When Marvel announced that someone else would be wearing the Spider-Man suit in the Fall for a brief moment I actually hoped it would be Gwen Stacy but knew that was a pretty big longshot. No of course it was the biracial Miles Morales, Spider-Man from the former Ultimate Universe (see "Miles Morales Will Star in Re-Launched 'Spider-Man'") who got the nod to be the main Spider-Man. As you might expect the news got Marvel the requisite amount of free, mostly positive, publicity, but naturally there have been some people who were unhappy with this development. Sadly for exactly the reasons you would expect.
In a piece by Josh Wilding that appeared on the ComicBookMovie website titled "Stan Lee Sees No Reason Why SPIDER-MAN's Race Or Sexuality Should Be Changed" the character's co-creator is quoted as saying "I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white, I don't see any reason to change that." Lee went on to say "It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it's easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to."
The Cosmic Book News site essentially ran the same story, but upped the outrage. First by using a much more incendiary title, "Stan Lee Stands Up For White Spider-Man: Says Create New Characters," then by suggesting Brian Michael Bendis, writer on the new series, "went so far as to call white children racists by stating they wouldn't let their friends of 'color' pretend to be the white characters Batman or Superman."
The Bendis quote in the piece is referencing is from an earlier story on the site, "Miles Morales to Headline Bendys Spider-Man." There he's quoted as saying "Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends wouldn't let them be Batman or Superman because they don't look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask. But now it's true. It's meant a great deal to a great many people."
Anyone who doesn't believe that children can exclude others that way, well, first they were never a kid. And second are unaware of a recent human interest story by Avianne Tan that appeared on the ABC News website via Good Morning America; "Parents Organize Superhero Parade After Daughter Told She Can't Be Spider-Man Because She's Not A Boy." Apparently four-year-old Ellie Evangelista from New York was told by the boys in her Pre-K class that not only couldn't she be Spider-Man because she was a girl but Spider-Man was "only for boys." Ellie's parents reached out to some local parents and together they created a "Uptown Superhero March" parade to send the message that "girls can do whatever boys can and vice versa."
So clearly Bendis wasn't calling "white children racists," rather, he was echoing something Stan Lee himself said in his interview; "What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that's a good thing." All of which is still true unless you somehow believe that the character being non-white will somehow prevent readers from identifying with him.
And if you want to read something genuinely hurtful and hateful (but believe me, you don't) then seek out the Dr. Hurd website and read a piece by Michael Hurd, "Spider-Man vs. the Racism of the Politically Correct." According to Hurd anyone who supports all this progressive, inclusive stuff is part of a politically correct conspiracy with a "hardcore agenda" run by "mini-fascists," "self-loathing, guilty, condescending white guys" who use "intimidation" on people like himself who dare to object to needless, tacked on "diversity."
If anyone deserves to have an opinion about the whole Miles Morales thing it's Stan Lee (or Steve Ditko, but at this point I think we can pretty much rule out hearing from him), and as a man from a different era his attitude is entirely understandable. But the reason Spider-Man now has a African American father and a Puerto Rican mother is because it's no longer the early 1960's and characters are no longer white by default. It isn't the result of some rampant PC conspiracy there is no "agenda;" the characters are being reinvented so they reflect the reality of an ever increasingly diverse readership and society. And it's only by changing this way can the brand survive into the next century. It's not social engineering; it's capitalism.
But if it makes certain people feel better they can tell themselves this isn't about their declining significance or the world changing around them without their express written consent.
It's nothing personal, it's just business.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.