[Direckshun]

Since we're talking about it, there's lots of interesting stuff to read about on the subject, and why Marvel is getting increasingly sensitive to it:

Why do superheroes' race and gender matter?

Comics, like journalism, politics, entertainment, tech, and a whole bunch of other industries, has a serious diversity problem. "There’s this pervasive notion that white male is the, like, the basic model human and anything NOT white male is a variant edition," Kelly Sue DeConnick, the writer behind Captain Marvel, told me. She says comics creators and people working in the creative field have had to to fight for their characters who don't fit into that "basic model human" mold:

The further people get from Basic Model Human, the easier it is to tread on their rights. The more "other," the more alien. Your tribe versus my tribe. And for the people in margins — Junot Diaz has articulated it far better than I ever will. "If you want to make a human being into a monster," he says, "deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves."

DeConnick has been one of Marvel's most vocal writers when it comes to gender and race in its comic books. She played a big part in the revamping of Carol Danvers, who was originally known as Ms. Marvel and notable mostly for her skimpy outfit (a high-cut bodysuit with a ribbon for a belt). Since DeConnick has taken over, Danvers is now Captain Marvel and traded in her outfit for a more modest space pilot uniform.

"When we deny women and girls representation, we put them in ever smaller boxes," she wrote. "And when we limit their potential, we limit the potential of our culture as a whole. When we limit the contributions of half our society, we cut our potential in two."

She added, "If superheroes are meant to reflect the best of us, they should reflect the best of all of us, especially as that message can become confusing, and we can internalize the idea that heterosexual white males are the best of us."