Fat Thor in Avengers Endgame was an intentional joke, but the creators of Trailblazer — the first obese Marvel superhero — aren’t kidding around. (The writer is Daniel Kibblesmith.) A plus-sized woman of color, Trailblazer is one of the five New Warriors, all of whom are wokester p.c. types. The other four are named Screentime, Snowflake, Safespace and B-Negative.

Roughly 11 years ago I complained about Russell, a morbidly obese adolescent character in Pete Docter‘s Up (’09). The filmmakers knew that this balloon-shaped kid (voiced by Jordan Nagai) represented a high percentage of American adolescents, and that his presence would radiate feelings of comfort and acceptance for the calorically challenged. The effect was to normalize obesity. Hell, to embrace it. Trailblazer is another such gesture.

Important distinction: Sizable performers of color (like Da’Vine Joy Randolph or Gabourney Sidibe or Mo’Nique) represent their own “we are who we are, take it or leave it” aesthetic. But a fat superhero is sending out a whole different signal.

Marvel comics has announced that New Warriors comic book (vol. 6) will street on 4.15.20.

You Tube comment #1: “’80s characters reflected what was fun about the 80s. ’90s characters reflected what was cool about the 90s. Modern characters reflect only the STUPIDEST aspects of our time. Great.” You Tube comment #2: “Honestly, Safespace and Snowflake feel more like jokes about LGBT people.” You Tube comment #3: “I guess the villain is called ‘white privileged heterosexual predator‘ or something like that.” You Tube comment #4: “It’s sad seeing Stan Lee‘s legacy being burned down like this is…this is wrong.” You Tube comment #5: “I was expecting the next thing out of his mouth to be ‘they don’t actually fight the villains — they just start hashtags on twitter to get them cancelled.'”