Thursday I Won’t Care About You #14: Hi, Miles. Welcome to the !#$%show.

Columns, Top Story

I’m sorry.

Those are the only words I can really open this column up with. In the wake of the super-double-whammy revelation that both our new Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, was black and puerto rican as well as the fact that Lawrence Fisbourne had been cast as Perry White in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, the comment sections of most of the news articles about these occurrences were utterly filled with some of the most foul and racist vitriol I have ever read.

I’m sorry that there are still so many close-minded people out there in their in this country with hearts full of hate. I’m sorry for any children they may have or happen to be in charge of because they won’t know what it’s like to grow up surrounded by tolerance and tenderness. And I’m especially sorry for the fact that these people have to take something as wonderful as the internet, this massive beautiful sea of knowledge and sharing and pornography, and use the curtain of anonymity it provides to spread their nastiness and ignorance. Despite this, part of me is glad.

I’m glad that most of these foul words haven’t been spouted off by actual comic book fans – just the racists who seem to prowl news sites for anything to pounce on. I guess that shows how far we’ve come. You know how they say “black don’t crack?”

Black doesn’t forget either.

I remember what you all were saying when Ronnie Raymond was replaced by Jason Rusch. I remember what you all were saying when Ray Palmer was replaced by Ryan Choi. I remember what you all were saying when Ted Kord was replaced by Ray Palmer. Fuck, I remember how mad some of you got that one of the Shadowland: Powerman tie-in issues had dialog that was in Spanish.

Maybe we as a fan community have grown more tolerant or maybe not enough people care about the sinking Ultimate line to voice how they really feel about this. Either way, those words aren’t forgotten, and God willing the universe has already paid you back for them ten-fold. You’d be wise to continue keeping your mouths shut.

I spent a long time thinking about what I wanted to write about Miles Morales and what that means for comics and for minorities. I thought about harkening back to my last column about Spider-Man, race and Donald Glover, but Mr. Bendis, the creator and architect of this whole event, has already made his opinion clear on those matters:

Nrama: This is kind of a weird, speculative question, but in a parallel universe where Ultimate Spider-Man was starting today, do you think you would have just made Peter Parker an ethnic minority?

Bendis: I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Peter Parker’s Peter Parker. This is a different character.

So, yeah, it’s not exactly as if I’ve been vindicated. And of course there’s someone reading this right now thinking “Well you got your black Spider-Man! Why aren’t you happy!?” And that person probably has no reading skills whatsoever because it’s pretty god damn obvious I wanted a black Peter Parker, but I’m not going to dovetail into that whole issue, considering this is a different can of worms entirely.

To address the most commonly spouted dissent I’ve seen about this move: Yes, it really would be nice to see Marvel (or even DC) launch books with brand-new black characters (Yes I’m aware of Batwing) but let’s just address the impossibility of that, shall we? Do you know how many regular series Marvel is publishing in September starring characters that were created in the last….let’s say…five years?

Avengers Academy, Generation Hope and Daken: Dark Wolverine.

Yeah. That’s pretty pathetic (all those books do feature minorities though…so yay!)

So yes, would I like a new, bad-ass minority hero? Absolutely. Do I recognize that comic fandom at large has made it utterly fucking impossible for new characters to get a foothold? Yes, yes I do. And you do too. Stop hiding behind that argument.

In regards to how I actually feel about the existence of Miles Morales, something I’ve done a pretty good job of beating around the bush about, well, I’ve got to tell you all about a dream I had the other night.

It was strange, mostly because most of the dreams I have where I’m a super-hero aren’t really that unpleasant – donning a proto-Iron Man suit as Tony Stark’s intern and getting wasted with him? Fun. Messing around in the danger room with my littler brother (I’m Cyclops, he’s Iceman) before doing battle with my little sister who’s the Red Skull and has an army of Hydra robots? Fun, albeit a little disturbing. This dream, however, wasn’t like any of those.

I was in the middle of Times Square, and I’m dressed like Spidey – I guess I was Spider-Man for intents and purposes – but I was in a pretty bad way, shot and bleeding out, a situation quite similar to the one Ultimate Peter Parker lost his life in.

