first and foremost, because she was a badass rather than because she's a woman.

Ron Moore made Starbuck a woman because of his SJW leanings. He gender and race swapped most people. The irony is in their enthusiasm to gender and race swap everybody they race swapped Tigh (a good black male character) to white.

The remake was a terrible show anyway.

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Nick Fury is one of the few that have worked out really well with a new take on an old character.

Totally agree!

[sdp]

Baxter and April have always had a relationship so her being Baxters daughter would've been cool. That's why I used to shitpost about it before Rise came out for a couple of weeks and have meme magic make it work but it didn't ;(

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by sdp

Baxter and April have always had a relationship so her being Baxters daughter would've been cool. That's why I used to shitpost about it before Rise came out for a couple of weeks and have meme magic make it work but it didn't ;(

But what if....

Baxter Stockboy is April's Son!!!????

Come on sdp, its time to use your meme magic again.