Why the Marvel Movies Should Ditch Peter Parker

[faefrost]

Ugh! The only reason people have a hard on for having Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker in the new movie is simply because he's black. End of story. It's more of the same politically correct bullshit that got us the train wreck that was Avengers NOW! and this god awful lady Thor book and the upcoming mess of a book that's nothing but female heroes. The same people who are going elbow deep to pull reasons out of their ass other than "Because he's black" to justify having Miles Morales in the movie would collectively lose their shit if Marvel decided to go with a white guy to fill a traditionally black role.

It's not about political correctness, it's about appealing to more markets. Marvel has only two major black characters in the works; one is an african king and the other is an ex con. Black parents want to buy toys for their kids that are positive role models they can identify with, Marvel happens to likes making money; do you see where I'm going with this? In this day and age a lot of "political correctness" is just recognizing that black money spends as well as well as white.

Marvel likes making money... Which is why they will not be crazy enough to mess with the central pillar of their empire without definitive or desperate reason. People buy Spiderman toys hand over fist now. They will not risk that by queuing up a pc stunt. The MCU has thrived by hewing pretty close to what the public expects. Much like the Winter Soldier they may setup Miles in the wings as a possible shock replacement in the future, but when Spider-Man first hits the big screen alongside the Avengers, it will be exactly the Spider-Man everybody recognizes and is expecting. Anything else is marketing and merchandising suicide. The last thing they want is fans going "yay! We got Spider-man back.... Ummm who the f is that?" Remember Marvel struck out on their own in making movies largely because everyone they licensed the characters to changed them in ways that the fans found unrecognizable.

Also, as much as I hate to bring this up, please remember that the Market Marvel appeals to is international. And as hard as we try to be diverse over here in North America, other markets will still not go see a black lead in the same numbers. Largely the Far East. And their isn't enough of an African Market yet to balance that out. Remember Sony had fairly legitimate concerns that a Denzel Washington would underperform in China. Pascal got slammed for it, but it is kind of the undeniable truth. While Sony did the right thing and released it anyway, they're not going to undermine a sure thing by deviating from the expected.

 

[Robot-Jesus]

Ugh! The only reason people have a hard on for having Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker in the new movie is simply because he's black. End of story. It's more of the same politically correct bullshit that got us the train wreck that was Avengers NOW! and this god awful lady Thor book and the upcoming mess of a book that's nothing but female heroes. The same people who are going elbow deep to pull reasons out of their ass other than "Because he's black" to justify having Miles Morales in the movie would collectively lose their shit if Marvel decided to go with a white guy to fill a traditionally black role.

It's not about political correctness, it's about appealing to more markets. Marvel has only two major black characters in the works; one is an african king and the other is an ex con. Black parents want to buy toys for their kids that are positive role models they can identify with, Marvel happens to likes making money; do you see where I'm going with this? In this day and age a lot of "political correctness" is just recognizing that black money spends as well as well as white.

Marvel likes making money... Which is why they will not be crazy enough to mess with the central pillar of their empire without definitive or desperate reason. People buy Spiderman toys hand over fist now. They will not risk that by queuing up a pc stunt. The MCU has thrived by hewing pretty close to what the public expects. Much like the Winter Soldier they may setup Miles in the wings as a possible shock replacement in the future, but when Spider-Man first hits the big screen alongside the Avengers, it will be exactly the Spider-Man everybody recognizes and is expecting. Anything else is marketing and merchandising suicide. The last thing they want is fans going "yay! We got Spider-man back.... Ummm who the f is that?" Remember Marvel struck out on their own in making movies largely because everyone they licensed the characters to changed them in ways that the fans found unrecognizable.

My position is that they should just make Parker black or Korean, as there is nothing specifically white about the character in any way that matters; bringing in the new guy would be a mistake.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Yeah, I echo some other thoughts here: Miles while not entirely bad as a character, has the majority of his character rooted in being the follow up spider-man, and the rest being his trust issues with his father and uncle. At leasst Spider-Girl got out of her Father's shadow very quickly.

I get people want diversity and most of Marvel's better known black characters have ties to the X-Men and thus are off the table, but do we always have to go for the obvious? No Specturm (or whatever she's calling herself right now), Night Thrasher (maybe too much of a Batman ripoff), Rage (skip the 90s attitude and focus on the 14 year old in the adult's body), Living Lighting (gay Latinos need love too), Triathlon (okay bad idea), White Tiger, Captain Universe.... come on people. spread the love instead of picking the popular favorite.

 

[bat32391]

I think he needs to stay Peter. I don't care if he's red, orange, blue, or purple. But Peter will always be the real Spiderman to me.

