The Nerdz Lounge.

Namor came first. Debuted 1939. Officially label as the first "mutant" super hero waaaay before the X-Men arrived on the scene.

 

Thanks, Ra.

 

Yeah, Namor was in the Invaders, that WWII era comic with the original Captain American, the robot Human Torch and others. There was a lot of them taking on the Red Skull and the Nazis. Good book. I'm going to check my storage unit and see if I still have any copies. You guys have me going down memory lane, lol.

 

They should make The Invaders the third in the Captain America film franchise. I used to read The Invaders and Cap and Namor were an effective(and destructive) team. Bucky and Toro, a young Atlantean also were in the line up.

 

Yep. And the old comics from the 40's actually had Namor & the original Torch fight against each other well before Marvel later establishing both serving as Invaders in WWII.

 

It would have been great if they would have woven some of that story into Captain America I.

 

I doubt Marvel will do that especially with the film rights to both Namor & the Human Torch, at least the Fantastic Four version, being in the hands of other studios. They did do the little easter egg cameo of the inert android Torch in the first Captain America however. The World's Fair scene.

 

Thanks! I had forgotten about that.

 

An Opinion Piece Taken From Black Nerd Rants





Many fanboys lost their shit at the news of the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch in the new Fantastic Four movie. I understood some of the negative reaction, because Johnny has a sister who is white, and that wouldn't make sense unless one of them is adopted. That’s a valid point that I actually agree with. Its when I started reading people say things like it was “forced political correctness” and how it was only done to score diversity points. They also used the excuse that he was traditionally white, so casting a black guy was offensive to the source material. So I ask people to look at the pic above, and ask yourselves, why the outrage now?


SO when Hollywood casts whites in minority roles, its because they were the “best person for the job”, but when its the other way around, people cry “political correctness” or “reverse racism”. Look Hollywood has been whitewashing characters for decades, and continues to do it, so I was shocked at how pissed people got about this casting. I mean where was this outrage with the pic above? I doubt it was never on this level.

This reminds me of the way people reacted to The Hunger Games, when Rue wasn't played by a white girl, even though she was described that way in the book!

"And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor."

I guess a lot of people skipped that part, because look at some of the disappointment, when the little girl that they all loved cared for, ended up not being a white girl like they pictured in their minds.





Christian Bale & the Australian Joel Edgerton on the set of their next movie, Exodus.





Now ask yourself, why do they have so much makeup on to make their skin darker? Well that’s because these two lily white actors are playing Moses & Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses in the new Exodus movie. I didn't know that there were British people in ancient Egypt? Did they even audition any middle eastern actors? I just wonder why hasn't this news received the same attention that the Human Torch casting had. Those two characters are much more known and cherished than Johnny Storm.

Also there is an upcoming movie called Gods of Egypt, which is set in ancient times. Guess how many actors of African decent are cast in this movie? One. ONE!! The movie is set in ANCIENT FREAKING EGYPT, the cast is dominated by actors like the Scottish actors Gerard Butler, the Australian Geoffrey Rush, and the Danish Nikolaj Coster-Walder. You can google all of those actors names, and I guarantee you they don't look like this.





Its bad enough when people of color cant get roles in in regular American roles, but how the hell cant POC’s get roles in movies LITERALLY SET IN ANCIENT AFRICA!!! Its a damn shame when a movie can be set in Ancient Egypt, and still have an all white cast, with a token black guy. Why aren't people pissed about this?

William Fichtner was been cast as The Shredder in TMNT, who has always been known as the Japanese ninja Oroku Saki, but in this new incarnation, he has been whitewashed to be Eric Sachs. The whole franchise is based off Japanese culture, and there are no Japanese people in the movie.

When Rooney Mara was cast as the Native American, Princess Tiger Lily in the new Peter Pan, the director used the excuse that they were “color blind casting” and that she was the “best person for the job.” Its convenient that these excuses only come up when its white actors that are getting cast in minority roles?

