Vault Citizen said:
As a comic book fan the reason why I rejected the idea of a black spiderman and why I'd probably dislike a black Batman is that personally speaking I can be a bit of a nut for detail. More simply put I like it better when they match and when they don't it annoys me in the same way it might annoy a neat freak if a fork is out of place or something.
I can agree with this, to the extent I still mean to find the passage in Tolkein's writing that describes the differing appearances of different Hobbits from different parts of the Shire to see whether or not a Pakistani woman should, imo, be allowed to play a Hobbit *dives behind asbestos wall* ...
... but I can see another problem with the idea of a black Batman.
Think about Batman's back-story.
Origin [http://www.comicvine.com/batman/29-1699/]
While leaving a movie theater for home, wealthy philanthropist Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha were accompanied by their 8 year-old son, Bruce. As they stepped onto Park Row (now called Crime Alley) a masked gunman called Joe Chill came out of the shadows. Chill shot and killed both Thomas and Martha in cold blood right in front of their young boy. Bruce was traumatized at the sight of his parents' death and his life would never be the same. After his parents' death, Bruce was raised by his wise and loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth and inherited his family's vast fortune as well as his father's company, Wayne Enterprises. ... With so many skills acquired, Bruce considered joining the FBI but learned that he could never fight crime within the current legal system.
The same page says Batman was first published in 1939. Wealthy black philanthropists with a wise and loyal butler and a vast fortune, in a city in the USA in 1939? Alright, him being unable to fight crime within the FBI matches being black in the USA in 1939 fairly well, but the rest of that story just doesn't.
A modern Batman, born after 1990, could be black and have that back-story ... just. [http://www.blackentrepreneurprofile.com/black-billionaires/]
I'll tell you who
should be black but probably won't be in most cases: God, Michael, Gabriel, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Joshua, Abraham ...
Specifically:
World's most ancient race traced in DNA study [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/worlds-most-ancient-race-traced-in-dna-study-1677113.html]
The San people of southern Africa, who have lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, are likely to be the oldest population of humans on Earth, according to the biggest and most detailed analysis of African DNA. The San, also known as bushmen, are directly descended from the original population of early human ancestors who gave rise to all other groups of Africans and, eventually, to the people who left the continent to populate other parts of the world.
A study of 121 distinct populations of modern-day Africans has found that they are all descended from 14 ancestral populations and that the differences and similarities of their genes closely follows the differences and similarities of their spoken languages.
Yes, I have seen
Dogma. I did say "in most cases" there.