Extremely disappointed to hear the comics got woke and political

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Did anyone else think April and Oyuki were having lesbian sex behind the scenes in the Archie series? I always got that vibe from them since they were living together. I wish we could have known.

Well, given that Casey Jones never made an appearance in the Archie comics…

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Cowabung-Gal

Well, given that Casey Jones never made an appearance in the Archie comics…

Unless you take the TMNT Breakfast Cereals comics from Ralston Purina as Archie canon (even if he never had any April O'Neil romance).

http://tmntentity.blogspot.com/2011/...3-ralston.html

[Leo656]

It's definitely my headcanon but I can't say if that was the intended message or not.

[neatoman]

Well, I've seen at least seven different pieces of art inspired by a certain scene from the 4Kids cartoon, so people who want to see this sort of thing will see it in anything...

Spoiler:

Did I say seven by the way? I meant seven... That I can show here without getting banned...

[Zog The Magnificent]

Okay, I've been mostly staying out of this conversation, because sometimes I'm just not in the mood, y'know? With that said...

The comic, in it's current form, is woke. Woke as in "pushing or normalizing a clear agenda related to certain elements of political correctness" (in broadest terms), not what ever other nonsense definition was used to counter that assertation which, let's be honest, is not the colloquial definition that everyone understands and uses in this context.

Secondly, trying to objectively qualify wokeness into a number that you can measure is fool's errand, and also an entirely flawed way of determining wokeness. It's not like something isn't woke if it only has 3 lesbians in it, but as soon as you have 4, then it becomes woke. It's a matter of the context of how the characters are added, how they figure into the narrative, how the writer uses and portrays them, and, in the case of longer running franchises, how does it compare to both the context of the story and how the work handled it previously. Trying to act like the comic is not woke because of the actual physical number of pages that something appears on is not only flawed, but disingenious. Remember, even Darth Vader only has 12 minutes of actual screen time in A New Hope, but it's more about his overall presence in the film and his effect on the narrative and characters. It's the same principle with wokeness. Not only what it does, but how does it actually feel?

Ever since Campbell took over post #100, we have seen a marked increase in traditional woke elements; forced diversity, characters who check boxes before having strong personalities, denegrading of preivous characters, especially men, left leaning politics, pandering, and heavy handed preaching. Campbell's run has had each of these in spades. Jennika, a female version of the turtles, who despite being an uninteresting and unpopular character, is now constantly at the forefront of the plot, and, I might add, a character who was straight, and then suddenly became bisexual. It is no conincidence that the kiss between her and Sheena, another token chacter, happened during an issue released in June.

Besides that, you will notice that Sally, who has been hinted as being gay by the creators, is now sporting a very gender non-comformative outfit, alongside a huge increase in overall prominence. This by itself would not be anything of note, but combined with everything else it's quite telling. In fact, most of the OCs that Cambell has introduced have been gender-nonconforming characters, with many being women despite in no way looking like women, and serving to little more than check off a box.

Besides this, there are also the clear biases present; the "important" plot actions being carried out predominately by Jennika or one of Cambell's OCs, the sidelining of the actual main characters of the book, and the clear and present pandering, as well as the heavy-handed political messages, such as the aforementioned "Not quite MAGA" hats.

Besides all of the this, the comic in general is poorly written. The comic was a slow burn before, but these days NOTHING related to the ongoing plot even develops on the side. We had 25 straight issues of Mutant Town nonsense, developing no significant plot arcs, and focusing on Cambell OCs who didn't have enough character to carry any amount of narrative, as well as inconsistent and at times just plain awful writing, like the aforementioned Bebop and Rockstead example, or the stupid "Venus abducting herself" thing. This comic is overall a shell of it's former self, with woke elements being a clear overarching prescence at the expense of the actual things the majority of readers care about, and in general is badly put together.

The previous comics were not woke for a few simple reasons. Essentially, older comics used politics in general less, presented them in a more even handed fashion, kept them more limited to broader general issues rather than increadibly specific and devisive issues, and usually didn't tell you what to think, instead presenting an idea and letting you come to your own conclusion. Additionally, characters were not put in because they were gay or black, but because they were good characters. It's one thing to have a gay character; it's antother thing entirely when they constantly remind you of it and it's their most significant trait. Who you're having sex with should not be a person's most significant trait, and whenever it is it's a clear sign of wokeness. Plot and characters should always come before wondering how many different ethnicities or sexualities are in the comic, and this is a problem that is unfortunately not limited to just comics. Anyways, that's pretty much the jist of it, and if I keep going I'd probably just repeat myself or ramble.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Okay, I've been mostly staying out of this conversation, because sometimes I'm just not in the mood, y'know? With that said...

