Thoughts on the "new" Spiderman

Reading articles like this one about the new Spiderman depresses me for a few reasons.


1) The racial outrage that Marvel would dare to create a non-white hero.

C'mon America, your demographics are changing. There are more people of color in your borders than you're willing to recognize so shut up and let them do some talking instead of subscribing to the same kind of Western imperial ideologies that have silenced them and plagued us for generations. Miles Morales is half-black, half-Hispanic, this totally fits with the subversive history Marvel is known for (anyone care to remember how the X-men were/are originally a poorly done metaphor for racial tensions in the 60s?).

2) The ignorance of the fact that this is happening in the Marvel Ultimates universe, a separate continuity to reflect a more contemporary readership.

According to the Wikipedia page (a source I trust in this instance because no self-respecting comic book geek would let there be inaccuracies), Ultimate Marvel was meant as a new continuity for a new generation of comic readers, so the argument that having a non-white Spiderman flies in the face of the history of the character is invalid. This is not for the people who grew up with Spiderman, it's for the people growing up with Spiderman.

Peter Parker is alive and kicking in the standard Marvel universe.

This actually bugs me a little for other reasons as well. The fact that Marvel has to utilize an entirely separate universe to allow for something like the death of Peter Park and birth of Miles Morales shows institutionalized racism of the industry. This is a step in the right direction, yes, but the fact that it would be impossible to pull off in the "regular" or "original" Marvel universe brings to light some of the inherent problems with comic books when it comes to race.

As long as Miles doesn't end up being some kind of tokenized "ethno-diversity man" character, I'm happy for him. Though the way the "could be gay" comments by writers have been misinterpreted by the media and taken by the hoardes of internets, let's just say I don't have very high hopes. You go, web-slinger!