Stranger Things/Minecraft Free Comic Book Day (2020)

 

This was one of the free comic books from Free Comic Book Days this year. It has two different franchises in it: Stranger Things and Minecraft. I will fully admit that I do not have a background with Stranger Things. Nothing about it has ever drawn me in to ever watch an episode. I may someday watch it only so that I can educate myself on the fandom, but it would have to be a day when I have nothing else better to research. The Stranger Things part of the comic was very vague and there was something going on with a canister. I think they assumed that if you were reading the comic that you already had a background with the series. This was not a good tactic. The whole point of sampler comics is to draw readers in and get them to buy more of the series. I just felt too lost and it didn’t make me want to look more into it. On the other hand, the Minecraft section was great. I would read more from that series because of how they introduced you to both the characters and what was going on. It was just much better done. 3 stars out of 5 or a C and it only gets that score because of the Minecraft section.

Now you can stop reading if you just want the general review. I have decided to start taking a more in depth look at diversity and other equality issues in comics. These aspects have always been a part of comics in some shape or form, but has had different representation depending on the time period and the creators themselves. Disclaimer: You may not like what you read here, but I am going to break it down anyway. 

Both of the sections of this comic had characters that appeared to be African American (I’m also assume that both took place in America). In Stranger Things this character appears to be more of a token character just to make the series fell more inclusive. She goes against what the other characters want her to do which separates her from them. They made her look bad because she just wanted to use the money to buy D&D books. This distracted from her not being paid for ‘her services’ by the white appearing kids like they had promised her. To me these things just does not make her look like a positive character. Like I said above, I may be missing out on key character attributes or relations but as an intro to this series you get what you get. Smarter decisions should have been made when choosing what to put in the sample. This is vastly different then how the Minecraft people choose to show their character. There are two main characters: a white boy and a black girl. In this one the girl develops special abilities and it is the white appearing boy that tells her how special and cool her abilities are. To me this was an entirely different and amazing used race dynamic. I think that when different races are used in comics it should be more like the Minecraft version vs. what Stranger Things presented.

Released July 29th 2020.

Picture From: https://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/3006-484/Free-Comic-Book-Day-2020-All-Ages-Stranger-Things-Minecraft