What a year it's been for nerds. Superheroes continue to dominate the cinema (even when they're ones you'd previously never heard of) and have staked their claim on your disposable income up through the next decade, Comic-Con finally started to return to actually being about comic books, and the industry as a whole has gone from strength to strength in terms of quality, invention, and diversity. The latter has been a particular sticking point for a form that's been dominated by white dudes since the dawn of the four-colour printing press, and let to the stagnation of the former two. 2014, meanwhile, has seen more and more women and people of colour producing work with similarly diverse characters, from the all-ages and queer-friendly girl scout adventures of Lumberjanes through to the new Ms Marvel Kamala Khan, a Muslim teenager. It's been twelve months of leaps and bounds for comic books, but that journey's not been without a few stumbles along the way. It's still an industry dominated not only be a certain demographic but also certain attitudes towards gender, race, creativity vs making money, and trying oh-so-desperately to build your own cinematic universe because they have one and we don't and IT'S NOT FAIR. In many ways this has been one of the best years for comics in a good long while, but it didn't get there without having to navigating a few bumps in the road along the way. Here are the ten biggest comics controversies of 2014: Racism! Transphobia! Making Grant Gustin cry! Excelsior!
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