 

[esserin]

Have Peter Parker show up but only in the background. So, that the fans know that there's no movie but he does exist. Then, make him appear in civil war or something and end it with his death which will catch people off-guard (What?! They killed spiderman?!?). Then you focus on Miles Morales who`s origin (living up to another hero`s legacy) is not something that has been done so far.

Boom

Then, you make all the money.

 

[Kontarek]

Honestly, I'd take a black Peter Parker over this guy I've never heard of.

 

[ShirowShirow]

Sure are a lot of people that are offended by the idea of a black spider man in here.

But of course, us annoying social justice warriors are the overly sensitive ones.

 

[Drago-Morph]

Sure are a lot of people that are offended by the idea of a black spider man in here.

But of course, us annoying social justice warriors are the overly sensitive ones.

I've seen, like, two comments that are offended at the idea of a black Spider-Man on the basis of him being black. The other disapproving comments are offended at the frankly ridiculous disregard that's being shown to the characters of both Peter Parker and Miles Morales.

People want more diversity in media, so a new Spider-Man is a fantastic opportunity for that. Sure, I get that. Black Spider-Man? Sure, go for it, why not? But then folks are making the jump from "let's have a black Spider-Man" to "hey, we've got a black Spidey over here just lying around, let's throw him in there!" The people suggesting this don't even seem to know much about Miles; I've seen quite a few suggestions that Donald Glover play him. Miles is thirteen. Or was, I think there was a timeskip recently so he may be a few years older, but not much. Do you not see the problem here? Beyond that, a significant chunk of the character, including his origin, revolves around the death of Peter and living up to that legacy as Spider-Man. If you take away what has been one of the defining character traits and plot points from a character that's been around for three years, is that even the same character?

I don't see many people getting upset at the idea of a black Spidey. I see people getting upset at the immense disrespect directed at these two fantastic characters by botching their stories and identities, and reducing a unique and well developed character down to, "hey, he's black, they should use him and damn the fact that his story won't make sense!", not to even mention how racist that sentiment is in and of itself.

Miles Morales is not "Spider-Man but black", he's Miles Morales. Peter Parker is not "white Spidey", he's Peter Parker. Both of these amazing characters should be treated with the honor they deserve, not mangled by a bunch of armchair experts who clearly don't understand either character hamfistedly trying to cram diversity into the MCU like a bunch of toddlers with block puzzles.

Those who advocate booting Miles Morales in to fill Peter Parker's shoes on the basis of his race alone do a great disservice to the characters, to the stories, and to the notion of honest and quality representation of minorities in media.

 

[JET1971]

People are not tired of Peter parker, they are tired of the origin story that they keep rehashing and the same villains. Origin story then the sequel has the same villains then we are back to origin story for the next movie. That's why people are tired of him, he's not developing as a character when he is always fighting the same villains or it is another origin story. Putting peter parker with any of the rest of the universe allows them to develop the character further and have new and exciting villains. If they do the Green Goblin and origin again I will puke, same with Batman and Joker.

 

[Nurb]

I'm totally cool with Miles, but I'm not OK with the reason for choosing him being this ever growing "Too many white people" mantra and paying no attention to what the character himself was.

And I'm sick of origin stories for the familiar characters too, dammit, no more origin stories. Just making a full feature length story with something interesting going on. It takes at least 5-6 years for 2 movies to be made, and it's a waste of time to re-establish all this stuff.

 

[Ukomba]

If Marvel wanted another character to play Spidey they would have just changed the name of the character and his alter ego.

Uhh...no they wouldn't do that, it wouldn't even work, people are way too picky. Besides owning Spider-Man equates to owning all the spider related characters as well so it would be a huge legal mess to even try something like that.


OP: Definitely expecting the old Parker luck to force us into the same character we've been getting all along. Garfield really soured me on Peter Parker and I'd love a new direction but as long as they don't make 'Twilight but with Webbing' again, it can't be too bad.

Aren't they essentially doing exactly that with the Scarlet Witch and Quick Silver?

Not really, I suppose you could maybe see it from that perspective but Marvel owns those two characters, that's why they can use them. All they are doing is slightly changing how they got their powers, that's it. Also most film-goers don't give two shits about Scarlet and Quick but we're talking about the goddamn Spider-Man here.

I meant the legal aspect. As an outside observer, the ownership of the two seems questionable since Disney and Fox are both using them. It seems Disney is getting around Foxes actual ownership of them by altering them, an alteration that might have worked for Spider-man too.

Side Note. While Spider-man is obviously a bigger deal, I do believe, After 'X-Men: days of future past', there will be quite a few people who care about Quick Silver.

Actually from my understanding it was Fox that screwed up. Their license includes all of the Marvel Mutants, but specifically leaves Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver as Avengers. They were supposed to be excluded from Fox's license. Fox chose to only focus on the "all the mutants" part and ignore the exceptions. That is part of the bad blood now swirling between Fox and Marvel.

