Last month, Marvel Comics came under fire for a variant cover for the debut issue of Riri Williams in Invicible Iron Man by J. Scott Campbell, one decried for heavily sexualising the 15-year-old hero. The company rapidly pulled the cover from solicits with no replacement — but Campbell drew a new cover that will now take its place.
Initially, Campbell’s reaction to the furore about his variant cover for Midtown Comics was one of dismissal — but last week, the artist shared a new sketch of Riri on social media he titled “Riri Redux”, depicting the young girl working on her Ironheart armour rather than posing like she’s the subject of pin-up art.
Riri Redux pic.twitter.com/nKHvZ1G8uB
— J. Scott Campbell (@JScottCampbell) November 2, 2016
Campbell clarified that the work wasn’t done at the behest of Marvel or Midtown, or really as a response to the controversy over his previous cover, but simply because he wanted to do it. But now the artwork will be the official Midtown Comics variant for Invincible Iron Man #2, after the store and Marvel reached out to Campbell to purchase the cover:
It’s a gorgeous cover that’s much more befitting of the character — and it’s great to see this story surrounding this cover have a happy ending. Campbell’s Invincible Iron Man #2 cover will be available from Midtown Comics next month, but you can pre-order both coloured and black-and-white versions from their site right now.
[CBR]
Comments
12 responses to “Artist Draws New Variant Invincible Iron Man Art To Replace Controversial Pulled Cover”
The original was really no surprise if you’re familiar with J. Scott Campbell…
It isn’t actually as bad as I thought it would be.
But, there is little question that a pin up pose was the base of the picture and the redux is certainly the superior.
The first seems easy, pin up pose, bit of background, done.
Redux seems to have more thought
Another replacement character using the name of a much loved already established hero in order to sell books. Regardless of covers, I hope this tanks. Marvel needs to learn that this replacement shit should not fly with anyone
lol, loosen up
Yep, what’s with these blacks and women getting inclusive representation in comics? Let’s go back to the same old white dude that have been in power (armor) for 50+ years. Let’s make comics great again!
/s
Because said white dude has been the same character that a person has grown up reading and actually has an attachment to and suddenly changing said white dude for another character is utterly jarring and smacks of cynical marketing to sell copies?
It’s always great when a polar reaction gets a reply w/ another great antagonistic polar reaction w/o even considering why the original comment was made.
Look.. maybe there’s a good chance the new “Iron Man” will be great and grow into the role taking over the mantle like Mike Morales for Spidey and Komala for Ms Marvel (heck I’ll even throw in War Machine here who started out as a stand in for Stark when he was unable to be Iron Man and became his own character!) but at the same time you need to realise Iron Man is as iconic as Cap America, Spiderman, The Hulk and so forth people *know* and *grew up* with this character and Marvels current “Swapping out old w/ new” routine will be rubbing people the wrong way. It’s not about being against gender or equal representation, misogyny or whatever reaction. It’s just adjustments to change and the cynical way Marvel is going about trying to refresh said characters by playing the whole diversity card.
And maybe… just maybe they could try creating an original character/series for once? I mean I’ll just point the finger over the excellent Midnighter series just to show its possible to create a new character/series *and* tackle some gender/inclusion problems.
But it’s not as if reusing character names is even a new thing in comics.
On the DC side, they’ve got a long history of reusing character names: how many Flashes, Robins, and Batmans have they gone through?
On the Marvel side, they’ve had Rhodey stand in for Iron Man in the past. John Walker was Captain America for a time. Eric Masterson was Thor. Dan Ketch became the new Ghost Rider. They’ve had Spider-Man replaced by a clone, or his consciousness replaced by someone else’s. The Venom symbiote has has taken on new hosts, etc.
The main things Marvel appears to be doing differently now is (a) they’ve been replacing a lot of characters in a short period of time, and (b) some of those replacements have flipped the gender, and/or been minorities. In most cases, the original character is still kicking around and will likely take on the mantle again in the future. So why is it such a big deal this time around?
It’s a great way to freshen up stale heroes. Nothing stays the same and the “this character has been going for years, they’re going to get old and hand on the mantle” line is a good one to develop the character. And the stand-in, if they’re popular, will get re-used when there’s the inevitable re-boot to the original bringing it up-to-date.
I really enjoyed the run of Thor being unworthy to wield Mjolnir and it being taken over by “mysterious woman”. Great arc. Thor was still kicking around having his own angsty issues trying to get his mjojo back. It didn’t detract from Thor’s old stories.
Liking the Riri Williams thread too. Will probably pick up the trade.
I do understand your point and the conflict of seeing a beloved character replaced. That’s real and true and I don’t dismiss it. What I take issue with is the inevitable mention of “cynism” or “greed” that are thrown whenever these complaints surface.
As another poster mentioned in this thread, comics have a rich history of replacing old characters (mostly temporarily) with new ones. The difference is that it used to be that the replacement was another white dude (with a few important exceptions). When that happened the complaints of losing your old friend from your childhood appeared, but the word “cynism” didn’t show up so much.
The use of the word cynism in this context usually means that the commenter is suspect of the intentions of the publisher, which in turn, tells us a bit about the commenter. You, for example, betray yourself by using the term “diversity card”. It tells me that while you think yourself neither racist or misogynist, you kind of draw a line when it comes to the amount of representation you think that certain groups of people should enjoy. Any representation beyond that line is seen as unnecessary, thus is explained away as cynical, profit-oriented pandering. it doesn’t cross your mind that the publisher may now be staffed with progressive folk who truly believe in inclusion and integration. People who don’t go “hey, let’s gender-bend another male hero to grab more feminists’ money!” but “Damn, women are like, you know, slightly over half of the humanity as a whole, and yet in our stories, they have been always given a much smaller percentage of main roles. Let’s correct that!”
As for the necessity of replacing old characters with new, be it with the more recent trend of women and minorities or the old one, it’s simply a necessity for a decade-continuous medium to attract new readers as, inevitably, a significant percentage of the old ones is lost when they come of age. But in the end, the old characters always return in one way or another. We already know that Tony will be around in the new Iron Man series, even if only as an AI ghost. I can bet you money that within a year or two he’ll be back in the flesh (and/or powered armor).
This one seems soulful. This one seems to actually say something about the character and what she does. This seems like what happens when someone says “Hang on a second, can I make something better if I don’t use pin-up poses as a crutch?”
I looked at the other cover and, sexualised or not, she actually looked like a 15 y/o. This one looks like she’s about 10.
I’m not sure what 15 year olds you’re thinking about, but this one looks 15 and the other cover looked 20.