I think Nodame's face sums up a bit of my feelings on this...
And this YouTube video of Benson from Regular Show covers the rest!
Click to viewI know, I only ever rant and rage about non-important, fandom related stuff but that's what I use this journal for, as people I know off the Internet don't share the same interests as me. XD
With that out of the way, I shall now proceed onto my Spider-Man related rant! It's been in a lot of American newspapers and I think news TV programs, I think the Daily Show may have also made a reference to it but there's been a big hullabaloo over the new Spider-Man storyline. And the ugly side of people has come out again. :(
Okay, so a while back, a storyline in the Ultimate Comics universe of Marvel comics was announced called "The Death of Spider-Man". Comics do a lot of these events, especially recently, and no-one ever takes them seriously because the characters usually come back. (Although, Jean Grey has actually stayed dead this time and I'm pretty sure Johnny and Kurt won't come back because they're my favourites, but that's a point for another time.) To their credit, the Ultimate universe does actually keep a lot of its characters dead when they get killed off. Mostly because they can. It's an alternative universe, meaning that if a character needs to be alive cos a film's getting made or a new cartoon or something, the regular version of the character that everyone is familiar with is still there.
The point I'm trying to make is that for all those people who don't like things to change, or who like the fact that both of the big two comic book companies (more DC than Marvel, but still) are trying to keep a certain demographic happy, you have your comics. They're still there. So to see all this outrage over the fact that Peter Parker is getting replaced with a new character, and having most of the outrage come from the fact that he's not a white kid is just really, really, really sad and frustrating. This storyline was announced MONTHS AGO so all these people claiming that they killed Peter Parker just to be "PC" and replace him with a non-white character is stupid. He was going to be replaced! It was going to happen! (In fact, they had been thinking about it as far back as the Ultimatum storyline, so it's been a long time coming!) Whether it was because Peter retired from the superhero life, whether the "death" meant him losing his powers or whether it meant Marvel sticking to their guns and actually killing him off. Peter was not going to be Spidey anymore. And as previous posts have shown, I did not like the fact that he was getting killed off either. Not because I don't think anyone else can't be Spider-Man, but because I like the character a lot. And because his regular universe counter-part is a...well, stupidface is the way I want to describe it now. XD It was also very obvious that an existing character was not going to replace him either. Spider-Girl clone was not it, the promo pictures clearly showed that the new Spider-Man was going to be a guy. Human Torch and Iceman do not have Spidey-related powers. Gwen is out because of the afore-hinted no boobs thing. It was going to be a new guy, or a less well known guy.
At the end of the day, I knew it was going to happen, and the best that I could hope for was that it was well written. And to be honest, it was because Brian Michael Bendis doing it, I knew that at the very least it would be well written. A lot of fans refer to this book as Bendis' baby, cos he's been writing it for at least 10 years now. He's been there since the beginning, and if he's decided that he's gone as far with the character as he can go, then it's either he leaves the book or he makes a dramatic change. And as much as I love Peter's character in this book, I'd rather Bendis stay as the writer. As much as comics love to shock, and do big events just for the sake of doing big events, I honestly think that Bendis didn't do this for shock value. He didn't do this just to be "PC" and bring a minority character into a mainstream title. I'm pretty sure he thought about who he was going to put in the suit and thought why not?
Cos there's no reason why not. There's no reason a kid from any other race or ethnicity can't be Spider-Man. Spider-Man is the costume, Peter Parker is the kid in the costume. There's nothing that says the kid in the costume can't change, especially in an alternate friggin' universe. This is also not the first time this has happened in any comic medium. People other than Bruce Wayne have been Batman since Bruce started. Hal Jordan was not the first Green Lantern. Barry Allen was not the first Flash. There have been other Robins since Dick became Nightwing. As you can see from my examples, legacy characters are more DC's thing, but there's no reason Marvel can't do the same. Especially in an alternate friggin' universe. It may have been an alternate future storyline, but there was another dude in the Spidey suit by the name of Miguel O'Hara!! And you know what, as much as I love Ted Kord, Jaime Reyes is a damn awesome Blue Beetle. So there's no reason why Miles Morales can't be a damn awesome Spider-Man. The thing we should all be hoping for here is that Bendis makes sure Miles is his own person, not just a carbon copy of Peter. Cos then it would be a PC marketing ploy. :(
To be fair, I can't just say all this has been caused by angry racist comic fans. The Internet is open to everyone, and I'm certain there are people who have their own race issues coming on to message boards and causing problems. Opening their mouths without realising the context of the situation. The most ignorant statements have come from them, probably. Like how there's no point doing this because Black and Latino kids don't read comics. Or that this is all some evil conspiracy because the President of the United States is mixed race. Or, from that buttmunch that shall not be mentioned by name, that this is all Michelle Obama's fault!
And going back to my earlier point (cos my rambles have no coherant timeline), Bendis was inspired to do this by the online campaign to try and get Donald Glover (Troy from Community) to be able to audition for the role of Peter Parker in the new Spidey movie. Bendis saw the little shout-out on Community where Troy was wearing Spider-Man pyjamas and thought that it would be awesome. He thought, why not?
And now that Laurence Fishburne has been cast as Perry White in the new Superman movie (inspired casting!), all we're going to hear is that it's PC GONE MAD which is a phrase I hear all too often living in Britain. ¬_¬
"Why is there so much hatred and bigotry? Why do we hate people who seem to be different than we are instead of enjoying the variety?"- Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man.