Huh, did not know that. Still, less of a dick move than The '1994 Fantastic Four'ing Red Eagle just did to the Wheel of Time.

 

[tzimize]

Yeah... no. How about instead we have Spider Girl and stop pretending that race is the most important factor in choosing a superhero. The political correctness in this article is off the charts.

Agree! Nobody would want Black Panther to be white, why should it be the other way around?

I have nothing against a black/hispanic character in the Marvel U, but when people think of spider man, they think of Peter Parker. Thats who he is. Batman is Bruce Wayne. Wolverine is Logan. If you want another character, make another superhero! Honestly, how hard is it?

 

[Maxtro]

I completely disagree.

Peter Parker is the only Spider-Man.

Miles Morales was only made for "diversity" reasons.

And no, changing Peter Parker into a different race is a horrible idea.

 

[Mister K]

Ugh! The only reason people have a hard on for having Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker in the new movie is simply because he's black. End of story. It's more of the same politically correct bullshit that got us the train wreck that was Avengers NOW! and this god awful lady Thor book and the upcoming mess of a book that's nothing but female heroes. The same people who are going elbow deep to pull reasons out of their ass other than "Because he's black" to justify having Miles Morales in the movie would collectively lose their shit if Marvel decided to go with a white guy to fill a traditionally black role.

It's not about political correctness, it's about appealing to more markets. Marvel has only two major black characters in the works; one is an african king and the other is an ex con. Black parents want to buy toys for their kids that are positive role models they can identify with, Marvel happens to likes making money; do you see where I'm going with this? In this day and age a lot of "political correctness" is just recognizing that black money spends as well as well as white.

I'll say what I've said in a lot of other threads like this:
If there is a market, then how about making NEW characters? I mean, there ARE a lot of goddesses to choose from to make another divine character. We have Amaterasu, Japanese godess of sun, Morigan, Irish goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty,Coyolxauhqui, apowerful magician goddess from Aztec mythos (Coyo for short, maybe) and a LOT of others. But nooo, Marvel is too lazy and/or stupid to make new characters anymore, so let's give Thor tits.

Same situation with Morales. We are too lazy/stupid to create another non-white male character, so let's race swap the existing one. Hell, you want African deity, maybe? Then pay Neil Gaiman and buy rights for Anansi Brothers characters. Make it so that there is a heroic duo of sons of African song and trickery god and their villain is bloodthirsty Tiger god. Nope, race swap is the only way to do these things.

Just go and piss off more nerds.

OT: Movie goers don't know anything about comicbook characters and they know only one Spider-Man: Peter Parker. Making another alter ego for movie version is risky and can push away audience.

 

[Robot-Jesus]

suspension of disbelief my friend. One god people can swallow, two? that's asking a bit too much.; especially from different pantheons.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Come on guys, how long have we wanted marvel to get their own shot at making a spider man movie? Now they get to do it and you want to change the character? I want to see marvel do a movie on Peter Parker, I do not care if you make him black. I have groaned my way threw 5 spiderman movies, I want an awesome one.

 

[Silverspetz]

Ugh! The only reason people have a hard on for having Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker in the new movie is simply because he's black. End of story. It's more of the same politically correct bullshit that got us the train wreck that was Avengers NOW! and this god awful lady Thor book and the upcoming mess of a book that's nothing but female heroes. The same people who are going elbow deep to pull reasons out of their ass other than "Because he's black" to justify having Miles Morales in the movie would collectively lose their shit if Marvel decided to go with a white guy to fill a traditionally black role.

It's not about political correctness, it's about appealing to more markets. Marvel has only two major black characters in the works; one is an african king and the other is an ex con. Black parents want to buy toys for their kids that are positive role models they can identify with, Marvel happens to likes making money; do you see where I'm going with this? In this day and age a lot of "political correctness" is just recognizing that black money spends as well as well as white.

I'll say what I've said in a lot of other threads like this:
If there is a market, then how about making NEW characters? I mean, there ARE a lot of goddesses to choose from to make another divine character. We have Amaterasu, Japanese godess of sun, Morigan, Irish goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty,Coyolxauhqui, apowerful magician goddess from Aztec mythos (Coyo for short, maybe) and a LOT of others. But nooo, Marvel is too lazy and/or stupid to make new characters anymore, so let's give Thor tits.

Same situation with Morales. We are too lazy/stupid to create another non-white male character, so let's race swap the existing one. Hell, you want African deity, maybe? Then pay Neil Gaiman and buy rights for Anansi Brothers characters. Make it so that there is a heroic duo of sons of African song and trickery god and their villain is bloodthirsty Tiger god. Nope, race swap is the only way to do these things.

Just go and piss off more nerds.

