Ethnicity Change for DC's Uncle Sam in New 52

[jade_nova]

You see cheesy, I see classic. And of course it was imaginative: the creators looked at a then current promotional image familiar to millions and used it as the basis for a character who would be able to tap into the mood of the times-that's inspired!

And the mood now is to be disdainful of love for your country.

[DrSimonHurt]

Who cares if somebody is racist anyway? There's this thing called Kleenex that you can use to wipe your tears when somebody calls you something racist or uses racist terms. Or you can choose to ignore racism all together. Either way, turning Uncle Sam, a character that is generally associated with a white male with while facial hair into a black man doesn't surprise me. Next DC will reintroduce Donna Troy as a transgendered muslim french national named Wonder-Shman. Why doesn't DC just introduce and use the plethora of great minority characters from Milestone like Icon, Rocket, Hardware and Static more? Or maybe make new characters that are minorities.

So it's perfectly fine to demonize, judge, and ridicule an entire group of people because its their fault they are offended? I got a better one, why don't we just call people's bullshit as bullshit and stop tolerating the assholes in society who want to harm or torment people for racial differences?

That's a better idea. That's something Superman might do. I don't think Rosa Parks needed a tissue.

So welcome to the list of people who are wrong.

[Comet Man]

So it's perfectly fine to demonize, judge, and ridicule an entire group of people because its their fault they are offended?

Sure, as long as it's white people.

[jade_nova]

[QUOTE=Comet Man;16298887]

So it's perfectly fine to demonize, judge, and ridicule an entire group of people because its their fault they are offended?

Sure, as long as it's white people.

Agreed.

Damn 10 character limit.

[Christopher Cross Is God]

Hopefully there will come a day when changes in the ethnicity of a character won't even merit a thread.

I'm sorta reminded of conversations regarding my grandfather and the way he (innocently intended) is a product of his generation.

He can be telling you a story about something funny that happened to him at the grocery store, and he'll tell you that "the black girl who was checking me out said..." to which we have to point out that the fact that she was black is not significant to the story so there's no need to mention it.

On the other hand, if he was in a situation where he needed to describe someone so that they can be identified on sight, pointing out that the person was black would be perfectly fine.

Why would you have to point out that the fact she was Black isn't significant to the story? Would you take exception and point out it's not significant to the story that the girl was a redhead, blond, or brunette? He's simply giving you an idea of what the girl looked like. It may not be the central point of the story, but it adds to it, giving you a little bit of imagery.

Hopefully, if he tells a story where he briefly mentions a car, you won't take exception when he mentions the car's color, since it's not significant to the story. Oh, the horror. Oh, the shame.

New characters don't sell. We've seen this time and time again. It's not as easy for DC to 'just create' new characters.

But I'm sure this version of Uncle Sam is guaranteed to sell 100,000 copies per issue.

If they had created a brand new character, rather than changing up Uncle Sam, I doubt it would have made a difference in sales, either way.

And if they are new and minority, good luck selling that. Even if it's a critically received, it'll still flop on the sales.

Sorry, this is the only way for minority to get sold... Sadly.

Can you name a minority character whose title had a top selling creative team? Closest I can think of is Gail Simone/John Byrne on All-New Atom, and that's not a guaranteed top selling team these days. Simone has had good numbers on some titles, and average numbers on others. Byrne is from the old-school and I question how well he sells on name-recognition alone.

I loved Straczynski/Frank on Supreme Power, and for the first 12 issues or so two of the three main characters were African-American. I don't know how well that comic did in terms of sales. I would imagine, since it wasn't in-continuity with the general Marvel Universe, it wasn't as popular as it should have been.

[HardKore]

So let me get this straight, they have a black character and people call him Uncle and this didn't raise any flags at DC.

[stk]

So let me get this straight, they have a black character and people call him Uncle and this didn't raise any flags at DC.

Newsflash: this just in: People of all ethnicities have uncles.

[Johnny P. Sartre]

So let me get this straight, they have a black character and people call him Uncle and this didn't raise any flags at DC.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/context

[mattymoron]

Man. I really could care less what color the man is, but this looks like it's going to be PAINFULLY boring. What happened to the Eldritch Spirit Guardian of the USA? Now he's just some dick in a suit?

[fmarvel]

Also, DC has tried introducing new minority characters or re-introducing minority characters but they don't sell. A. because they are minority and B. the creative team behind are lacking in creativity and can't write a person of color.

That's because we get characters from DC where their race is the issue constantly. I tried reading Mr. Terrific, and it seemed as if every single damn sentence Mr. Terrific said had something about him being black. NO SHIT he's black! I'm not color blind and I don't need to be beaten of the head with that fact. Icon was in a flashback in Static #8, so he technically is a part of the DCnU. Also with most minority characters, DC and Marvel really go gung ho on the stereotypes. I think McDuffie was a fantastic writer and had a good way of making a minority characters feel natural and not forced like the above mentioned Mr. Terrific.

[Kurosawa]

You know what would be shocking? If they actually made one of their characters adhere to tradition.

This is lame but not surprising. They are followers, so they are doing what they do.

[Coal Tiger]

You know what would be shocking? If they actually made one of their characters adhere to tradition.

This is lame but not surprising. They are followers, so they are doing what they do.

And adhering to tradition is something only free thinkers do?

[Kurosawa]

And the mood now is to be disdainful of love for your country.

Which is why the main JLA is the JL of no A.

[Kurosawa]

And adhering to tradition is something only free thinkers do?

No, I think changing everything in desperate attempt to catch Marvel is great, and it's worked so well for the last 25 years.

[jtd]

Wait...why is the title of this thread "ETHNICITY change for DC's Uncle Sam in new 52"? The comics have not revealed anything about the new Uncle Sam's ethnicity. If anything, we can assume he's at least ethnically American (embodiment of US Spirit). But who knows much more about his ethnicity.

What the Original Poster most probably meant to post was "RACE change for DC's Uncle Sam in new 52". There is a significant difference between the words ethnicity and race. They are not one and the same.