Marvel have shared their plans for a new set of superheroes, which includes a pair of twins called “Snowflake” and “Safespace”.
Created by Luciano Vecchio and Daniel Kibblesmith, the psychic-powered twins will be part of a planned New Warriors comic series.
Both characters are black, and “Snowflake” is also Marvel’s first non-binary superhero.
Kibblesmith told the Marvel website: “They’re hyper aware of modern culture and optics, and they see their Super Heroics as ‘a post-ironic meditation on using violence to combat bullying.’
“It’s this idea that these are terms that get thrown around on the internet that they don’t see as derogatory. [They] take those words and kind of wear them as badges of honour.”
He continued: “The connotations of the word ‘snowflake’ in our culture right now are something fragile, and [Snowflake] is a character who is turning it into something sharp.”
However, the reaction online has been less than glowing, with some in the LGBT+ community interpreting the “woke” characters as a (perhaps unintentional) mockery of progressive values.
One Twitter user wrote: “Calling your first non-binary superheroes Snowflake and Safespace is the most insensitive and out of touch things you could do.”
“They sounds [sic] like the kind of names you’d expect a writer who’s trying to make fun of non-binary people would give their characters.”
Marvel were criticised last year for announcing that their film franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was set to feature an explicitly gay character in Avengers: Endgame - its first in 22 films – only for that character to be little more than a glorified extra.
