Quote Originally Posted by bowspearer View Post
I suspect it was needlessly race-bending Matt Trakker which did it. He's a pretty iconic character and a live action movie with the changes wouldn't have gone down well with the nostalgia crowd the movie would be targeting.
Yeah, I'm not sure I can really agree with you on this.

-I feel you might be overestimating the impact of M.A.S.Ks nostalgia value and it's audience. Aside from the IDW series and an unlaunched line (which reshaped a lot of the original premise), it's had basically no media exposure for over 30 years. Transformers and GI Joe, on the other hand, have had their peaks and troughs but have always maintained a degree of presence or popularity, and Hasbro are actually making somewhat of an effort to sell a new version of Micronauts without going straight in with a film series, which is a bit smarter.
-The reaction from people on forums is often insignificant when it comes to wider film-going audiences and what they want. There are exceptions but I sincerely doubt M.A.S.K is one of them, given it's relatively small status outside of certain nostalgia markets (which aren't big).
-IDW's MASK would've sold badly even if they kept Trakker as Caucasian because it wasn't a particularly good story, nor was it wanted, nor was there any demand outside of what feels like Hasbro executives wanting to mimic the worst parts of Marvel/DC/what-not shared universe concept.
-I'm guessing that Hasbro pulled M.A.S.K and ROM from their lineup because of the four properties they had (and were intending to throw a ton of money at to make films), they had to consolidate and go with the more reasonable approaches. Maybe their reasoninig goes something like "no one outside of people approaching forty remember or care about M.A.S.K", and you need people outside of that to care.
-Likewise, ROM was cancelled along with M.A.S.L and that didn't have any issues with race-bending, but rather (and this is a guess), "we can't even use the parts of ROM that people, all of which are approaching forty or beyond MIGHT remember from a short-lived comic series, but probably don't, because those parts still belong to Marvel"
-I just feel that MASK, if you were to compare it to what is out there at the moment, could feel like merely a hodgepodge merging (to those without nostalgia) of Transformers and G.I Joe, the former which is critically panned (still made a lot of money, but doesn't need to be replicated) and the latter which can be a hard one to sell but has a much better chance than M.A.S.K on name recognition alone.

Personally, i don't think the race-bending is as big of an issue as some. With M.A.S.K and Trakker, I was neither for nor against it, becuase even if it was a genuine desire for more broader representation or a cynical ploy to exploit that for profit, it just wasn't a series of any importance nor real merit (AFAIK). I mean hell, even the First Strike issue of M.A.S.K was literally just part II of the G.I. Joe issue, and Trakker is now part of G.I. Joe (with a new codename), that's how insignificant the IDW interpretation of M.A.S.K is and, dare I say it, as a broader property? Not to say that MASK is bad or that I'm being critical of anyones taste, I just don't think that IDW having a black Trakker is all that important, also considering what IDW produce has relatively little bearing, content-wise, on films (outside of the concept of a shared universe and what-not).

Sorry I get a bit worked up whenever I see something about race-benidng HI HOW ARE YOU