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Important note; Original Spiderman is still a honkey, equally at home in a bank boardroom, trailer park, hockey game, and under a white hood. This new Spiderman exists in a new, alternate universe.

   

I'd say generally yes, unless you have a good reason not to. This just feels like blatant pc pandering. What you wanna bet he turns out to be gay by the 5th issue?

   

What, why do you have to stay in the same race? Like why is race relevant at all?

Do you have to keep the same hair colour and eye colour too? And what's the point of killing off the main character if you're going to replace him with someone who's exactly the same?

   

There is only one Spiderman (Peter Parker), just as there is only one Superman (Clark Kent), only one Batman (Bruce Wayne), and so on and so forth.

This new character, despite being referred to as "the new Spiderman" is not Spiderman.

   

You don't have to do anything, but as I said, changing things like this just for the sake of being able to say "Hey, Look how inclusive and tolerant we are!!" is insulting to everyone involved. It's politically correct crap at it's worst.

   

So is it possible for a comic to have a successor character of a different race than the original without it seeming like they're saying "Hey, Look how inclusive and tolerant we are!!"

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I think any time you trumpet something like this you risk sounding like you're just trying to make a PC statement.

But maybe they just wanted a character that was noticably distinguishable from the predecessor and from other comic characters. Maybe market research told them this would spread the appeal of their product to a broader audience. Or maybe when they were considering different character prototypes, someone just pointed out that all-white cast of main characters wasn't really representative or relevant to today's demographic make-up. Are any of the above valid in your opinion?

   

It's not that none of those reasons could be considered valid, more that I think they would be better off satisfying their demographic or market shortfalls by coming up with an interesting new hero who happens to be black or latino or whatever. I think spider-man fans would be a little offended to see spidey used in such a blatant way, nd I think actual minority fans of comic books would be offended at being pandered to. As I said earlier, don't they deserve better than a second-hand hero?

   

But the whole point of the Spider-Man saga (as opposed to say "sky god" characters like Thor or Superman) Spidey is a random person. Parker was an average, everyday completely fallible human whose superpowers were the result of a random accident and were often more of a burden to him as a gift. Parker was always conflicted about his responsibilities, as they interfered with his love life, his career, and was constantly contemplating quitting the crime-fighting biz but he felt he had this moral obligation to his dead uncle and the "great power/great responsiblity" values that his uncle instilled in him.

I think the authors of Marvel (who have been instilling social messages in most of their comics since the 60s) had always tried to make Spider-Man's alter-ego a very human "everyman" character who had everyday problems and inner conflicts, and someone who could really be anybody. So show that Spidey can be any person from any background is actually kind of a central, don't you think?.

As was previously mentioned, this is only one "universe" series of Spidey comics. The main series still has Parker. So obviously they weren't willing to bet the whole franchise on this endeavour.

   

Any Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist superheroes out there? I know the Jews were given Magneto by Marvel.

   

Any word if the next Captain Canuck will not be White?

   

This is an alter universe spiderman.

However I don't see the benefit.

There are plenty of black superheroes that have strong followings.

Image comics were light years ahead. They had a black protagonist, his black wife, and his black best friend as the lead characters, back in 1992. And the target audience was not black. Then again, Todd was a white Canadian and until recently Canadians weren't fixated on race.

Also Marvel gave us Blade back in 1973 (as a cameo at first, then solo in 74).

Why don't they just invest a new black protagonist superhero? Start from scratch?

Fans don't like change like this. From a business perspective, it makes no sense.

   

I think there were a few 'others'. IIRC Betsy Braddock (Psylock), and Shiro Yoshida (Sunfire) were Shinto.

   

Some people may not know who Todd 'McFarlane' is. 'Spawn' was the comic. (I met him a couple times when I was working for a company with ties to the Oilers.)

   

So what you're saying is that the new spiderman won't be a nerdy douche then..

   

Okay, so I want to see the Shaka Zulu movie with Adam Sandler cast in the lead role. Or maybe we can do a Pancho Villa tribute with Colin Ferrell playing Pancho?

See, if this kind of thing with Spiderman is okay then turnabout should also be fair, right?

   

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