james_davis_nicoll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2011-12-22 04:14 pm
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2011-12-22 04:14 pm
Very, very tangentally related to something Doc Lemming was talking about
What's the correct response for a superhero who discovers their crime-fighting name, selected in all innocence and without malice, happens to be an ethnic slur?
Come to think of it, this situation has come up before [1]; the late Mark Gruenwald decided to give the new Captain America's sidekick the same superhero name the original Cap's orginal side-kick used, Gruenwald being unaware that there could be anything problematic about calling an African American man "Bucky". I know they changed the name but I don't recall how it was handled in-story.
1: Note that Marvel also once named a superhero after a combination of cocaine hydrochloride mixed with morphine sulfate; presumably Speedball himself was unaware of the other meanings of his name. In his defense, he was just a teenager.
Come to think of it, this situation has come up before [1]; the late Mark Gruenwald decided to give the new Captain America's sidekick the same superhero name the original Cap's orginal side-kick used, Gruenwald being unaware that there could be anything problematic about calling an African American man "Bucky". I know they changed the name but I don't recall how it was handled in-story.
1: Note that Marvel also once named a superhero after a combination of cocaine hydrochloride mixed with morphine sulfate; presumably Speedball himself was unaware of the other meanings of his name. In his defense, he was just a teenager.
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