The biggest story in the news this week is the casting of a new Spider-Man. It has been covered by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Brian Davis, and most everyone else in the media. Peter Parker died in the Ultimate Marvel Universe and a multiracial guy has taken his place as Spider-Man. I don't understand why this is getting so much press.
I will explain the Ultimate Universe for those of you unfamiliar with it. Marvel decided that their readers were too lazy to remember all the things that have happened in the past. So they started a line of books that updated all the characters and created a jumping on point for readers who did not care about forty years of character development. I have heard that some of the stories were good, but, being a purist, I have not read any of them.
When Ultimate began, Marvel had the opportunity to make major changes to the characters. As far as I know, only Nick Fury changed races. Mark Millar changed him from white to Samuel L Jackson. Lucky for Marvel, they were able to cast Jackson to play himself in the movies. I applaud Marvel for making this change now, but they should have done it when Ultimate started.
Minorities have for too long been under represented in comic books. In the early years of superhero comics the creators, characters, and readers were all white. Many of those white characters are still around. There are a handful of prominent African and Black characters, but I cant think of any Hispanic characters other than a few very minor ones. WARNING: This video contains strong language and is not recommended for all viewers.
I doubt that I would care about this even if it had happened in the prime Marvel Universe. I quit reading Spider-Man after he made his deal with the Devil. Joe Quesada thought it was too hard writing stories with Peter and MJ married, so he had them trade all memory and evidence of their lives together to save the life of Aunt May. As I mentioned earlier I am a big fan of Marvel history, so I was offended by them erasing their history. I am also a fan of married people staying married and opposed to making deals with the Devil. I won't ever buy Spider-Man comics again. If I want to read about him, I have plenty of back issues.
When I wrote about Johnny Storm's death, I had intended to include the line, "if he is replaced by Wolverine or Spider-Man, I will quit reading Fantastic Four." Lucky for me I forgot to put that line in the final draft, so I did not have to go back on my word. Spider-Man is in that book now plus in both Avengers books. I dropped the Avengers because Wolverine and Spider-Man were on the team, but I am still reading New Avengers and FF. Any time that a character who has his own book appears in a team book, he is just there to lure in more readers. There is no growth or character development, that is saved for his own title. In New Avengers and FF, Spider-Man is just a guy in a mask not the real Peter Parker or the retconed Peter Parker.
That is all the ranting against comic books that I have for now. Hopefully next week I will have a positive post about comics.
While I haven't done the research to verify it, I believe that I'm the only person on earth to write a masters thesis in theology where Spider-Man's Faustian deal with Mephisto is referenced.
ReplyDeleteThe switch is dumb, even in the Ultimate Universe for the second reason that Brian mentions on his blog. You're not wrong about the overabundance of white people in comics. I've been enjoying Black Panther comics and cartoons lately.