There's more, but really you should just read the book. After finishing, I started thinking about the last casting news in the world of Marvel—Alexandra Shipp as Storm—and the fact that Hollywood can't bring itself around to cast someone who looks like the Kenyan woman Storm actually is. This isn't a matter of fanboy accuracy, but white supremacy. In another world, where Lupita Nyong'o's dark is unexceptional, where her speech on beauty isn't needed, this discussion wouldn't be necessary. In this world, the one where we can accept Nina Simone's music but not her face, it matters.

One reason why I still enjoy books, including comic books, is that there's still more room for a transgressive diversity. If Greg Pak wants to create an Amadeus Cho, he doesn't have to worry about whether America is ready for a Korean-American protagonist. Or rather, he doesn't have to put millions of dollars behind it. I don't know what that means to a young, Asian-American comic books fan. But when I was eight, the fact that Storm could exist—as she was, and in a way that I knew the rest of society did not accept—meant something. Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected. Monica Rambeau was my first Captain Marvel. James Rhodes was the first Iron Man I knew.

I don't think we should go overboard. Fraction's work with Potts aside, comics have their own issues—like, really big, awful gender issues. But one reason I'm always cautious about the assumption that everything is improved by turning it into a movie is that the range of possibility necessarily shrinks. I'd frankly be shocked if we ever see a Storm, in all her fullness and glory, in a film.