Anonymous:
Hey Tom, I think bringing Red Wolf into prominence is a great idea, and will fit Marvel's sense of diversity in the future. I do have a question about this though: was there ever a concern that the character might be viewed as a stereotype, or met with a similar controversy to say, the Washington Redskins? Well, thanks for your time and keep up the good work!
No concern, in that we thought that when people read the story, as opposed to judging wildly from a piece of promotional art, they would understand the character.
C’mon Tom, don’t double down on a bad call. Red Wolf is insensitively portrayed in the context of 1872, and asking people to make wild suppositions based on promotional images is literally part of your marketing model. (Or were those silhouette covers for someone else’s Avengers and Inhumans books?)
If Marvel is bringing Red Wolf to prominence, and reinventing him as something other than a cliche, great. But sometimes Marvel makes mistakes. No prizes for standing behind them.
To some people it’s “judging wildly” to others it’s expecting the courtesy of not being actively offended by the images being put out by a company that I’ve spent more of my dollars on than I ever want to count. I certainly hope the story is good but you can’t blame people for putting their shields up when their very identity is under attack.
