AP Wire's weak focus on Spider-Man's 60th year
The Tri-State Homepage/AP Wire ran an article ostensibly about Spider-Man's 60th anniversary, which seems geared more to promoting leftist diversity propaganda than serious focus on story merit from past to present:
And as mentioned before, no mention of Mary Jane Watson was made in this superficial item. What was all that talk about Spidey inspiring then? Because if some of the most significant creations and developments in Spidey history don't matter to the MSM, then they've got no business claiming to be Spidey fans. The 60th year for Spider-Man has not been represented well at all.
There are legions of fans of Spider-Man, who this month marks 60 years in the vast, imaginative world of comic books, movies and merch. Among those fans are devotees like Hoover, a professional Spider-Man cosplayer and model who doesn’t resemble the longtime “canon” presentation of the character. However, in the cinematic and comics universes, a Black Spider-Man is now reality.Just why is this so important, to emphasize that the costume bears meaning transcending racial background, and how in the past decade, a biracial protagonist named Miles Morales was created (by the overrated Brian Bendis) for the sake of diversity box checking? Why is this so far more important than entertainment value?
Hoover is biracial — of Black and white ancestry — and stands at 6 feet 2 inches. And the story of his fandom illustrates an important point about New York City’s favorite super-powered wall-crawler: The appeal of the character long ago transcended its original iteration as a white, unimposing, orphaned teenager.
The Spider-Man character’s classic costume, complete with wide-eyed and web-patterned mask, is a key ingredient to the character’s appeal across race, gender and nationality. Almost anyone can imagine themselves behind it as this everyman — an underestimated smartypants who, after a quick change into head-to-toe spandex, becomes a force for good.
“The older I got, slowly but surely, I saw how relatable the character was,” Hoover says. “He had to work through his struggles while still maintaining a secret identity and doing good for the people. That kind of moral compass is powerful, especially for an impressionable mind.”As big a Spidey fan as I am, I can't concur with this. Even the richer superheroes like Iron Man can be believable if the cards are played right for this goal. Daredevil's served similar purposes to Spidey too, even if Matt Murdock was in a wealthier situation than Peter Parker was during a time when merit mattered. Yet this article curiously fails to cite Mary Jane Watson, or how, when they married in 1987, they were able to afford better housing than the petite apartments Peter could live in prior to marriage. How mysterious. Yet they didn't have a problem citing another female character created much more recently, while discussing the Black heroes who were turning up in the late 60s:
More importantly, Hoover says, it’s Spider-Man’s struggle to protect his hometown that makes the character more believable than superheroes whose origin stories include wealth and influence. No coincidence, surely, that he refers to himself as “your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”
Racially and culturally diverse superheroes, generally absent from the mainstream comics scene during its first decades, began to emerge in the years after Spider-Man’s debut, particularly at Marvel.IIRC, wasn't Silk created by Dan Slott? Why should anyone care about the works of a writer who was instrumental in devastating whatever remained of Spider-Man for the sake of pointless, dreadful stories produced after Joe Quesada mandated Peter and MJ sell out their marriage to Mephisto, and was known as a terrible left-wing ideologue who blocked tons of people on Twitter if he hated their positions? And what proof do they have in sales receipts that Morales really became popular?
In 1966, Black Panther, also known as Prince T’Challa of the fictional and reclusive African nation of Wakanda, became the first Black Marvel comic superhero. Debuting in the 1970s were characters such as Storm, the mutant goddess most known as a member of Marvel’s X-Men; Luke Cage, Marvel’s formerly imprisoned Black Harlemite with superhuman strength and nearly impenetrable skin; Shang-Chi, the master martial artist who is among the first Asian Marvel superheroes; and Red Wolf, the expert archer and first Native American Marvel superhero.
“Sometimes when we think of superheroes, we think of billionaires in suits, brilliant scientists or Norse gods,” says Angélique Roché, host of the podcast “Marvel’s Voices” and co-author of the upcoming book “My Super Hero Is Black.”
Spider-Man turned the idea of mostly privileged humans using their wealth and power to become heroes on its head, she says. Spider-Man iterations, in the comics and in film, have appeared across multiple universes, or the so-called “spiderverse.” Miles Morales, a teenage, Afro Latino Spider-Man, has become wildly popular and starred in his own animated feature film. Cindy Moon, a Korean-American known as Silk, was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker.
Because of the mask, Spider-Man has been a safer choice for cosplayers hoping to avoid the staunch purists, or those who criticize others for deviating from canonized representations of superheroes. But cosplay doesn’t have to be canon, says Andrew Liptak, a historian and author of the book “Cosplay, a History: The Builders, Fans, and Makers Who Bring Your Favorite Stories to Life.”Oh, for heaven's sake. Of course there's nothing wrong with fans of color dressing up in costumes at conventions based on what white heroes wore, including Superman, but there is something wrong with forcibly changing the structure of the original protagonists back in the comics proper for political reasons. Even in movies and television, this identity politics mess has been going awfully far, and it's time to stop. Besides, if recent Marvel adaptations say something, they're not pleasing anybody of any background.
“Ultimately, it’s about your relationship to the character,” he says. “You’re literally wearing your fandom on your sleeves.”
Liptak also says it’s unfair to expect fans of color to dress up only as superheroes whose appearance or skin color matches their own.
In the recent film “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” Electro, the villain played by Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx, joked to Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man that he was surprised Spider-Man wasn’t Black. Whether or not that opens the door to a live-action Black Spider-Man in future films, Hoover says Spider-Man should never be boxed into just one look.I wonder if this guy'd be willing to admit you shouldn't desecrate the source material, as J. Michael Straczynski did with Sins Past, for the sake of making Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane both look awful? But all the AP's interested in here is cosplay. And seriously, do they really think Spidey's ethnicity doesn't matter, or is dispensible? That's running the gauntlet of validating the identity politics that have become a sad staple of modern pop culture. It's important to consider that a lot of the SJWs who're fine with turning Spidey black would not be in favor of turning Black Panther white, nor do they care BP's co-creators were white themselves - Lee and Kirby. Plus, regarding social status, what about veterans like actor Eddie Murphy? He was once very popular in movies and the comedy scene, and is obviously one of the wealthiest guys of Black background in entertainment. And there's plenty of whites who're far less wealthy by contrast. This lecture we're getting via the AP isn't helpful.
“You will get those who argue, if you turn Spider-Man Black then you can turn T’Challa white,” Hoover says. “Spider-Man was never really defined by his ethnicity, but more so his social status and the struggles he went through. That’s even more relatable for people of color and different ethnicities, because there’s a lot of struggle involved in life that you have to persevere through.”
And as mentioned before, no mention of Mary Jane Watson was made in this superficial item. What was all that talk about Spidey inspiring then? Because if some of the most significant creations and developments in Spidey history don't matter to the MSM, then they've got no business claiming to be Spidey fans. The 60th year for Spider-Man has not been represented well at all.
Labels: Black Panther, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, Spider-Man, women of marvel
