Marvel Comics recently announced they were publishing hip-hop themed covers on all their books in October. This launched a conversation about the fact that Marvel doesn't hire people of color to write their books, which kind of makes this whole hip-hop cover thing smack of appropriation.

Comics critic David Brothers wrote an excellent long Tumblr post about why people of color are unhappy about this cover tribute, and you should read the whole thing. But here's a taste:

Storm is the highest profile black character in comics. Which is great! But…she’s mostly been written by white men, and a very small fraternity of black men, throughout the decades. Imagine what a black woman could bring to the character. Shouldn’t a black lady get a chance at bat? I grew up on Alison Sealy-Smith, and I’ve got a soft spot for Halle, but there’s a gap there... you can’t celebrate and profit off something without also including the group that you’re profiting off the back of. Marvel has made a lot of money off brown faces. A portion of X-Men’s juice is from the struggle for civil rights, and we all know what the phrase "black Spider-Man" has done for the perception of your company. (He’s Puerto Rican too, tho.) So to see Marvel continue to profit off something very dear to black people without actually giving black people a seat at the table…I was going to say it “stings,” but in actuality it sucks. It makes Marvel look clueless and it makes black people wonder why they bother with your comics.

A good rule of thumb for this kind of thing is that if you're treating race like a costume, you're wrong and you should apologize and stop what you're doing. I think that's what Marvel is doing here. Now go read the rest of what Brothers has to say.