Stan Lee on "Black Spider-Man"

[Therumancer]

They did have a black Green Lantern. If this was a different Spider-Man from Peter Parker (it makes no sense to change his skin color after three movies have defined his appearance one way), they could do whatever they wanted. Different origin story, villains, etc. Of course, that would take WORK, so forget that idea (obviously).

Well, there are numerous Green Lanterns, it's an entire organization. There have been a number of humans as members, including Hal, Kyle, John, and Guy over the years. John being the black one. They even operate concurrantly, and everything else.

There is some precedent for it, and there is no real reason why you couldn't put John Stewart into a movie in the role, providing of course it wasn't an overall origin story. Hal Jordan being "the" Green Lantern and the first all others followed.

Spider Man is however a singular individual, and has always been white (or a non-ethnic mutant). It's just how the character is.

It's sort of like how the character "Shaft" is a black guy, he just is. You can't really have a white Shaft with it being the same character.

As I said in a previous (very long) message, it's very true that there are a lack of black super heroes. Heck there is a general lack of black heroes in fantasy and science fiction. However that's not due to any racism, but due to a lack of black creators. Rather than trying to alter existing heroes to make people happy, I think black america needs to rise to the challenge, and create some if they want to see them. It's not easy, and a lot of people are going to fail of course, but with persistance it will work. I point towards asian influance on comic characters in the (relatively) recent past. That happened because asians started doing comics/fantasy/science fiction and a lot of it caught on, and became part of the creative metaconsciousness.

I will personally go so far as to say that they should not let this guy audition for the role. As I said before, it falls under "common sense". Some people will scream and yell about racism, but it's really not given the character. What's more that short term outcry, which I doubt many people who matter (in the comic fanbase) will care about, will probably do less damage than the doors that will be opened if they have to entertain every screwball who wants to make a discrimination issue out of auditions. It's like a guy demanding to be able to audition for a girl's role, or any other obvious mismatch. The idea is to cast the character as the creator envisions it, nothing else.

 

[are.you.the.god.its.me.vader]

It's a shame Samuel L. Jackson is already playing Nick Fury

 

[Con Carne]

We had a Black Green lantern, and that worked wonderfully well. I'd be down to seeing a black Spider Man, if the role fit. Though, he'd have to black and nerdy, though, otherwise the figure just doesn't hold in mind. Though...what if he were the Lizard, or Doc Ock? That might be a better fit, no?

A black Osbourn (sp) family would be awesome! Black Dr. Doom (he's a spidey villain) wold be another cool one.

Dr. Doom the Fantastic Four crossover villain? Or was there a Dr Doom I managed to miss somewhere?

That Dr. Doom. Originally he was a Spidey villain, but he has become associated with the Fantastic Four. The DD in the FF movie was pathetic. HE DOESN'T HAVE ELECTRIC POWERS!

Lol Uncle Ben, and Aunt Jemima! They would be his family.

I laughed. Every time he mentioned Uncle Ben in the comics or movies or whatever, I was always thinking about rice. Every single time.

My issue is "Why do we need a reboot of a three film franchise that didn't start in the 80s and hasn't turned into a trainwreck of brightly colored morons?"

Spider-Man is about a guy who suffers a great tragedy through his own selfishness and inaction. And it's that guilt that drives him to ensure that never happens to anyone else ever again... all while trying to be a normal guy and live a normal life. Nothing about that requires him to be white. At all.

Peter Parker is a nerdy white kid. What are you trying to say with that? Like... if he's black he has to wear platinum chains, listen to hip hop, and be the star running back of the high school football team?

Yeah, you're right. It's all about the character their personal development and the challenges they face, that helps us identify with them and draw us towards them.
Though the platinum wielding, hip-hop brandishing all-star would be a funny twist.
But I'm a bit of a purist. I prefer Venom coming from space instead of being created in a lab by Parker's and Brock's dads. I like Nick Fury being a built Mel Gibson with a white streak of hair. I like Beast being a gorilla-man thing instead of a humanoid cat creature.
I'm not against the characters new revisions, I just prefer the old ways. I am open to new ideas and am more than willing to give Parker a chance at being a different ethnicity. Whether it be African American, Japanese, or Hispanic. Just don't mess it up more than Raimi messes up the 3rd movie.

