On Monday, Marvel Comics admitted what those of us who actually read comic books have known all along. The emphasis on leftist messaging in comic books is pretty much killing the appeal. David Gabriel is the vice president of sales at Marvel, and he said that comic book retailers were reporting a drop-off in interest in the new diversity-oriented comics. He said, quote, what we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity. They didn't want female characters out there.

That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not.

I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales. Any character that was diverse, any character that was new, are female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up. Okay, it's not racism and sexism driving people away from Marvel. it's a feeling of irritation that classic characters are being redrawn and recast

in order to assuage the feelings of social justice warriors. Iron Man is Tony Stark. He is not Rere Williams. Captain America is Steve Rogers. He is not Sam Wilson. Thor is Thor. Not female Thor. Spider-Man is Peter Parkett, not Miles Morales. This isn't to say that the comics with Miles Morales aren't good. They're actually really good if you read them, although the Iron Man series with Rory Williams actually kind of sucked. It's to say that nobody wants to see iconic superheroes recast as completely different people to appease quotas on race and sex. Superheroes are brands. You can't twist those brands without hurting them. When it comes to new superheroes, people are always skeptical, so this poses something of a challenge. How do you better reflect diversity in comics without tanking sales if that's something you want to do? The answer, you have to make new characters awesome, then worry about whether they're diverse later, or use a historic character to infuse new life. So Marvel did the latter with Black Panther. They hired Tonehisi Coates to write the comic, which immediately became a big bestseller for them this year. The comic, by the way, is actually unreadably bad. But at least Marvel tried doing diversity the right way here. In the D.C. universe, Harley Quinn, who was a marginal character 20 years ago, is now a major bestseller because she's interesting, not because Batman had to become Batwoman. But the comic book industry keeps attempting to slam its constituents

over the head with social justice messaging. And that's actually killing the quality of comics.

See, for example, Batman, advocate for Trayvon Martin, or Captain America, illegal immigration

defender, both of which happened last year. Turning iconic characters into avatars of social justice actually kill sales.

It's throwback comics doing most of the heavy lifting at this point.

Marvel and DC should take note that it's not American racism driving that choice.

It's Americans discontent with the left's willingness to sacrifice quality and legacy for leftist politics.

I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

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