Marvel VP blames diversity & women for slump in sales
Marvel’s VP of Sales, David Gabriel, says that falling comic book sales are the result of diversity.
“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told ICv2 at the Marvel Retailer summit. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.”
“I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against,” he added. “That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.”
— Charlamagne Tha God stars in his own Marvel comic —
However, when his comments were picked up nationwide, to significant backlash, Gabriel clarified that the diverse titles of Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl would all be staying.
So we’re not sure why he thinks diversity is the problem, as opposed to other issues that have captured national attention, such as the tone-deaf decision to portray Captain America as a member of Hydra, a Nazi allegory organization, or to portray Magneto, arguably the most famous Jewish fictional character in comic books, as also a member of that organization.