The comic, in it's current form, is woke. Woke as in "pushing or normalizing a clear agenda related to certain elements of political correctness" (in broadest terms), not what ever other nonsense definition was used to counter that assertation which, let's be honest, is not the colloquial definition that everyone understands and uses in this context.

Secondly, trying to objectively qualify wokeness into a number that you can measure is fool's errand, and also an entirely flawed way of determining wokeness. It's not like something isn't woke if it only has 3 lesbians in it, but as soon as you have 4, then it becomes woke. It's a matter of the context of how the characters are added, how they figure into the narrative, how the writer uses and portrays them, and, in the case of longer running franchises, how does it compare to both the context of the story and how the work handled it previously. Trying to act like the comic is not woke because of the actual physical number of pages that something appears on is not only flawed, but disingenious. Remember, even Darth Vader only has 12 minutes of actual screen time in A New Hope, but it's more about his overall presence in the film and his effect on the narrative and characters. It's the same principle with wokeness. Not only what it does, but how does it actually feel?

Ever since Campbell took over post #100, we have seen a marked increase in traditional woke elements; forced diversity, characters who check boxes before having strong personalities, denegrading of preivous characters, especially men, left leaning politics, pandering, and heavy handed preaching. Campbell's run has had each of these in spades. Jennika, a female version of the turtles, who despite being an uninteresting and unpopular character, is now constantly at the forefront of the plot, and, I might add, a character who was straight, and then suddenly became bisexual. It is no conincidence that the kiss between her and Sheena, another token chacter, happened during an issue released in June.

Besides that, you will notice that Sally, who has been hinted as being gay by the creators, is now sporting a very gender non-comformative outfit, alongside a huge increase in overall prominence. This by itself would not be anything of note, but combined with everything else it's quite telling. In fact, most of the OCs that Cambell has introduced have been gender-nonconforming characters, with many being women despite in no way looking like women, and serving to little more than check off a box.

Besides this, there are also the clear biases present; the "important" plot actions being carried out predominately by Jennika or one of Cambell's OCs, the sidelining of the actual main characters of the book, and the clear and present pandering, as well as the heavy-handed political messages, such as the aforementioned "Not quite MAGA" hats.

Besides all of the this, the comic in general is poorly written. The comic was a slow burn before, but these days NOTHING related to the ongoing plot even develops on the side. We had 25 straight issues of Mutant Town nonsense, developing no significant plot arcs, and focusing on Cambell OCs who didn't have enough character to carry any amount of narrative, as well as inconsistent and at times just plain awful writing, like the aforementioned Bebop and Rockstead example, or the stupid "Venus abducting herself" thing. This comic is overall a shell of it's former self, with woke elements being a clear overarching prescence at the expense of the actual things the majority of readers care about, and in general is badly put together.

The previous comics were not woke for a few simple reasons. Essentially, older comics used politics in general less, presented them in a more even handed fashion, kept them more limited to broader general issues rather than increadibly specific and devisive issues, and usually didn't tell you what to think, instead presenting an idea and letting you come to your own conclusion. Additionally, characters were not put in because they were gay or black, but because they were good characters. It's one thing to have a gay character; it's antother thing entirely when they constantly remind you of it and it's their most significant trait. Who you're having sex with should not be a person's most significant trait, and whenever it is it's a clear sign of wokeness. Plot and characters should always come before wondering how many different ethnicities or sexualities are in the comic, and this is a problem that is unfortunately not limited to just comics. Anyways, that's pretty much the jist of it, and if I keep going I'd probably just repeat myself or ramble.

Well said. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

[CyberCubed]

Reasons Mirage wasn't woke:

1. Only 2 main female characters, April and Karai. April was seldom used at times, and Karai was basically a villain who formed a truce and was then pushed to the sidelines. Neither of them took over the book from the core cast.

2. No gay or lesbian characters. Granted it was the 80's and 90's so it wasn't common back then. The word "transgender" did not exist outside The Jerry Springer show.

