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There are some bits of comic book history that we come back to a lot on What Were They Thinking. After all, this is the place where we look at the stupidest and most ill-advised things in comic book history and these are the places that are the stupidest and have the most ill-advised things happen. And this week, we are mining that well once again. We’re going back to the New 52, unanimously agreed to be “a thing that DC did that they probably shouldn’t have” and that is the most positive review you are going to find for the whole 5 year debacle. We’ve covered the problems with the New 52 on numerous occassions before, talking about issues both specific (representation of women, specifically Starfire) and broad (the behind the scenes confusion over storylines, sales failures and poor treatment of creative staff by DC during the New 52 period). However, none of these problems were so hated, so reviled, that DC were forced to reboot their continuity again just to fix the problem. And I’m sure everyone knows what I’m talking about. It is of course, this guy:

No, sorry, this guy:

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When comics started out, and pretty much throughout the entire golden and silver ages of comics, each individual issue of a comic would contain self-contained stories. These storylines would always begin and conclude within the same issue, mostly because of the audience’s reading habits of the time. Comics were seen as disposable, and would often be either thrown out after reading or traded between friends. You didn’t need to keep hold of previous issues to understand what was happening in the latest. However, that changed in the mid 60’s, with the publication of what would become known as the Galactus Triology. Whilst it wasn’t the first comic to end an issue on a cliffhanger, by introducing the main villain on the last page of the first issue of the story, Marvel changed the way comics would be structured. Storytelling would expand, taking multiple issues to resolve desputes and leading to the rise of mini-series, graphic novels and, of course, crossovers. Now, there is a debate to be had over the merits of short-form vs. long-form storytelling in comics. a very good one as both have their merits and disadvantages, but today we are not here to do that. No, we are here because this is What Were They Thinking?, the place where we look at all of the stupidest and most ill-advised things in the history of comic books and our subject today is probably the best example of taking long-form storytelling in comics too far. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Clone Saga

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Bit of a short WWTT today, I’m a bit tight on time. But anyway, racial tension is a big thing at the moment and has been basically since Europeans started to colonise Africa. Many comics have dealt with the subject in many different ways, some good, some bad. But then you have this response from Kitty Pryde in the 80’s:

FYI, I had to censor out this page myself. Marvel actually decided it was alright to use the N word in a comic. Hard R and all. Hand-claps for Marvel guys. Now, they make a decent enough point by saying that even if you don’t intend to be racist you still can be, and that you shouldn’t hold yourself to a double standard, getting offended by racism when you are acting racist yourself, but look at what they’re actually saying here. You’ve got a made up insult against a made up section of society (in this case “mutie” for mutants) put on the same level as a word that has very rightfully been completely removed from polite conversation because of how racist it is. X-Men is a great platform to fight against prejudice (which is why I think it’s so strange that the movies are made by the same company that makes Fox News), but come on guys, really? You chose to equate actual racism with prejudice that only exists in your fictional world. And you used a Jewish character to do it as well, that’s the amazing thing. You could have made the point actually mean something, because both racism and anti-Semitism were and still are disturbingly prevelant. Those are two things that are equatable. But racism against anti-mutantism? And, let’s not forget, you actually published a full on racial slur in a comic. It doesn’t really even matter what the context is for the story, that’s the sort of stupid thing that shouldn’t even get past the planning stage without a firing taking place.

Idiots.