What do you think about the character of Princess Matoaka?

I thought she was a neat character. Good for the sake of this story. You?

Hard to say. Story-wise, I guess she serves her purpose, but that’s not the reason I asked: apparently she’s directly inspired by Matoaka aka Pocahontas and some Native American readers have voiced discontent about it, saying she is represented in an offensive manner. There’s a huge drama on Twitter about it. So I checked to see if it was true because I put these things into account in my reviews, but there’s honestly not enough information to verify that.

And I asked you because you seem to be very vocal about these things, something that I appreciate.

I don't know anything about that. I don't really use twitter that much and politically, I've been focused on the war not comic stuff.

I actually know somewhat what the Pocahontas problem is; it's about whitewashing a history that was literally about the trafficking and rape of a young girl, in order to make it some "noble savage" story. So, I looked into the outrage thinking it would have something to do with that... and it really has to do with the fact that this character, inspired by the Pocahontas myth, is sexualized.

They seem to think she's actually supposed to be Pocahontas when it's clear that she's just a product of an inversion of the whitewashed Disney story. I don't really see the issue. There's a reason I don't use twitter much and this may actually be a good example. Honestly, in my head, before looking into it, I was coming up with ways you could possibly critique the story from that perspective, and this wasn't one of the ways.

You could argue sexualization in comics is an issue, and in some cases, I'd agree. But yeah, this character isn't the real life Pocahontas, and isn't supposed to be or presented as such. I wish there was more to say. Looking through all these tweets, they seem to have taken the Newsarama headline as fact as though Marvel is legitimately publishing a story about Pocahontas. They'd have a case if that was what this was.

This is honestly on the level of a bunch of conservative idiots getting mad that Clark Kent is gay now because they saw a headline about Superman being bisexual. It's a false representation spread by people who would rather get outraged than read the material in question. It being wrapped in the aesthetic of native struggle just kind of serves to lessen the importance of said struggle. I could critique the tropes present in this issue through an indigenous lens better, despite being white.

Thank you for your detailed response. I needed to see this in another point of view. I’d end the discussion here, before other people join and it becomes a debate.

No problem. I wish it was something more interesting, but it is what it is.