Look I'm all for classic properties being as close as they can to the source material, but when there are changes like the color of a character’s skin, make sure you have the same outrage for the whitewashing, that you had for when someone is made into a minority.

Post edited: I removed The Mandarin from the original photo, since Marvel Studios has recently retconned that the “Real Mandarin” is really out there, and is pissed that Killian & Trevor used his name. Also I removed Johnny Depp as Tonto, since he happens to have some one drop of native blood. It still was a horrible portrayal.

 

It's just a sad situation that will forever be apart of this world.

 

I remember when the early Charlie Chan films starred a white actor named Warner Oland and later by Ross Martin(The Wild, Wild West) Mr. Moto was portrayed by Peter Lorre and Fu Manchu was portrayed by Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. Do any of you guys remember the film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins? I recalled it was based on the men's adventure series called The Destroyer. Well, for the part of Chiun, actor Joel Grey portrayed the Korean martial arts master who can and will kill Remo if he had been ordered to do so. The Asian community was up in arms because an older Asian actor could play that part. But, the producers said that they looked at many Asian actors and couldn't find any of the qualities that they were looking for. They could've gotten Keye Luke (Master Po on Kung Fu, Gremlins, Charlie Chan movies, The Green Hornet(1930's), The Luminous One on Battle Of The Planets(voice) and others), James Shigeta(Die Hard, Brother and others), Soon Taek Oh(The Final Countdown and others), John Fujioka(lots of television appearances including Wonder Woman and Magnum, P.I.), Clyde Kusatsu(Bring 'Em Back Alive and others), Mako(Rising Sun, The Big Brawl, Samurai Jack(voice) ) and other actors. But, Joel grey, with his dancer's grace pulled it off. There weren't any more Remo Williams films after that. It was the same with white actors and actresses who played Native Americans(Jeff Chandler, Raquel Welch) or Latinos(Marlon Brando for Viva Villa). Or John Wayne's film The Conqueror(it was said to be the film in which they were filming not too far from a nuclear test shot in Nevada where the film was shot). People back in those days just wanted to see their favorite actors doing something different.
Today, the viewing audience is more astute.

 

The viewing audience is more astute as well as the pool of actors to choose to cast movies is more ethnically diverse than at any time in movie making history, so there should be no excuse as to why directors can't find any "minority" actors to play "minority" characters, especially in films where the majority of the characters are non white.

 

True that

 

The head honchos at the major studios know this, as well. Like any business, the major studios want to make a product that will hopefully appeal to the audience and make money. The decision often rests with them. I had forgotten that Marlon Brando was in the film Viva, Zapata not Viva , Villa. Anyway, I think that those studio honchos have fantasies about whom they want in most films as much as the producers and directors do.

 

On the historical/medieval dramas, I think it is for two reasons: 1) latent racism/bias or greater comfort seeing big white stars on the screen and 2) a tendency to view biblical/historical epics through some short of Shakespearean prism, with lines having to be delivered in damned near iambic pentameter. They even do it to other European nations, just witness the "Royal" treatment epics like 300, Hercules, Clash of the Titans, et al, receive. You watch those flicks and you would think it was called Clash of the Swedes or something.

 

IMO it's 50% racial bias & 50% creative stupidity on the part of some directors in the form of wanting to work with certain actors & actresses whose work they may admire. Michael B. Jordan's casting as the Human Torch falls into this category (again just my opinion) as well as most of these other not yet released movies with off racial castings

 

Good point.

 

This is called Stock Company Syndrome.

 

What is? The tendency for directors to want to work with actors whose work they admire?

 

Yep. A lot of directors did this from John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Spike Lee and others. It is because they know how each of the other works and they know what they want to give the best performance and more box office bucks to please the studios and the fans. And the actors like this a whole lot. Look at Rodriguez' Spy Kids films, Spike Lee's films, Francis Ford Coppola's gangster films. Whom do you see? The same faces as before with different names and purposes. Someone once told Coppola that his films represented the Italian community. I don't think so. His films captured and presented a realism that everyone can relate to and we all witness a scene that becomes memorable. A director's stock company can be a benefit to the director.