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5 Black Women Who Could Shake Up the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Marvel continues to dominate the movie theaters with its dynamic characters and elaborate cinematic universe. However, there are issues. Recently, Avengers director Joss Whedon left Twitter over a fan backlash over Black Widow. The reasons he left are still unclear. The situation brings up the problem of character diversity. There is very little diversity in terms of race and gender up to this point. Here are five cool female characters who can shake up the mostly male and mostly white films.

misty-marvel-s-newest-agent-of-shield-misty-knight-incomingMisty Knight

Misty Knight is a former cop who is a hero with a robotic arm. What makes her interesting is that her arm was created by Iron Man aka Tony Stark. She is a hero-for-hire who works on the streets of the Marvel Universe. It is possible she might be on one of Marvel’s Netflix series.

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The Ease of Creating Strong Black Female Characters for Comics

Creating well-rounded female characters in comics isn’t hard. Just look around you for inspiration, and if you can’t find real-life representations, you need to expand your own circle.

Diversity in comics is usually one of the main topics of the conversations I have when discussing creating the “Legend of the Mantamaji” with the press. And interestingly, the discussion of race tends to be shorter than the discussion of the portrayal of female characters in the series.

The reality is, creating strong, well-rounded, fully fleshed females isn’t any more difficult than creating any other type of character – and inspiration isn’t hard to find.

In my life and in my career, all the people who have been behind my advancement have been strong women.

When I first came to Los Angeles and started working on comedies, the creators and people in charge were women:

  • The executive producer who got me in the Directors Guild of America as an assistant director.
  • The line producer who was behind me getting my opportunity to direct.

 

They were all the same in that they were smart, strong and extremely talented. They were also mothers. I am lucky that, in my life, I have always been surrounded by women who were strong and who were hustlers. I have always seen women who were doing everything you traditionally saw men do and doing it well.

My mom is a lifelong educator who still consults at John Carroll University in Cleveland in multi-cultural affairs. My wife owns her own thriving business. So when I created Sydney, Cornerstone and the other female characters in “Legend of the Mantamaji,” I was drawing on people I have seen, known, worked with or worked for.

Sanctuants from the “Legend of the Mantamaji” series are explicitly mentioned as equal to the male Mantamaji warriors. It’s an unusual call out among the comic industry, but I didn’t want any of the female leads to be any less than the main hero, just different. It makes the story’s history so much richer.

If I had to boil down three things I wanted to accomplish with the female characters in “Legend of the Mantamaji,” I have to say I wanted to create a new batch of heroes who are full, real characters; I wanted to make sure people were interested in their journey, and I wanted to give women readers what they have been asking for and deserve from comic book creators – real representation.

Read more from Eric Dean Seaton at legendofthemantamaji.com