The Crew #6: Big Trouble in Little Mogadishu, Chapter Six: Triage

[superboyprime]

'So I find myself having to say, more that what THE CREW is, what THE CREW is not. THE CREW is not The Black Avengers. The Crew is not A Ghetto Book. THE CREW is not even remotely about race. Race is never even mentioned in THE CREW. It is a complete non-issue. [...] Rhodey's strongest pluses— a popular character with a long history in the Marvel Universe— are also his greatest minuses. Just explaining all of that back story and all of the many changes WAR MACHINE has been through gave us all pause. And, I thought, the minute we add more black guys than white guys, we get labeled as a "black" book, and we end up launching from a negative, having to make the case for what we are not. In the end we decided Rhodey was too strong and too logical a choice to exclude simply because he's black. He works brilliantly for this premise, becoming a kind of Professor X to the younger Crew. But, I also thought, well, here we go with the race crap. The ethnicity of the characters would become the main focus of discussion, something that would not have happened had we had Pietro and Alex.' - Christopher Priest

Comments

[randyripoff]

Once again, I'm reminded that the best thing to come out of this was Josiah X. That being said, I don't think anything could have saved this--even if Marvel had marketed it to the moon.

[caivu]

If you're so worried about sending average-Joe security guys to the dentist, maybe don't kick them in the face, genius.

[laughing_tree]

Self-defense.

[caivu]

Doesn't negate the point. Choke them out or something else relatively harmless (as far as fiction goes, anyway).

[laughing_tree]

That takes time, which you don't necessarily have when you're on a clock and folks are shooting at you. I'm not going to blame a person fighting for their life for not using the least harmful means of pacification in the desperation of the moment.

[caivu]

If that's the case, that makes a little more sense.

[beyondthefringe]

Priest, man, I love you, but can you honestly say that Alex Power and Quicksilver were literally the only white guys you could have used in this series, and that without them, you were forced to use these other characters? Did Marvel say "Nope, no Alex or Pietro for you. You can have Rhodey and otherwise, you're limited to characters you created in Black Panther or who are all new."

No, Priest made the decision to go with these characters, clearly knowing how it would be perceived. I'm sorry it didn't work out though.

There are times when it feels like Priest deliberately goes against expectations and conventions, knowing full well the reactions, and then uses the opportunity to complain about the expectations and conventions afterwards. I've followed his career for a long time,read his essays and experiences, and seen the patterns. I respect him immensely but it often seems like he sets himself up for failure to point out the flaws in the system. The Crew is definitely one of those examples.