The Four Color Media Monitor

The Inquirer announced Larry Hama's GI Joe series from IDW is going to add a Phillipines native to its military cast:

“G.I. Joe” comics will be introducing its first-ever Filipino Joe (yes, not Juan) in the form of Nestor Abuba, who has been aptly given the codename Multo.

Multo, which means ghost in Filipino, will be introduced in “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero” issue #283, which will be released in June.

[...] Multo will be debuting alongside another new Joe named Olivia Baipaj, who goes by the codename Black Hat, a computer hacking specialist, according to Davis.

The last name of the woman sounds like the name Bajpai, which comes from India, and I'd say this is a good step in adding a form of diversity I find far more plausible than the forced diversity propaganda the Big Two have ruined their superhero fare with in the past decade. But I'll be even more impressed when Hama and company start introducing cast members to GI Joe originating from countries like Cameroon, Denmark, Armenia, Portugal, France, Serbia, Columbia, New Zealand, Thailand, Bulgaria and Chile. And most importantly, there can't be any political agenda strings attached, like hinging their introduction almost entirely on whether they're LGBT representatives, which has become a sad, cliched staple of recent. Avoiding agendas is how you prove you're serious in being creative with diverse casting.

Labels: Europe and Asia, indie publishers, licensed products