Le sigh...

So Jim recently posted our "Is DC Racist?" round table discussion about the death of the Ryan Choi version of the Atom. My basic point was that DC was hardly a bunch of cackling Klan leaders, they were just too stupid to understand how their decisions were being perceived by comics fandom.

Well it sure is nice for them to make this point for me. At Heroes Con, DC Editor Ian Sattler was asked about the racism/Ryan Choi controversy and responded with the following quote:

“It’s so hard for me to be on the other side because it’s not our intention. There is a reason behind it all. We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won’t get into that. It’s not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.”

Now, this is a bit stupid anyway you look at it (Yes! We reflect diversity! Think of all the proud Martian Americans who are loving what we're doing in Brightest Day!) but as David Brothers at 4th Letter and half the comics blogoscope have pointed out, its particularly stupid in the context of this ...



Oh well, at least its not one of the most famous panels in the history of DC or anything.

Once again, I don't think there's any malicious intent here on DC's part, but you'd think they would take a moment or two to think through how these things look. There's no pattern! Just coincidence! I'm sure this thought won't occur to any of us when we're reading about what a respectful story Blue Beetle: Rebirth is.