I thoroughly enjoyed presenting at last year’s Comics & Popular Arts Conference held annually at Dragon*Con and I’m happy to officially announce that I will be speaking again this year!
Entitled “A Superhero Census: Sex, Race, and Sexual Orientation in the X-Men, Avengers, and Justice League,” this presentation is one of the recently mentioned projects that has been taking up so much of my time.
Are the X-Men as diverse as they claim?
I’ll post the abstract in the next couple days so that you can read a little more about it. In the meanwhile, if you still haven’t gotten your tickets to this year’s Dragon*Con I suggest you do!
Journey Into Awesome 
This sounds really cool! I love analyzing the diversity (or lack thereof) in the X-Men. It’s a shame I don’t live in the South any more, otherwise I’d go.
Thanks! It’s too bad you can’t make it to the convention, but I’ll make sure to post the final demographics for each team after the conference.
Looking at the X-Men’s diversity (or as you said lack thereof) is interesting because the team has quite a few minority characters but they’re often overlooked by the creators. Just look at the First Class movie. It’s set during the Civil Rights Movement but the vast majority of the film is about a bunch of white guys. It’s a cool idea, but the studio lacked the follow-through to actually prominently feature some black heroes.
Yes, the X-Men are definitely good at keeping most of their non-white male characters in supporting roles. One thing I hated about the movie trilogy was how insignificant Storm was, especially considering her genuine importance to the comics. But it would definitely add another layer to First Class (and its sequel) if they had considered bringing in the Civil Rights Movement, especially given the Xavier/MLK, Magneto/Malcom X comparisons everyone likes talking about.
Recently I’ve also been thinking a lot about class in the X-Men.Theoretically anyone on the planet could be an X-Man (since mutant powers can manifest in anyone), which makes them potentially the most egalitarian superteam. Things get complicated, though, since the wealth and power of Professor X et al. act as gatekeepers. Anyway, the fact that the X-Men naturally foster discussions like these is why they’re my favorite superteam. I look forward to reading your abstract. :)