Some time ago Marvel announced that they had killed the Ultimate
incarnation of Peter Parker and were replacing him with a latino/black Miles
Morales. Although I have no qualms with introducing a new minority character I
was upset with the way that Marvel was advertising this. The political agenda
behind the move was quite clear, and embarrassingly so. I remember predicting
this would not end well as they would likely alienate fans of Peter Parker. They
have. Two years later the entire Ultimate imprint is about to get
the axe. Poor sales all the way around have only proven my concern true, that a
politically motivated forced change of that magnitude would only hurt sales. Of
course back then I suggested that Miles Morales should have been a sort of “next
generation” type of character, rather than a “replacement” for the iconic Peter
Parker. Naturally all over IGN’s message board I was called racist. Go figure.
My biggest disappointment with modern conversation skills is
that the minute you express disagreement with anyone about anything you get
dubbed “racist.” Naturally it’s happening again in the IGN boards. The funny
thing is that IGN recently underwent a massive policy change which was supposed
to eliminate all the name calling. Oddly, you can be called a racist, but
retaliate and find yourself at the wrong end of a moderator.
Nevertheless it’s happening again because with the end of the
Ultimate Universe, Marvel has promised Miles Morales fans (the few there are) that
he would wade his way into the Marvel mainstream and IGN is pushing for him to
replace that Peter Parker also. In many ways I can see the logic behind that
move, since Doc Ock replaced Peter Parker already by switching bodies and then
seeing Peter die in Ock’s body… But even so, as a fan of Spider-Man I am also a
fan of Peter Parker, and all I am asking Marvel to do is to give me back Peter
Parker. If Miles Morales is around too, great. I never had an objection to the existence
of the character. I only objected to the death and replacement of Peter Parker
in both universes, by Doc Ock or by Miles Morales. It didn’t matter, it was not
cool.
Since sales have not gone well for the Marvel Ultimate line,
I cannot see how repeating this mistake in the mainline Marvel continuity would
increase sales. However, critics, like myself, should not be dubbed racist just
because we hate to see characters we love deposed. Ask yourself this question,
how did you feel when Mulder and Skulley went AWOL in X-Files? The show kind of
sucked after that, didn’t it? Was Deep Space Nine as good with Ezri Dax
replacing Jadzia? Most fans fans would say no, as would I. Ezri sucked. Stories
seldom survive a dramatic shift in lead characters as it is. When a lead actor
leaves a show it’s usually the death knell of that show.
Whatever Marvel does in this regard, fixing the problems
created by their own desire to be politically correct is only one thing they
need to do. The other is that their prices need to come down and the overall
quality of their stories need to go up. I used to be an avid fan of the
Ultimate line until about three years ago when it got crushed under the weight
of its own continuity and they responded by killing 99% of the good characters,
including Wolverine. The killing and reviving of heroes has been a gimmick that
comics have used for a long time to try and boost sales, that Spider-Man is now
suffering from Super-Man syndrome is a sign that Marvel is in desperate need of
new blood in their writing departments, though I suppose we should give them
credit for limiting their “replacements” to only the Steel variant and leaving
the number of knock-offs reasonably low.
Still, I suppose the market will have to decide the fate of
Miles Morales, but if the sales of the Ultimate line are any indication, I
think the world prefers Peter Parker and it isn’t racist to say so. In fact, it’s
racist to assume that a latino/black character needs a white man’s mask in
order to make it on his own, but I suppose that’s what separates me from
Progressives. I believe in the power of minorities to follow their dreams and
make it in their own terms, and Progressives clearly demean minorities by
insisting they cannot make it without being in the shadow of a white
Progressive.
To quote, well, myself, from the last time I talked about
this issue, “The fact of the matter is when a next gen variant of Spider-Man
was introduced (Spider-Man 2099) it turned our he was an Hispanic, nobody
cared. We loved him. When the Ultimate variant of Nick Fury was introduced as a
Black Man, we understood this was a different Universe than the Marvel
mainline, we not only didn’t complain but we loved that version so much he
became THE Nick Fury. Notice the movies use this version of the character? We
love Ultimate Nick Fury. But when these changes occurred there were no press
releases about it, no political agenda pushed, none of that. They just did it
and the market responded with decent sales. The problem with Marvel’s marketing
gimmick with the new Ultimate Spider-Man is the fact they felt the need to
treat his race as something that isn’t normal in the first place. When race is
handled as something normal in media people accept and embrace it. Marvel has a
large line up of diverse characters already, none of them got introduced in
this way, all of them are well loved.”-1 It only took two years for me to be
proven right the first time.
-1 Ultimate
Spider-Man: The real reason we’re upset-Daniel Moir, 8/2011
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