Black Batman

[DudeistBelieve]

so the other night I was stoned and amused at the idea of trading Batman's ethnicity for Luke Cage's. I made this post, it's just a silly idea: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.373406-White-Luke-Cage#14436420

Now heres the real conversation: Lets say DC announce they were rebooting Batman, and he's black now. Same exact thing but he's black. Titled of the comic, oddly enough, isn't Batman but "Black Batman". HOWEVER, DC announces they will be discontinuing anything having to do with a white Batman, in other words, White Batman is being retconned out of existence.

My question is, how would you react to it? would you keep being a batman fan or would you scoff at the change of skin color? I mean thematically, it's still the same comic.... save for perhaps the Joker is now overtly racist rather then gay, and maybe there is a story arch with Batman hunting down Klansmen.

I suppose I would be all right with it, so long as they were just changing the skin color and not turning Batman into a genre of urban fiction.

(also, clearly, I'm talking about this subject very light hearted and tongueNcheek. I'm trying to be silly, no racist... even though this whole concept is vaguely racist I realize.)

 

[CODE-D]

Oh so hes black huh? Thats just the de facto after white huh? Why not asian or indian or inuit or even jewish.......racist...

 

[Lilani]

I think it would probably be the absolute stupidest way DC, or ANY franchise wanting to introduce a minority, could go about it. I mean really, by making an overt effort to point out that he's BLACK is just begging for people to make a huge deal of it. And not only that, it's completely defeating the purpose of nonchalantly phasing out the white Batman stuff. They are essentially saying "Yeah he's still Batman. Just as powerful, just as rich, got as dark of a past as ever...but he's black." Yeah, and? I think we could have figured that out for ourselves after a couple of pages.

Any of the controversy about the character suddenly being black would be completely overshadowed from the fact that DC, for what ever reason, thought it was necessary to point out his skin color in the title of the comic. The situation and discussions going on would be completely different if DC left the title the same. So if that's where you wanted the discussion to be heading, I think you should take that out of the situation. Because titles which point out the race of their cast for no reason at all hasn't been politically correct in the mainstream since like World War II.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

"Black batman" is stupid. There is however nothing wrong with batman being black. Nothing in any of the story lines or any of the various versions of his often recreated backstory require a particular ethnicity.

Of my two favorite Catwomen (that looks odd...Catwomans?) one happens to be white, one black. Ethnicity doesn't matter to the character at all.

It would only matter if something about the character is inherently race based. I can't think of one at the moment, but to give a silly example, if a Nazi superhero was turned from White Christian to Black Gay Jew in a retcon.

 

[Saladfork]

Wasn't there a new spiderman awhile back that was half black, half hispanic, and either gay or bisexual?

My reaction to such was that they were just trying too hard. Leave established characters alone; If you want to make someone with a new look, ethnicity and situation, that's fine, but make it a new character.

Plus that gives you an added bonus of having a good jumping-on point which mainstream comics are sorely lacking.

 

[cdstephens]

Wasn't there a new spiderman awhile back that was half black, half hispanic, and either gay or bisexual?

My reaction to such was that they were just trying too hard. Leave established characters alone; If you want to make someone with a new look, ethnicity and situation, that's fine, but make it a new character.

Plus that gives you an added bonus of having a good jumping-on point which mainstream comics are sorely lacking.

I heard the change was actually pretty positive; it's not that they willy nilly replaced Spiderman, they killed off the original. So it was an entirely new character, just taking up the mantle left by the original Spiderman. Kinda like when Robin changed a few times because one graduated into Nightwing and the other died. And not one of those fake superhero deaths where he comes back to life a few issues later; it's in the Ultimate universe, meaning that Marvel doesn't care as much about keeping characters alive.

Now, as for retconning Batman to being black, that's different because that's taking your original character and changing an aspect of him. I'd find the change to be entirely pointless, and since I grew up with the animated series version of the character would end up pretending it never happened.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Black Batman.

The only difference I can see that making is that he may be harder to see at night.

 

[cdstephens]

"Black batman" is stupid. There is however nothing wrong with batman being black. Nothing in any of the story lines or any of the various versions of his often recreated backstory require a particular ethnicity.

Of my two favorite Catwomen (that looks odd...Catwomans?) one happens to be white, one black. Ethnicity doesn't matter to the character at all.

It would only matter if something about the character is inherently race based. I can't think of one at the moment, but to give a silly example, if a Nazi superhero was turned from White Christian to Black Gay Jew in a retcon.

Ethnicity is not the same as race. Black is not a race. And a black gay Jewish Nazi would be hilarious. Every Nazi ever should be retconned as black, gay, and Jewish.[/quote]

Race is defined as "a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits." Skin color is a very distinctive physical trait, thus one could call Black people a race.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race

Ethnicity is related, by relies also upon a heritage, language, and culture. Race on the other hand is more of a social construct (it's like breeds in dogs where there are actual significant biological differences) that although often relies upon skin color also relies upon continental origins.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

"Black batman" is stupid. There is however nothing wrong with batman being black. Nothing in any of the story lines or any of the various versions of his often recreated backstory require a particular ethnicity.

