Meet the New Spiderman

There’s been this debate in recent years about the lack of diversity in mainstream comics. Between a general lack of non-white characters, and the fact that the treatement existing non-white characters tend to get (relegated to supporting roles, drawn as white anyway, killed off for no reason but shock value) is pretty crap, people have been calling for a more realistic and diverse comics universe.

Well, and Marvel comics just took kind of a giant leap on that. Because, after the death of Peter Parker in their Ulimate Spiderman series (the “Ultimate” series is kind of an alternate time line that modernizes all of the characters and their origins) they’ve introduced a NEW Spiderman:

Meet Miles Morales, your new Spiderman.

He’s half black and half Hispanic.

I honestly have to commend Marvel on this. It’s not entirely unusual for someone new to step into the role of a crimefighter after their death or retirement, but it IS unusual for a major name like Spiderman to be replaced by someone non-white. By contrast, while DC Comics has had other people step into the tights of big names like Batman and Wonder Woman, the replacements have always been white (EDIT: as several people have SO VERY POLITELY pointed out, there was a black Green Lantern, John Stewart). It seems like Marvel may be testing the waters to see if the crazy idea of actually listening to potential new fans will up their sales numbers.

And hey, who knows, maybe this will open up a chance for Donald Glover of Community to get his wish to play Spiderman.

EDIT: While I’m glad to see that this post is getting so much attention, I WILL be policing it for racist remarks. That sort of stuff is NOT welcome in my blog.