Marvel UK recently released photos of the upcoming Blu Ray and DVD releases of Avengers: Age of Ultron. For completely unfathomable reasons, they decided to replace Black Widow and Hawkeye with dust and debris on the DVD version of the box art.
#Avengers: Age of Ultron is coming to 2D/3D Bluray & DVD from Sept 14th – http://t.co/UGSsWKm4I8 More info to come… pic.twitter.com/189Gqdd0cg
— Marvel UK & Ireland (@MarvelUK) July 24, 2015
No explanation was given for why they took time to erase those two characters for the DVD release, and realistically — no logical answer exists. While Black Widow and Hawkeye have not yet gotten their own movie, Natasha has been featured in more films than any Avenger, and Hawkeye was revealed to be the beating human heart of the team with an expanded role in Age of Ultron.
And again, they already had a version of the art with the entire team. It would have taken zero extra work to use that same art on the DVD case.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, associate The Mary Sue editor Sam Maggs found another Avengers cover for an overseas Blu Ray edition that excludes Black Widow yet again.
While Hawkeye was excluded as well, the impact of erasing Black Widow is greater since she is the only female member of the team. There are four other male heroes on the cover — five if you count Ultron — but no women at all. (There are also no people of color unless you accept the premise that “green” is a person of color — and I do not. But that’s a conversation for another day.)
After an entire summer of “Where’s Natasha” hashtags, flash mobs and petitions, you would think that Marvel would have finally learned the lesson that women are demanding equal representation in the superhero world, and are ready to make waves when they don’t receive it.
You would think Marvel would have learned that lesson. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.
FFS :/
Hawkeye and Black widow are just angents of sheild, not super heroes.. They don’t belong.
Marvel disagrees. They are both longtime Avengers and have their own successful comics. Superpowers do not make a superhero.