Beast was blue when Storm joined the team(and when he was on the Avengers, Giant Size X-men 1 I believe was when Storm joined, and Beast had a guest appearance a few issues later.), it was an extension of his mutation affecting his hair, turning him into a blue gorillia. I agree he shouldn't be a cat. While it wasn't at first, I'd still count it as the old ways.

Yeah, at first Beast was just a hairy, extremely agile scientist. Then he became the blue creature we've come to know and love. Just like you, I know it's not the original, but that's how he was when I first got into comics and what not.

 

[Cakes]

This is fucking ridiculous. It's his personality that defines him, not something as completely superficial as the amount of melanin in his skin. What particularly annoys me are the people claiming that, with Peter Parker the model skinny white nerd, it's impossible for the character to work any other way - apparently with the implication that black people are incapable of being weak or socially awkward.

Which isn't to say that there are some situations in which a black actor doesn't work in a certain role and vice versa, but this is most likely not one of those situations. Spider-Man's race has never been central to the story.

 

[F-I-D-O]

Given Fact: The man can act.
But his backstory is a lot more defined than Nick Fury and other examples. It would be difficult to twist certain parts of the story.
As Spiderman, he certainly can. As Peter Parker... that's up to the screenwriter.

Since when does Nick Fury not have back story? Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos was an entire series of back story. Many of the people from that comic translate into the newer Nick Fury comics (Dum Dum Dougan, G.W. Bridge)
Granted, the Ultimate (Samuel L. Jackson) has much less, and he was a recreation without the whole WWII veteran badass into a Vietnam veteran badass.
[sub][sub][sub]I feel like I'm nerd raging here, and realizing I probably have read to many comic books for my own good[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Mercurio128]

It may confuse people, but I'd rather have anyone than that whiney ***** Toby Maquire. I say they should go the other direction and have a spider-MAN. i.e. someone who needs to shave and doesn't think going evil and jazz music are the same thing.

 

[Redweevil]

Only if they cast Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory as Spawn, we demand if you make a nerdy white hero Black there be a balancer!

Hehe that would be great

 

[Virgil]

But Tobey Maguire was perfect. If anything, he was written terribly, but his sappy, pathetic emotions was perfect when lined up with the current Spider-Man

Yeah, I agree. He was a good casting for the role, and you could really see it in the first movie. I don't think you can blame him for how the more recent movies turned out.

But the film Nick Fury is based on the ultimate universe (in fact the only character so far) and this incarnation was black. In fact he was modeled after Samuel L. Jackson.

All of the Marvel-produced movies are melding the Ultimates universe and the classic comics to some degree. Which kind of makes sense, since they're retelling origin stories in the current time (which is what the Ultimate series was all about). Nick Fury's race is just the most obvious thing from the Ultimate series to show up.

Glover would probably make a good Black Panther though. Probably not Luke Cage.

Hal Jordan being "the" Green Lantern and the first all others followed.

Hal Jordan is the only Green Lantern. The others are just sidekicks

 

[chronobreak]

Didn't we just have a shit-ton of Spider-Man movies? Not even that long ago? What the hell is going on?

 

[mjc0961]

Only if Batman can be played by an asian woman next. I mean, who cares that Batman is white, and a man? As long as she can act, screw an established character's backstory!

 

[Ancientgamer]

I honestly love glover, he's a great actor, but on the other hand Toby Maquire really owned the role the fist time through. The skin color has nothing to do with it, Maguire has already been cemented in the public conciousness.


That's why I think the movie will fail in general, but if they're going to cast a new character anyway it may as well be Don Glover.

 

[Dorian6]

That would certainly be an interesting choice, and i might like to see where they go with it.

