This past weekend saw San Diego Comic Con rework their annual shindig for an at-home quarantine world, and things seemed to go swimmingly. There were Zoom panels galore, a ton of trailers and first looks, and, of course, Keanu Reeves. There were also some virtual panels that weren’t a part of SDCC at all. There was one for Rick and Morty as well as one for Netflix’s dearly departed Daredevil. Entitled #SaveDaredevil, it was intended to exhume the show, which was cancelled in 2018 when Marvel was setting up shop at its future home, Disney+.
There was one disturbing revelation made during the virtual panel, though, as per Entertainment Weekly. Peter Shinkoda played the character of Nobu, a member of super-villain organization The Hand over nine episodes. He claims former Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb told the writers room not to give Nobu nor Madame Gao, played by Wai Ching Ho, backstories, because, he allegedly told them, “nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people.”
Shinkoda said he as “reluctant” to break the news, but seemed to eventually talk himself into doing it, even at the risk of possible backlash. “I’m not into really protecting certain things anymore,” Shinkoda told the virtual crowd. He then soldiered on:
“Jeph Loeb told the writers’ room not to write for Nobu and Gao — and this was reiterated many times by many of the writers and showrunners — that nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people. There were three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes kills 200 Asians each movie. Nobody gives a s—, so don’t write about Nobu and Gao, so they were forced to put their storyline down and drop it.”
Shinkoda said the writers were at one point considering exploring Nobu’s journey to America, which would involve Gao. “All that backstory was dropped,” Shinkoda calimed. “The writers told me they regret it and they were reluctant to do it because they were stoked about including that in the storyline but they were prevented so I had to concoct this other storyline and rock that material I was given.”
Under Loeb’s watch, Marvel produced such shows as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Legion, Jessica Jones, Runaways, and more. One of them, Iron First, came under fire for the representation of Asian characters. Loeb has of this writing not publicly addressed the allegations.
(Via EW)