Marvel At The Newly Proposed Stamps

Remember a while back when we learned DC was going to have stamps come out with their heroes on them (I still never acquired a sheet of these, got to try and remember to do that at some point)? Well, turns out Marvel has decided they want in on some of that publicity action. So next year there will be a sheet of Marvel characters. What I found interesting was the list of characters that made the cut, and more importantly, the ones that didn't.

• Spider-Man
• The Incredible Hulk
• Captain America
• The Thing
• Iron Man
• Wolverine
• Silver Surfer
• Sub-Mariner
• Spider-Woman
• Elektra

Ok, Spider-Man is a no brainer. Arguably the most recognized hero on the planet, he makes sense. Almost the same deal for the Hulk (cue sappy sad music as you're walking away from the camera trying to hitch a ride). He's had a TV Show, a movie and a couple of animated cartoons as well as a video game or two. Captain America is an American icon, how could you not include him? The guy was fighting the Nazis in the 40s, he's the personification of all that makes the American Dream something great.

Now after that some of choices seem a little odd. The Thing? Sure, he's probably the most famous member of the Fantastic Four, but I would argue the Fantastic Four as a team is more popular. It would be like having a tribute to Davy Jones versus The Monkees (and here's where half the people reading this suddenly say "Who?" to both of those). Then we have Iron Man. Not exactly a house hold name, but he does have a movie in the works, so maybe they're trying to drum up support for that by making him appear to be a player. As for heroic, he's the billionare CEO of a corporation that makes military weapons. Next up there's Wolverine. Easily one of the most popular characters Marvel has, so you can see why he's there, but at the same time, not the best role model. This guy has probably killed more people than some of the so called supervillians he tries to stop.

From here the list gets even weirder and more obscure. There's the Silver Surfer. Sure, he appeared in an animated episode of the Fantastic Four back in the 60s, and he had an incredibly short lived animated show in the late nineties. However, he's not exactly a mainstream name. And let's see his backstory. Before he showed up on Earth he was the lackey of Galactus. You know Galactus, he's the guy nicknamed the "Devourer of Worlds" and "Eater of Planets". Norrin Radd used to guide Galactus to planets so Galactus could eat them. He's single handedly responsible for the destruction of literally billions upon billions of lives. But he's better now, really! Again, this could be movie related since the Surfer will be appearing in the next Fantastic Four movie.

Who do we have next? Sub-Mariner, a.k.a. the speedo king. This is a tough one, because like Captain America, he did help fight the Nazis. In fact, he even teamed up with Captain America (and the Human Torch, no not that Human Torch, the other one). But unlike Captain America, he wasn't doing it because it was the right thing to do, but the Nazis had pissed him off. Since then there have been numerous times where he has tried to invade and conquer the surface-dwellers (that's right, he looks down on us surface-dwellers, the guy's a total racist). Of course when he does invade, he is leading an army of water breathing people onto land to fight a ground war (not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed).

On to the tokens. Our first token character is Spider-Woman. Which Spider-Woman you say? Why the first (and once again current) one, of course. Other than she has breasts, I'm not exactly sure why Spider-Woman is in the list. Ok, granted, she had an animated TV series waaaay back in the day (which was only popular because practically half the episodes guest starred Spider-Man), but if anyone other than me remembers that, I would be amazed. Oh yea, let's not forget she was originally created by and was once a proud card carrying member of HYDRA (a Nazi type organization that gives you an organization you can still hate today and someone for the bad guys to fight). So to recap. Hero: Former terrorist turned hero. Obscure: Very much yes. Breasts: She's in. Seriously, I get the feeling they were hurting for female characters at this point.

And last, and I would say least, we have Elektra. Again, probably only here because 1) she's female and 2) starred in a movie. Other than that, not really the heroic type (she's a trained assassin for pete sake). She's another one of those characters that straddles the good guy / bad guy line. First she was bad, then good, then bad, etc. etc. Currently she's the head of "The Hand" (think HYDRA, but NINJAS!). Again, possibly not the most positive role model you could choose.

Notice anything about all these characters? They're all white (okay, okay, Surfer is shiny, but before he was the Surfer, he was a white alien guy). Where's the diversity? Where's the Power Man loving (wow, that sounds incredibly wrong when you read it)? Ok, they threw in a whopping two female characters. But seriously, for the female characters why couldn't they have gone with Storm and Invisible Woman? Both of those I believe have more mainstream recognition than Spider-Woman and Elektra. Plus if you have Storm, then you get the bonus of her being a minority also. Even She-Hulk would have been preferable to the choices they made. Heck I would have preferred Marvel Girl / Phoenix (although Phoenix did destroy a couple of suns instantly wiping out planets full of life, but hey, Silver Surfer made the list, so why not her). I could on, but I'll spare you. Actually, I can't go one for too much longer, Marvel doesn't really have a lot of mainstream female characters.

Hmmm, I appear to have gone on for quite a bit longer than I intended. And this isn't going to do anything towards getting rid of my image as being the comic book guy either.