At this point I'll be happy if they cast anyone who isn't Taylor Lautner

 

[Spoon1138]

Oh god, how do I object to this idea without sounding racist?

I know other characters have been played by people of a different ethnicity before, but its a little different with a character like Peter Parker. He is a pasty nerd from Queens. That IS the character. I'm sure there are many a fine actor that could do the role justice who do not fall under this demographic, but I don't think it would go over well at all. Especially after three prior films in which the character was white.

Sony should get on their knees and beg Sam Raimi to come back and bring Toby McGuire with him. If they would just listen to the man and let him make the movie he wanted to none of this would be happening, and Spider-Man 3 could have been good.

 

[CJ1145]

I was against it at first, but I'm warming up to Glover. I could watch a black Spider-Man. Might be rather jarring, though. What if Tony Stark were played by a tiny asian man? They might never even mention his race, but it would still be rather strange to watch.

 

[Terminal Blue]

It really shouldn't matter as much as it seems to..

Firstly, 'black' is not the same as 'black stereotype'. Just because a character is played by an actor with more skin pigmentation doesn't mean they're automatically going to be played any differently. I know we're all used to hollywood giving us an endless stream of black actors playing either streetwise comic interlude sidekicks or growling badasses but seriously people, any actor worthy of the name has more range than that and any racial group as large as the American black population has more diversity than that.

Shaft is black because he's a blaxploitation character.. his blackness was his defining quality and the primary point on which he was sold to audiences, the same is not true and never has been true of spiderman. Shaft was created in the 1970s when you could get away with such crude and exploitative deployments of race because, heck, the civil rights movement was only just over and people were still feeling the divisions. I'd like to think that things are better now and we can accept a little more complexity in our racial stereotypes.

 

[JWAN]

Ill say ok if hes planning on restarting the movie series.

I hope they dont make him black just because they can.

 

[Dorian6]

Only if Batman can be played by an asian woman next. I mean, who cares that Batman is white, and a man? As long as she can act, screw an established character's backstory!

being white isn't so much a backstory.

And it's not really an established character. That's why it's called a "reboot" and not a "sequel". Just look at Ultimate Nick Fury

In the original story, Tony Stark was forced to build weapons for the Viet Kong before building his Iron Man suit. By your argument, they should have used the north Vietnamese in the Movie with Robert Downey Jr. rather than changing an "established character's backstory"

Also, idk about a woman, but I wouldn't mind seeing Batman played by an Asian *man*. I don't see the problem there.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

The part comes to life when the costume is donned. It really doesn't matter to me what ethnicity the actor is. Plus, I think a black Spiderman would be cool!

 

[Kevin Hyena]

Given Fact: The man can act.
But his backstory is a lot more defined than Nick Fury and other examples. It would be difficult to twist certain parts of the story.
As Spiderman, he certainly can. As Peter Parker... that's up to the screenwriter.

Since when does Nick Fury not have back story? Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos was an entire series of back story. Many of the people from that comic translate into the newer Nick Fury comics (Dum Dum Dougan, G.W. Bridge)
Granted, the Ultimate (Samuel L. Jackson) has much less, and he was a recreation without the whole WWII veteran badass into a Vietnam veteran badass.
[sub][sub][sub]I feel like I'm nerd raging here, and realizing I probably have read to many comic books for my own good[/sub][/sub][/sub]

Note I said "defined:. I know most of Nick Fury's backstory. And I know his awesomeness. But most people don't. But Spiderman is considered by most people a more popular character. And by default, more people know his complete background and would feel any changes to his character would be "wrong".
That's more to what I meant.

 

[Lamppenkeyboard]

That is pretty odd. I could watch it, but it would be pretty weird.

Unless it was Samuel L Jackson. In fact, I think they should have a movie where Spiderman, Nick Fury, and Shaft (all played by Sammy J) team up to fight zombies riding dinosaurs. The technology to make it exists. All that is necessary is the WILL.