One of the things DC Comics has touted with their New52 was diversity. What they meant by it wasn't necessarily clear. This was a company that had been accused the previous year of "whitewashing" their shared universe, taking out minority characters holding legacy names to return the white bread originals to the fold, so they definitely needed to make a commitment towards racial diversity. (Of course, they now could be accused of "de-chairing" the DCU.) Because the commitment also came with the bold mission statement that they were trying to get new readers into the game, "diversity" should probably also mean a greater variety of styles and genres in their comics, getting to potential readers who don't really care about superheroes. We've seen all the #1s so... did it work? I thought I'd crunch some numbers for you. Mind you, I had to make judgment calls on many categories and the future may prove me wrong on just what characters were "important" or "recurring". In cases where, for example, sexual orientation was unknown, I assumed heterosexuality, but if the character was gay in the previous timeline, I assumed them to still be gay.The Relaunch
Number of monthly DCU series published by DC in August 2010: 38
Number of monthly DCU series published by DC in August 2011: 33
Number of monthly DCU series published by DC in September 2011: 52
Titles that weren't published before the Relaunch announcement: 36
Titles that have never been published before: 13
Titles reset to #1 that had gone past #100: 5
Titles reset to #1 that had gone past #600: 5
Demographics - Protagonists
Female protagonists with their own book: 6
Female protagonists featured in a team book: 41
Non-white protagonists with their own book: 6
Non-white protagonists featured in a team book: 18
Gay protagonists with their own book: 1
Gay protagonists featured in a team book: 2
Differently abled protagonists with their own book: 1
Differently abled protagonists featured in a team book: 2
Note that having lost an eye or cybernetic replacements count as disabilities for purposes of this list. The number of differently abled protagonists drops to 0 when you remove these from the count.
Demographics - All Characters
Ratio of male/female characters with an important or recurring role: 247/137
Ratio of white/non-white characters with an important or recurring role: 257/94
Total number of gay characters with an important or recurring role: 5
Total number of differently abled characters with an important or recurring role: 5
Total number of important or recurring female characters with a different body type than svelte heroine or buxom heroine: 16
Books with no female characters with an important role in them: 3
Books with no female characters whosoever (Ms. Monitor doesn't count): 1
Books with no non-white characters with an important role in them: 15
Books with no non-white characters whatsoever: 11
Tropes - Why do so many of these comics feel the same?
Books structured around the use first person narration: 30
Number of characters seen to speak in first person narration caption boxes with their logo in them: 26
Number of secret organizations in the new DCU: 10
Books focused on covert missions: 9
Times characters jump out of an aircraft: 12
Books that feature helicopters: 8
Books focused monthly on members of the Batman family: 14
Books that feature a guest star from the Justice League to midwife the book: 10
Number of those books that actually advertise that Justice Leaguer on its cover: 1
Books in which an antagonist is revealed on the last page: 14
Books with no supervillain, only henchmen: 18
Those henchmen are armored: 9
Number of distinct Arkham Asylum break-outs: 2
Books that discuss urban renewal and/or construction: 10
Characters that serve the same function as Oracle did: 7
Number of DC's fictional cities referenced: Only 4
Number of panels showing football (any kind) action: 16
Pencilers who have a Latin-sounding (i.e. Italian or Spanish) name or are actually from Italy, Spain or South America: 23
Questions of art and story, useful to fuel or extinguish existing debates
Pencilers previously known for their Image comics work: 8
Books written by someone also (often, better) known as an artist: 12
Books with more than 2 splash pages (double-splashes count as a single page): 17
Number of panels in Supergirl #1: 58 (shortest read)
Number of panels in Superman #1: 196 (longest read)
Number of team books: 19
Team books where the team is not completely assembled in the first issue: 7
Team books that feature team members on the cover, but not the interior: 6
Number of panels showing characters undressing or in various stages of undress (male/female): 59/109 (60 of those in Voodoo alone)
Number of recurring or important female characters who work or mention having worked in the sex industry: 5
Number of non-recurring, non-important female sex industry workers: 29
Women working as writer, penciler or inker on any of these books: 1
Books where the police are shown to be dumb and/or incompetent: 11
Books where the police aren't: 7
When you take Commissioner Gordon out of the equation, that number drops to: 4
Books that feature particularly gory violence: 19
Number of those books rated less than Teen Plus: 9
Number of married protagonists: 5
Number of protagonists who used to be married: 13 (some marriages have been retconned, but I've counted being widowed or divorced in-continuity as well)
I'm going to let you analyze the data in the comments section. Have we been too harsh on DC's output? Or are we right to complain? You be the judge.
Comments
(If having super-related-stuff that overcomes your disability were a disqualifier, Daredevil wouldn't count, and that's clearly an absurd result.)
I think the biggest surprises out here by me were the dark books (I, Vampire--which I thought would suck--was not bad)and JLDark, an idea that should have been explored years ago.
I understand why DC committed to an almost total relaunch, I just don't understand the armored costumes, the over-sexed women, and the idea that putting Cyborg in the JLA as a founding member is "unique."
- it's a non-superhero title (sci-fi/mystery?)
- it has a predominantly female cast
- including a woman of colour as the protagonist
But yeah, the execution tells a somewhat different story.
And who knows? Maybe they did, and got turned down. But I would have liked to have seen some more "out there" approaches. Jeff Lemire's books can't carry the load all by themselves!
I'd say that a good book for diversity across the board is Superman. The large cast features men and women, asians, hispanics and blacks. Justice League International also has a varied cast, more of them "protagonists".
Of course, there's a big difference between a "minority character" and a "minority protagonist". While 137 women to 247 men may seem not that bad, one should consider than only 47 of those women have protagonist status, and only 6 of them have their own book (2 of which have been legitimately criticized as being the writer's sex fantasies).
The real losers in the headcount are gays (especially gay men, currently stuck at 0), handicapped characters and female characters who don't have the typical superheroine body type (of the 16 counted, some where little girls, and most represent very thin women - say, Ellen Baker - and not overweight ones).
Where I think the list is most interesting or relevant is in its study of content diversity. The sheer number of elements repeated through so many books speaks to a lack of editorial forethought and gives the line a sort of regrettable house style.