Ultimate Spider Man: Peter Parker is dead, long live Spider-Man

[Nique]

I know we've got a Spider-Man thread going but that's about out of steam and was more about the upcoming film until Fifth brought this up. I figured we could have a discussion proper about Marvel's 'Ultimate' universe death of Peter Parker and introduction of a new Spider-Man in Miles Morales - a half-Black half-Latino kid who, also has Spider-Powers, I guess?

On one hand, I kind of understand if some people are hesitant to accept a change like this becuase in order to really enjoy comics from the big two these days you are basically ok with the state of their continuity. This means a constant return to the status quo i.e. superhero dead = not really dead. I guess I can also see a slightly more rational argument about it not really being Spider-Man unless it's Peter Parker or something too, so I don't know if it's entirely fair to label everyone who has a problem with it as a racisms (although a lot of people are being hella racisms about this).

As far as complaints that the race of the character is motivated solely by some kind of affirmative action based quota filling... I mean, it seems like comics have gotten by for quite a long time having primarily white characters and quota filling by transforming third tier characters into ethnic stereotypes. Add to this that Peter Parker as Spider-Man is probably the most popular comic book character of all time means killing him off and replacing him with anyone else is going to be a controversial move anyway, so that doesn't seem to be a likely motive.

Black Nerd Comedy has a perspective on this also.