Marvel Universe Not as Diverse As You Think: The Erasure of Jewish Heroes

In recent years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has fostered a widespread appreciation for superheroes such as the Scarlet Witch and Moonknight; however, their on-screen portrayals have largely overlooked their true origins.

Jewish writers created the comic book industry in the 1930s and ‘40s when Jewish people were excluded from most publishing and advertising fields due to antisemitic and anti-immigrant sentiments. As a result, creators of the superhero comics we know today developed their own industry and incorporated their stories and culture allegorically. Writers Jerry Seigle and Joe Shuster created characters like Superman, reflecting the experience of Jewish immigrants in America. A powerful allegory for being born different, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s X-men featured a group of superpowered mutants who sought to aid those who feared and despised them for their otherness. When ethnic minority identities became mainstream in the 1980s, other characters, like Magneto and Scarlet Witch, emerged as openly Jewish.

However, this representation didn’t translate into the MCU considering how the identities of several Jewish Marvel characters were neglected, removed, or otherwise problematically rewritten to make them more sanitized and commercially viable. Such has been the case with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, two Jewish characters Marvel rewrote as members of a terrorist organization that’s affiliated with the Nazi Party. Only one of the twins, Pietro, was portrayed by a Jewish actor and he made one MCU appearance before his death. Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, has yet to allude to her ethnicity or religion.

More recently, Marvel faced considerable backlash for casting non-Jewish actor Oscar Isaac as Moonknight, a Jewish superhero. Some Marvel fans felt the hero’s new Disney+ series honored his Jewish roots, while others expressed concerns about cultural misrepresentation. The recent casting of non-Jewish actor Joe Locke in Marvel’s new WandaVision spinoff series, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, has raised similar worries about whether he might play Billy Kaplan, otherwise known as the superhero Wiccan, yet another Jewish character. Whether the actor has been cast in this specific role has yet to be confirmed. 

While Marvel has made strides towards cultural diversity amongst its heroes, we hope it will take the opportunity to represent the Jewish origins of the company and its heroes as it enters phase five, the next era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.