#vshen

An executive for Marvel has claimed that its readers “don’t want diversity” in the range of characters included in the stories.

Over recent years, the publisher has made an effort to expand the type of role included in its comic books, including a female Thor, Pakistani-American superhero Kamala Khan and more featuring on covers.

According to the company, sales have declined since taking these actions and David Gabriel, vice president of sales at Marvel, is now saying the two are linked. “What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” AV Club reports he said.

“They didn’t want female characters out there,” he continued. “That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.

“That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.”

Find out how Jessica Jones went from ALIAS & THE PULSE to her own self-titled comic & Netflix series

This March, we celebrate Women’s History Month by spotlighting  some of the most iconic characters and creators from the Marvel  Universe.

Did you know that one of Marvel’s most prominent characters almost  didn’t get created? See, back when Brian Michael Bendis and Michael  Gaydos were trying to figure out the 2001 series called ALIAS,  the writer intended on using an existing character in Jessica Drew.  However, when that proved unworkable, they created a new one by the name  of Jessica Jones!

In that first ALIAS  issue, readers met a woman named Jessica Jones who clearly had been  through a lot in her life. The hard-boiled private detective they met  cursed like a sailor, drank till she passed out in bars and tried to do  the right thing even when the odds seemed fully stacked against her.

In the first arc, Jessica took on a job to find a woman’s sister who   wound up dead not long after the PI found her. In the process of   tracking the woman down, Jessica also accidentally recorded Captain   America’s secret identity and became a prime suspect in the murder case.

The Marvel MAX series tackled some intense ideas and themes,  especially when it came to The Purple Man and his role in making Jessica  give up her superhero identity. It also established the relationship  between Jessica and Luke Cage. The two have since become one of the more  stable couples in comics with Jessica giving birth to their daughter  Dani.

ALIAS ran for 28 issues and came to a conclusion in 2004. At that   point, Bendis and a variety of artists moved Jones over to the world of reporting – and pregnancy – in THE PULSE which ran for 14 issues.

After marrying Cage in the pages of NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL #1, Jessica and her husband decided to actively work against Iron Man’s Pro Registration  side, teaming up with Captain America and aiding him as seen in the  pages of NEW AVENGERS.  

For a time, Jessica even returned to her superhero roots, going by  the name of Power Woman, but ultimately realized that living in Avengers  Mansion offered far too many dangers for her beloved daughter and they  left, though they she would soon return when Luke formed the Mighty  Avengers.

These days, in addition to headlining a Netflix show, Jones also  stars in a self-titled series by her creators Bendis and Gaydos.

The Women Of Marvel