Of my two favorite Catwomen (that looks odd...Catwomans?) one happens to be white, one black. Ethnicity doesn't matter to the character at all.

It would only matter if something about the character is inherently race based. I can't think of one at the moment, but to give a silly example, if a Nazi superhero was turned from White Christian to Black Gay Jew in a retcon.

Ethnicity is not the same as race. Black is not a race. And a black gay Jewish Nazi would be hilarious. Every Nazi ever should be retconned as black, gay, and Jewish.[/quote]

Race is defined as "a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits." Skin color is a very distinctive physical trait, thus one could call Black people a race.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race

Ethnicity is related, by relies also upon a heritage, language, and culture. Race on the other hand is more of a social construct (it's like breeds in dogs where there are actual significant biological differences) that although often relies upon skin color also relies upon continental origins.[/quote]
I made a mistake. I meant to say black is not an ethnicity. I will edit that now. On a side note, my phone is suddenly able to quote again.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Oh so hes black huh? Thats just the de facto after white huh? Why not asian or indian or inuit or even jewish.......racist...

Cause, silly, Superman is the asian. Green Lantern is jewish. Green Lanter John Stewart, ironically, is still black.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

"Black batman" is stupid. There is however nothing wrong with batman being black. Nothing in any of the story lines or any of the various versions of his often recreated backstory require a particular ethnicity.

Of my two favorite Catwomen (that looks odd...Catwomans?) one happens to be white, one black. Ethnicity doesn't matter to the character at all.

It would only matter if something about the character is inherently race based. I can't think of one at the moment, but to give a silly example, if a Nazi superhero was turned from White Christian to Black Gay Jew in a retcon.

Ethnicity is not the same as race. Black is not a race. And a black gay Jewish Nazi would be hilarious. Every Nazi ever should be retconned as black, gay, and Jewish.

Well race isn't a word with a university definition, but in general terms, yes, black probably does meet the definition of race, in fact skin colour was one of the primary determining factors in that non scientific word's early use. You know, that's why people say its "racist" when you are anti-black. But you keep feeling smug if it makes you feel better. (Especially when your corrections are wrong lol)

Read my other post and recent edit. It was a typo. And there are plenty of university definitions for race, just ask a professor and there you go. I can insult you for making typos as well, but I am pretty certain your original misunderstanding of the differences between race and ethnicity were not typos.

 

[Nieroshai]

How about this: A Batman is black. Don't screw with who Bruce Wayne is. Him handing off the mantle of Batman has happened before, so as a what-if scenario he could pass it on to a black guy. As awesome as the new Nick Fury is, it makes no sense that he's black now. The writers should've just replaced him with a new director of SHIELD.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

"Black batman" is stupid. There is however nothing wrong with batman being black. Nothing in any of the story lines or any of the various versions of his often recreated backstory require a particular ethnicity.

Of my two favorite Catwomen (that looks odd...Catwomans?) one happens to be white, one black. Ethnicity doesn't matter to the character at all.

It would only matter if something about the character is inherently race based. I can't think of one at the moment, but to give a silly example, if a Nazi superhero was turned from White Christian to Black Gay Jew in a retcon.

Ethnicity is not the same as race. Black is not a race. And a black gay Jewish Nazi would be hilarious. Every Nazi ever should be retconned as black, gay, and Jewish.

Well race isn't a word with a university definition, but in general terms, yes, black probably does meet the definition of race, in fact skin colour was one of the primary determining factors in that non scientific word's early use. You know, that's why people say its "racist" when you are anti-black. But you keep feeling smug if it makes you feel better. (Especially when your corrections are wrong lol)

Read my other post and recent edit. It was a typo. And there are plenty of university definitions for race, just ask a professor and there you go. I can insult you for making typos as well, but I am pretty certain your original misunderstanding of the differences between race and ethnicity were not typos.

You claim now it was a typo...

And read my comment on your correction.

Also you might mean, University where I work, not where I go.

Let me help you out there, the term "race" is inherently "racist". There is no valid scientific use of the word, and no self respecting academic would suggest there was. Feel free to point me at that very clear universally accepted definition though.

A typo is a type of mistake.

Race is as real as we make it. You can't ignore the obvious social importance of the concept of race, even though it biologically doesn't exist. And yes there is no universally accepted definition. However, there is one for ethnicity, and it is not the same as race. Black is not an ethnicity, it is a race.

 

[Valdus]

I'd be pissed, if only because I think they would only ever do such a thing to stir up controversy. So I wouldn't have an issue with it directly, only because I think they would do it for the wrong reasons.