There’s a crowd of people around me and they’re all yelling the normal things people yell at Spider-Man: “Call the police!” “Arrest him!” “Mutant!” “He’s a menace!” Because, y’know, people are idiots and it doesn’t matter how much good you do, it just matters the press you get. I’m doing my best to ignore them, obviously because I’m bleeding and I’d really like not to die. The only thought I remember having is “Fuck all this shit. I’m done. It’s not worth it. These people don’t deserve me.” So I pull off my mask. And then it happens.

“Spider-Man’s a nigger!”

I can’t remember what anyone else in this dream rabble may or may not of have said after that, it stopped being relevant. All I knew then, the only thing I could do at that point, was get up, my resolve strengthened. I knew that I had to keep going. And then I woke up.

For those of you who’ve never had the unfortunate occurrence of having someone attempt to belittle you because of the color of your skin, let me just tell you, shit fucking sucks.

It’s not one of those things you can just inure yourself too because in this modern era we live in, there just aren’t that many people willing to be out and out racist, for better or for worse. So the first time it happens, you’re walking up the street and someone drives by and yells “NIGGER!” it hurts and it’s scary. You tell yourself it’s just an isolated incident. Time passes, you move on. Then that shit happens again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The circumstances are always different, sometime it’s some asshole you cut off in traffic or it’s carved into the desk you’re sitting at in class or maybe it’s just someone who doesn’t give a fuck and will just call you that shit to your face. And every time it happens you don’t know what to do. It’s paralyzing. It’s terrifying. It’s hurtful.

And you’ve got two choices every time this goes down, you can bottle up all those negative feelings what just happened has brought out in you and tell yourself what just happened won’t happen again even though you know it will and you know it’ll bring back all those feelings again. You can just pretend that the world is a good place and that people are decent and that America is a wonderful post-racial utopia.

Or you can take all that negative energy and channel that into being the best you that you can be as you go about in the world trying to make it a little better than it was the day before.

That idea of redemption is what lies at the core of concept of Spider-Man. Peter Parker is a character who is always defined by his guilt – the fact that he was selfish and brash and stupid and because of that his Uncle Ben is dead. But you know what? If Peter Parker takes off that mask, not only does he get to be a white man, a label that just comes with a whole host of privileges, he also gets to be a motherfucking genius. There are no doors closed for Peter Paker. The only thing that holds him back is his quest for redemption.

Miles Morales on the otherhand? Doesn’t matter how smart he is, because of the color of his skin he will be patronized in the education system. When he goes to college people will always question if he’s there because of affirmative action. If he’s walking behind a white woman at night she might just cross the street. Shopkeepers will follow him around in stores. And most importantly: there will always be someone there to call him a nigger. Peter Parker may have been trying to redeem himself but Miles Morales quest will always inherently be about redeeming the world.

I’ve been reading Grant Morrison’s new book, Supergods, so forgive me if the next bit is a little out there. He talks a lot about superheroes as representations of concepts, Flash representing Mercury and all that jazz…I think he’s probably reading all this hubbub about the new Spider-Man and laughing his ass off. It’s clearly Anansi given form again and the biggest trick he’s playing is just making a shitload of people angry.

A lot of you probably think I keep leaving out the fact that he’s half Puerto-Rican as well. I’m not. The characters Hispanic background is merely a reemergence of a concept we’ve already seen throughout the Spider-Man mythos. Miguel O’Hara from 2099, anyone? Or how about poor Araña who most artists can’t bother to not draw as a white red head in her new Spider-Girl identity?

The totemistic qualities of Spider-Man was something touched on by JMS during his run. For those of you who don’t know, the far too cool for school character of Ezekiel, lectured Spider-Man on how the fact that he wore a spider on his chest is what attracted all his animal themed villains towards him. The announcement of Miles Morales’ background has had a similar effect – it’s dragged all the creepy-crawlies out into the open. Just so we don’t forget they’re there. Just so we don’t forget that we’ve all got to make the effort to be the best we can be to make up for all the people who relish in the fact that they’re disgusting.

More than anything else, the most hilarious thing about this situation is that if Peter Parker – either the Ultimate one that died or the 616 one – were real people, reading those comments on various places throughout the net, it’d probably really bum them out.

I’m Jay Galette and I’d really like it if the relaunched Ultimate Universe had more minorities in it than Nick Fury, Miles Morales and Storm.