Marvel Comics has revamped Devil Dinosaur, a classic 1978 comic, and replaced the main character ”Moon Boy” with a cooler-than-cool black teenage girl.
These days the main character in the comic, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, is Lunella Lafayette, a young woman with mysterious alien DNA and powers that are still yet to be determined in a modern-day New York City.
“The Marvel Universe is at its best when it reflects the world outside your window — and that world looks different in 2015 than it did in 1963,” Axel Alonso, Editor in Chief at Marvel, told the Huffington Post. (In 1963 being, Marvel debuted some of its legendary titles such as Amazing Spider-Man, Uncanny X-men, and the now mega-superhero media franchise of The Avengers.)
Indeed, as cultural definitions of what a superhero can or should look like are changing, new and more diverse characters are becoming a trend in Marvel’s litany of superheroes. There’s Miles Morales, the new black-Hispanic Spider-Man and Kamala Kahn, a Pakastani-American Muslim tween who’s taken on the mantle of Ms. Marvel — a title once held by the very white and very blonde Carol Danvers. Recently, Michael B. Jordan stepped into the role of the Human Torch, and now there’s even a female Thor.
“The cultural impact can be seen at comic book stores, conventions and movie theater lines around the world,” Alonso said. “The Marvel Universe fan base has never been more diverse than it is now. And it’s going to get more and more diverse in coming years.”
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