Ryan Choi fans, including writer/co-creator Gail Simone, have been taking his death hard. The Irredeemable Shag pointed out to me that many of them have sought solace through humor via a campaign to insert Choi into current comic book pages to prove that, in fact Ryan Choi Lives!. It even inspired me to do up one of my own featuring Zatanna, as seen above.
Honestly though? I was indifferent to the prospect of Ryan Choi's death, so I won't front. I didn't feel bad until I read the Titans: Villains For Hire Special #1, which impressed me as starring a pretty heroic dude with a rich back story. However, critical essays like The Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling and DC Comics vs Asian Americans make a point of crapping on Ray Palmer to "prove" Ryan was the character most deserving of life. Chris Sims even went out of his way to find the smarmiest Ray picture he could find. I have to fight my old "fire troll" urge to become radicalized by all the hateration. I tend to prefer the guys who bring a more moderate view, like Bill at Trusty Plinko Stick. That discussion convinced me that Choi could have stopped being a younger, "hipper," more "cultured" model Ray Palmer and developed his own super-heroic identity. I'm reading more Choi stories now, and while I don't quite like the guy, I'm sorry to see the kid get axed before reaching his potential.
4 comments:
Heyyyy...your contribution definitely falls under the category of "inserting Ryan into places where he doesn't belong" as one commenter on CBR pointed out. (And, yet, I still want to laugh.)
I remember that Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling article. Nobody wins, I think, when the premise is assumed that all stories which bring back an element of an earlier time necessarily mean they promote all the bad values of that time period. That seems to be implying that if I prefer old movies over current ones that I prefer the segregation of the pre-Civil Rights Era over equality, which is not true.
That being said, the guy does have a point. But like you said, crapping on established characters is not the way to create diversity. And heck, it's not even racial diversity...as fas as gender is concerned, every female superheroine's personality is starting to seem the same to me. Some thoughtful writing could fix all of those problems.
I didn't even know it was called a "Bangstick" until afterwords...
Ha! That deserves a rimshot.
His altitude was a bit high to begin with, so a rimshot would really require some maneuvering!
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