**SPOILER ALERT**
The comic-book world was a buzz this morning, as it was revealed that the new Spider-Man in the Marvel Comics Ultimate Universe, (not the main universe), would be a half-black, half-Hispanic teen named Miles Morales.
For those of you non-geeks, the Ultimate Universe line of comic-books from Marvel comics was launched in 2000 and featured re-imagined and updated versions of super-heroes from the regular Marvel Universe. This was done, mostly, to attract new readers who did not have to worry about knowing any of the back-story of the original characters--who after being around for many decades do have a lot of back-story!
The Ultimate Universe is constantly making big changes, like killing-off characters. Most recently, they just killed their Ultimate version of Peter Parker, so a new person had to step into the role of Spider-Man. Today, USA Today revealed that in Ultimate Fallout Issue #4, (which will be in stores tomorrow), will make his first appearance as he prepares to take over the gig.
Many fans are excited about the news; This includes, Black actor Donald Glover, who a year ago had started a campaign to get the role of Spider-Man for the upcoming movie reboot. Thru Twitter, he sent one of the writers, Brian Michael Bendis, a message saying, "just wanted to say "wow" and thank you for doing something really cool and interesting! You're tops."
Of course, this news also brings many detractors, some of which are outright racists and others who try to hide their racism with lame comments like, "You cannot reinvent characters." If you look thru the comments in the USA Today article you will see a lot of racist remarks. I won't reprint any here, you can go see them for yourself if you really want; or you can go pick up the book tomorrow and see what the hoopla is all about.
I think comic-book writer, Ron Marz, said it best today (on his Twitter account): "If Black/Latino Spidey, written by a Jewish man and drawn by a woman, is making racist heads explode, I'm totally cool with that."
For those of you non-geeks, the Ultimate Universe line of comic-books from Marvel comics was launched in 2000 and featured re-imagined and updated versions of super-heroes from the regular Marvel Universe. This was done, mostly, to attract new readers who did not have to worry about knowing any of the back-story of the original characters--who after being around for many decades do have a lot of back-story!
The Ultimate Universe is constantly making big changes, like killing-off characters. Most recently, they just killed their Ultimate version of Peter Parker, so a new person had to step into the role of Spider-Man. Today, USA Today revealed that in Ultimate Fallout Issue #4, (which will be in stores tomorrow), will make his first appearance as he prepares to take over the gig.
Many fans are excited about the news; This includes, Black actor Donald Glover, who a year ago had started a campaign to get the role of Spider-Man for the upcoming movie reboot. Thru Twitter, he sent one of the writers, Brian Michael Bendis, a message saying, "just wanted to say "wow" and thank you for doing something really cool and interesting! You're tops."
Of course, this news also brings many detractors, some of which are outright racists and others who try to hide their racism with lame comments like, "You cannot reinvent characters." If you look thru the comments in the USA Today article you will see a lot of racist remarks. I won't reprint any here, you can go see them for yourself if you really want; or you can go pick up the book tomorrow and see what the hoopla is all about.
I think comic-book writer, Ron Marz, said it best today (on his Twitter account): "If Black/Latino Spidey, written by a Jewish man and drawn by a woman, is making racist heads explode, I'm totally cool with that."
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