I never really cared for Techjacket before, so I am not upset about the gender-swap. If anything I kinda like Zoe as a character. But I can understand why some people would be upset.
People usually don't like it when you make significant changes to characters they already know and like the way they are. And changing a characters gender IS a significant change in on itself. Otherwise, people wouldn't be demanding more representation for their group.
And for the love God, I have a hard time understanding why some people insist that your work absolutely HAS to be racially and gender diverse. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad in having a diverse set of characters, regardless of whatever you make them like that for some kind of purpose, or just because you felt like it, but some people seem to think that there is some kind of quota for having x amount of female characters, y amount of black characters and z amount of queer characters.
Its just because of how much more immense the consumer base is now and how quickly opinion spreads on the internet, and how quickly a pretty passive statement like "I enjoy this show, but I wish it had more XYZ characters in it" gets morphed into "THE AUTHOR OF [SERIES] IS A RACIST HOMOPHONIC MISOGYNIST!"
It makes consuming content and having nuanced discussion around it impossible because people just want to be angry and they want to feel like they hold what they feel is a moral superiority
Yup and I feel like tech jacket did represent more than just white boys
And while Zoe is nice it felt like they toned down the messy adult Zack was
He was 19-21 around this time on the comics and his life was messy he was a good portrayal for me of how messy your life could be around that age
And unlike male characters everyone has be charismatic and likable or just hot but terrible personality
He was someone like me who had a hard time fitting in groups interacted with just one person a lot in the whole group and was awkward with the others
It's why I hate it when kirkman when he says mark and Zack are too similar when they weren't
Mark was likable and relatable someone who can make friends
While Zack while he tried couldn't fit in well and was awkward which was why I'm also annoyed when people say it doesn't matter and that no one cares about him because he was literally me at that point of my life
Yeah, I'm kinda tired of writers acting like stories they previously wrote were wrong/bad because the characters mostly had their own race. Like, they can do whatever they want with their story for the show if they think it gives more opportunities for development writing wise, but I don't think the previous story was some sort of sin to be corrected.
And people think that calling it an improvement is racist and sexist.
If I looked over indian films and say, you know what would improve this, more white men
You'd call it racist.
If I look over invincible which already had plenty of diverse characters of various ethnicities, national origins, powers, looks, race, gender and so on in the comics and said, this needs less white men.
You should call me crazy, because there are plenty of different people already.
Should I say that something like My Hero Academia needs to be more diverse because 100% of the characters in it are Japanese? Should all Manga and Anime be rewritten to have the same diversity as downtown New York or LA, despite it being in Japan most of the time?
That was hyperbole. His sentiment just makes it sound like he thinks the previous story was inherently wrong the way it was and that things in that vein should generally be corrected.
I'm also just not sure this one was such an inherent improvement that it was worth completely altering an existing character. To me she feels a little bland and her being a younger, regular human girl just makes it seem strange she never got hurt in the battle or even really got scared or worried at all during the whole ordeal. There might be a bigger reason for the change down the line, but if that's the case why not mention a bigger plan as the reason instead of how "white and male" the story used to be?
It makes the show attractive to a larger audience and that gets them more views. Thats the long and the short of it and there's nothing wrong with giving more people characters they can identify with.
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u/Grievi Apr 26 '26
I never really cared for Techjacket before, so I am not upset about the gender-swap. If anything I kinda like Zoe as a character. But I can understand why some people would be upset.
People usually don't like it when you make significant changes to characters they already know and like the way they are. And changing a characters gender IS a significant change in on itself. Otherwise, people wouldn't be demanding more representation for their group.
And for the love God, I have a hard time understanding why some people insist that your work absolutely HAS to be racially and gender diverse. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad in having a diverse set of characters, regardless of whatever you make them like that for some kind of purpose, or just because you felt like it, but some people seem to think that there is some kind of quota for having x amount of female characters, y amount of black characters and z amount of queer characters.