Some weeks will prove busier than others, and on those occasions I’m choosing to present all of you with something worth thinking about.
As you may know just last week I covered both sides of the debate over Daniel Rand, AKA Iron Fist, being played by a person of Asian descent. Of particular concern to the writer in the “for” camp was that the narrative within the comics pushes the idea of a White man entering a foreign land, mastering their arts, and ultimately rising up to be one of the greatest among them. It’s a trope that belongs to Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange just as much as it does to The Living Weapon himself.
Kurt Busiek is a writer who has been in the industry for decades, with a four year stint on Avengers being his greatest claim to fame. With an extensive biography that spans the Marvel universe he’s widely regarded in comic book circles as a professional who knows what he’s talking about. Roughly a week ago he began sharing over Twitter about how Doctor Strange was very likely intended to be Asian from the very beginning, or at least depicted in such a fashion. I’ve compiled all relevant tweets below, for your consideration [all tweets not by Busiek were retweeted by him]:
https://twitter.com/karloff_fan/status/703650412381868032
https://twitter.com/devincf/status/703650991409750016
The most significant effect of having Doctor Strange remain Asian would of course be a dismantling of the aforementioned “Mighty Whitey” trope. Also worth noting is that had he been consistently depicted as Asian he would have been one of the first ever Asian superheroes, particularly impressive in that he debuted in in Strange Tales #110, published July 1963.
As mentioned this post is largely my giving you the opportunity to think over ideas that someone else besides myself has put forward. Please feel free to share any comments you might have about all this below-
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