3. No forced diversity. Only black characters were villains like Skonk, General Blanque was white, most recurring characters were white. There was some Native American pandering but that was mostly from Murphy

4. There was a quota on things. It was a mostly white male-centered series, with only the occasional female or "person of color" introduced and not a single homosexual character as far as the eye could see.


It's why nobody thought of these things back then, because none of this was an issue. TMNT had an almost all white main cast, barely any females of note, and no diversity, and more importantly no gay or lesbian characters. And nobody cared for 25+ years all the way to the end of Volume 4 and Tales V. 2 in 2010.

[mrmaczaps]

Originally Posted by Zog The Magnificent

Okay, I've been mostly staying out of this conversation, because sometimes I'm just not in the mood, y'know? With that said...

The comic, in it's current form, is woke. Woke as in "pushing or normalizing a clear agenda related to certain elements of political correctness" (in broadest terms), not what ever other nonsense definition was used to counter that assertation which, let's be honest, is not the colloquial definition that everyone understands and uses in this context.

Secondly, trying to objectively qualify wokeness into a number that you can measure is fool's errand, and also an entirely flawed way of determining wokeness. It's not like something isn't woke if it only has 3 lesbians in it, but as soon as you have 4, then it becomes woke. It's a matter of the context of how the characters are added, how they figure into the narrative, how the writer uses and portrays them, and, in the case of longer running franchises, how does it compare to both the context of the story and how the work handled it previously. Trying to act like the comic is not woke because of the actual physical number of pages that something appears on is not only flawed, but disingenious. Remember, even Darth Vader only has 12 minutes of actual screen time in A New Hope, but it's more about his overall presence in the film and his effect on the narrative and characters. It's the same principle with wokeness. Not only what it does, but how does it actually feel?

Ever since Campbell took over post #100, we have seen a marked increase in traditional woke elements; forced diversity, characters who check boxes before having strong personalities, denegrading of preivous characters, especially men, left leaning politics, pandering, and heavy handed preaching. Campbell's run has had each of these in spades. Jennika, a female version of the turtles, who despite being an uninteresting and unpopular character, is now constantly at the forefront of the plot, and, I might add, a character who was straight, and then suddenly became bisexual. It is no conincidence that the kiss between her and Sheena, another token chacter, happened during an issue released in June.

Besides that, you will notice that Sally, who has been hinted as being gay by the creators, is now sporting a very gender non-comformative outfit, alongside a huge increase in overall prominence. This by itself would not be anything of note, but combined with everything else it's quite telling. In fact, most of the OCs that Cambell has introduced have been gender-nonconforming characters, with many being women despite in no way looking like women, and serving to little more than check off a box.

Besides this, there are also the clear biases present; the "important" plot actions being carried out predominately by Jennika or one of Cambell's OCs, the sidelining of the actual main characters of the book, and the clear and present pandering, as well as the heavy-handed political messages, such as the aforementioned "Not quite MAGA" hats.

Besides all of the this, the comic in general is poorly written. The comic was a slow burn before, but these days NOTHING related to the ongoing plot even develops on the side. We had 25 straight issues of Mutant Town nonsense, developing no significant plot arcs, and focusing on Cambell OCs who didn't have enough character to carry any amount of narrative, as well as inconsistent and at times just plain awful writing, like the aforementioned Bebop and Rockstead example, or the stupid "Venus abducting herself" thing. This comic is overall a shell of it's former self, with woke elements being a clear overarching prescence at the expense of the actual things the majority of readers care about, and in general is badly put together.

The previous comics were not woke for a few simple reasons. Essentially, older comics used politics in general less, presented them in a more even handed fashion, kept them more limited to broader general issues rather than increadibly specific and devisive issues, and usually didn't tell you what to think, instead presenting an idea and letting you come to your own conclusion. Additionally, characters were not put in because they were gay or black, but because they were good characters. It's one thing to have a gay character; it's antother thing entirely when they constantly remind you of it and it's their most significant trait. Who you're having sex with should not be a person's most significant trait, and whenever it is it's a clear sign of wokeness. Plot and characters should always come before wondering how many different ethnicities or sexualities are in the comic, and this is a problem that is unfortunately not limited to just comics. Anyways, that's pretty much the jist of it, and if I keep going I'd probably just repeat myself or ramble.

Originally Posted by Cowabung-Gal

Well said. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Ditto annnnnd ditto. Great. Well done. Exactly.