Marvel’s diversity strategy targets new audiences

Marvel's introduction of Riri Williams, a 15-year-old black girl set to wear the mantle of Iron Man, is the latest character created by the comic book publisher as part of a trend to diversify its super-hero cast.

But is diversification having any impact on its bottom line?

In recent years, the Disney-owned company has taken several steps to introduce greater racial and gender diversity: in 2014, a black man became Captain America and Thor became a woman. The year before that, Marvel introduced Kamala Khan, a Muslim teenager, as the super-hero Ms. Marvel.

One reason for increasing character diversity is to expand Marvel's audience, according to Augie De Blieck Jr., a columnist at Comic Book Resources.

"Marvel has relied on an ever-dwindling population to market its books to. Overwhelmingly, that's white men now in their 30s and 40s, who were reading comics during the last comic booms" he says .

"They need new people to market their comics to. With the boom in movie and television superheroes, there's an audience out there that craves this superhero material now. Those people aren't always being marketed to, like children, women, and insert your favorite ethnic minority in the United States here."

Research by Helena Wu in 2014 for Duke University suggests diversity does make a difference to sales.