Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The New Ultimate Spiderman

The new Ultimate Spider-Man is a Black/Latino by the name of Miles Morales. Predictably this was met by acceptance from most of the comic book community and met by hate from many who have never touched a comic book. Glen Beck tried to make some kind of point about the new Spider-Man looking like President Obama. The point is that this move has gained a lot of attention. Do I care that they made Spider-Man a minority? Absolutely not! As a minority myself I find it great. It's one of the reasons why I identified with Spider-Man as a young kid, he's not instantly identified as a white guy. I think Stan Lee even said in an interview that one of the reasons Spider-Man is so appealing is that he could be anyone under the mask. I do have a couple things that I'm wary about that I will be addressing here.

1. Black and Latino? Really?
It's a well known fact that Blacks and Latinos are not on good terms at all. This occurs at multiple levels of society, from intellectuals to gang members, African Americans do not get along with Hispanics. I'm not arguing that because of this Miles Morales should not have been Black or Latino but I am saying that  both aspects of his race must be fully explored in the story, otherwise it becomes an issue of over emphasizing a characters status as a minority.

2. His age
Yes I know, comic book characters never are realistic representation of how old they are. But there is a part of me that objects to a 13-year old character attempting to be Spider-Man. I understand that it would make a cool story, at 13 many kids are just starting to find themselves so it's intresting. However, at 13 the risks and consequences of a career as a vigilante are much higher than that of a 15 or 16 year old.


3. That costume
From teasers for Ultimate Fallout #4
Look closely at this costume. It looks a lot like the normal Spider-man outfit with one exception. See it now? That's right, knee pads! Now which character who's also being rebooted's costume does this remind me of? Oh yeah, that  right! This guy:
From Action Comics #1
 What is with kneepads on iconic characters? I really hope that our new Spider-Man transitions to his new costume fast!
Much better!
 Ok so maybe I don't have three reasons to object to the new Ultimate Spider-Man. I really only have one and it can be boiled down to this: Brian Michael Bendis there better be some really good stories to come out of this!

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