I have mixed feelings about Liam Neeson in that role. His performance is great, and given that they got rid of the whole, “immortal genius from the Islamic Golden Age,” backstory, I guess the character’s race is less important. It feels very strange that an Irish guy is somehow the leader of a group of Asian ninjas, though.
The Sam Jackson/Nick Fury story is pretty hilarious. When Marvel created the Ultimate Universe in the comics, they changed a lot of characters’ backstories. One of those changes was making Nick Fury black, and one of their artists started drawing him looking a lot like Sam Jackson. Jackson talked to his agents, and Marvel was basically like, “Well, instead of suing us, would Mr. Jackson like to play the character in any future projects?”
It feels very strange that an Irish guy is somehow the leader of a group of Asian ninjas, though.
I don’t think League of Shadows are Asian only. It’s an organization founded by an Arab, is headquartered in Himalayas, and uses techniques from Far East Asia. It’s clear it’s a diverse cult of terrorists.
That’s definitely the impression I got in the third movie. In the first one, we only see the Himalayan headquarters, and it seems like there’s a white guy inexplicably in charge of an all Asian team of ninja assassins (although I think I remember one black guy being there when they burned Wayne manor).