OT: Movie goers don't know anything about comicbook characters and they know only one Spider-Man: Peter Parker. Making another alter ego for movie version is risky and can push away audience.

Just because there is a market for minority characters doesn't mean that they are given the same chance as other characters. Simply making new characters to represent minorities rarely works because while many people would like to see more representation, few people are willing to take a risk by buying new and untested books. And if the readers are unwilling to risk their Money on an untested character with no history, then the Publishers that ultimatelyy have to sign on for this risk Before the readers even get a chance to support it are even worse. Comics are an expensive hobby you know. Hence why new minority characters are generally legacy heroes or related to other characters so that they can borrow some brand recognition while they get started.

Also, what's with all the God motifs for those characters? You couldn't Think of ANY other origin for a minority than just being the avatar of some deity? And I'm fairly certain that Neil Gaiman doesn't own the rights to Anansi the spider. Unless they were genuinely adapting HIS version of the character they could just do their own version of it.

 

[Mister K]

Ugh! The only reason people have a hard on for having Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker in the new movie is simply because he's black. End of story. It's more of the same politically correct bullshit that got us the train wreck that was Avengers NOW! and this god awful lady Thor book and the upcoming mess of a book that's nothing but female heroes. The same people who are going elbow deep to pull reasons out of their ass other than "Because he's black" to justify having Miles Morales in the movie would collectively lose their shit if Marvel decided to go with a white guy to fill a traditionally black role.

It's not about political correctness, it's about appealing to more markets. Marvel has only two major black characters in the works; one is an african king and the other is an ex con. Black parents want to buy toys for their kids that are positive role models they can identify with, Marvel happens to likes making money; do you see where I'm going with this? In this day and age a lot of "political correctness" is just recognizing that black money spends as well as well as white.

I'll say what I've said in a lot of other threads like this:
If there is a market, then how about making NEW characters? I mean, there ARE a lot of goddesses to choose from to make another divine character. We have Amaterasu, Japanese godess of sun, Morigan, Irish goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty,Coyolxauhqui, apowerful magician goddess from Aztec mythos (Coyo for short, maybe) and a LOT of others. But nooo, Marvel is too lazy and/or stupid to make new characters anymore, so let's give Thor tits.

Same situation with Morales. We are too lazy/stupid to create another non-white male character, so let's race swap the existing one. Hell, you want African deity, maybe? Then pay Neil Gaiman and buy rights for Anansi Brothers characters. Make it so that there is a heroic duo of sons of African song and trickery god and their villain is bloodthirsty Tiger god. Nope, race swap is the only way to do these things.

Just go and piss off more nerds.

OT: Movie goers don't know anything about comicbook characters and they know only one Spider-Man: Peter Parker. Making another alter ego for movie version is risky and can push away audience.

Just because there is a market for minority characters doesn't mean that they are given the same chance as other characters. Simply making new characters to represent minorities rarely works because while many people would like to see more representation, few people are willing to take a risk by buying new and untested books. And if the readers are unwilling to risk their Money on an untested character with no history, then the Publishers that ultimatelyy have to sign on for this risk Before the readers even get a chance to support it are even worse. Comics are an expensive hobby you know. Hence why new minority characters are generally legacy heroes or related to other characters so that they can borrow some brand recognition while they get started.

Also, what's with all the God motifs for those characters? You couldn't Think of ANY other origin for a minority than just being the avatar of some deity? And I'm fairly certain that Neil Gaiman doesn't own the rights to Anansi the spider. Unless they were genuinely adapting HIS version of the character they could just do their own version of it.

Well, sometimes you actually HAVE to make risks, especially if you want to not piss of existing fanbase AND show that you are pro diversity. Maybe Marvel actually SHOULD risk and make original character once in a while.

As for "deity" question: My deity argument started from my Thorita argument. And then I combined Thorita situation with Morales situation into African deity argument.

And no, I don't think that "minority" character has to be somehow connected to deity, I was on a deity roll. Race and whatevs doesn't matter in making good character, whose character does not center around his/her etnicity.

As for Anansi, no, Geiman doesn't own this god, but I am more than sure that he owns Fat Charlie Nancy and Spider.

And please DO refrain from making assumptions about people you know nothing about. And please DO take less aggresive stance. People will be more willing do have discussions with you.

 

[Bindal]

Yeah, let's ditch the most recognizable civilian identity of one of the most well known Marvel Superheroes for someone barely anyone outside the hardcore comic fans knows jack about.

Or they do the smart thing and DON'T do that.

 

[Jake Martinez]

I like Peter Parker.

I have zero interest in seeing a Spider-Man that is not Peter Parker. I'm not a fan of the alternative continuities and I actually despise even the main continuity's extended Spider-Family rip-offs.