{"id":2097652,"date":"2025-10-17T13:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2097652"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:15:06","slug":"superheroes-look-different-now-i-saw-it-firsthand-at-new-york-comic-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/superheroes-look-different-now-i-saw-it-firsthand-at-new-york-comic-con\/","title":{"rendered":"Superheroes look different now. I saw it firsthand at New York Comic Con."},"content":{"rendered":"

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MANHATTAN \u2014 From my perch on the second level of the futuristic glass castle convention center where New York Comic Con is underway, all I see is Superman.<\/p>\n

There’s one, hoisting up an enormous styrofoam planet. Another is making chit-chat with the Riddler, and a third is adjusting his red cape as a bride would the train of her gown. They\u2019re milling about, waiting to take photos with other cosplayers dressed up like characters from other fictional universes. All are smiling \u2014 good-natured and kind in their interactions, like any fan knows the ultra-powerful alien superhero would behave. But while they share the ethos of the Man of Steel, there’s a distinguishing characteristic that sets them apart from their fictional counterpart. Not every Superman at the convention is white.<\/p>\n

Superheroes and villains from all backgrounds, franchises and planetary origins swarm the Javits Center for the annual gathering of science fiction and pop culture fans, who come together to build community, attend panels and buy the latest merchandise. Everywhere I looked, attendees represented different iterations of characters, age groups, gender identities and races. Some look exactly like their source material, and others don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Now that there\u2019s a new comic-based blockbuster movie released every few months \u2014 Captain America: Brave New World,<\/em> Thunderbolts*<\/em>, Superman<\/em> and The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/em> all came out in 2025 \u2014 there seems to be a superhero for every demographic. That\u2019s evident at NYCC. But that wasn\u2019t always the case.<\/p>\n

During my time at the convention, I spoke with fans who told me that it\u2019s not just superhero intellectual property that\u2019s expanding, but their representation in the real world too.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been seeing people who look like all of us \u2014 not just one type of person or just one race,” Cin’ von Quinzel, a longtime DC universe fan, tells me. The 31-year-old content creator from Brooklyn, N.Y., who is dressed as Padme Amidala<\/a> from Star Wars,<\/em> says she’s relieved she no longer sees the same “cookie-cutter, this is the only way a superhero should look kind of character” across comics and movies. Finally.<\/p>\n

Miles Morales, the hero of the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse<\/em> movies, was a game-changer, Cin’ says. He’s Black, Latino and a New Yorker like her, and means so much to other Spanish-speaking fans. It just took a little too long for him to enter the mainstream for her liking.<\/p>\n

Still, Morales was a sign that “there’s more people who look like us [creating] the comics,” she says. “For a really long time, it was just white men [writing and illustrating]. For decades. Now we have everybody.”<\/p>\n

Who do superheroes belong to?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That diversity and inclusion in storytelling is so important for fans like Cin\u2019, but not everyone is open to seeing the source material they\u2019re familiar with get tweaked.<\/p>\n

\u201cComic book characters are the closest thing our modern culture has to mythology,\u201d filmmaker and longtime superhero fan Jon Hill tells me. \u201cFans take those stories … and think about them \u2026 They get tattoos and collect things and join online forums to talk to each other and discuss the details … they inhabit these stories, so they no longer just tell them, they consider that they belong to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When these heroes and their stories that mean so much are tampered with \u2014 especially the superheroes fans spent their childhoods with \u2014 they get upset. It feels like a personal loss and reminds them that they\u2019re getting older. But superhero stories are changing and evolving all the time, just like the myths of Zeus and Hercules.<\/p>\n

What makes comic adaptations different from so many other franchises\u00a0<\/em>is the existence of the \u201cmultiverse,\u201d or multiple parallel realities. It\u2019s also a handy tool writers use to \u201cfix problems,\u201d Hill says, giving heroes alternate powers and even bringing them back to life. If Iron Man is dead in the Avengers cinematic universe that we know, he\u2019s alive in another one. He may just look or act differently from his original self.<\/p>\n

With the multiverse concept, there can be something for everyone \u2014 but that means that the fans who originally loved the earlier versions of the comics feel like they\u2019re losing a bit of their own identity.<\/p>\n

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