Today marks the much-awaited debut of the new Ultimate Spider-Man series, with half black/half Latino Miles Morales as the newest web-slinger. The book re-launches with a new No. 1 issue, and is available in both paper and digital formats.
The new Spidey lives in Brooklyn with his parents, and was revealed in Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Fallout Issue 4. In his first appearance, Miles Morales took on a thug called the Kangaroo, ultimately delivering justice, then climbing up onto a rooftop where he pulls the mask from his sweating face, revealing that he was a black kid. He took over after the previous Spider-Man, Peter Parker, was killed off during a fight with Green Goblin, in Ultimate Spider-Man Issue #160 back in June this year.
For those of you that panicked about losing the old Spider-Man (like us), Peter Parker will still be the same web-swinging Spidey as always in the regular Marvel Universe. If you didn’t know, the Ultimate line launched in 2000 to tell contemporary stories about a lot of Marvel’s characters, including Spider-Man, The Avengers, and a some others. Spider-Man got a new origin and a re-imagined supporting cast that paralleled the regular Marvel’s Spidey.
When the decision to make the new Spider-Man Latino was first announced, there was a lot of controversy regarding his race from the comic book community, with some people claiming that that Marvel was changing the character’s race to be more PC. Axel Alonso, Marvel’s chief editor, had this to say:
“The superhero genre has been dominated by Caucasian superheroes from Superman to Batman… When Spider-Man peels back that mask, there will be a whole new demographic of kids who we’ll be reaching on a new spiritual level.”
“What you have is a Spider-Man for the 21st century who’s reflective of our culture and diversity. We think that readers will fall in love with Miles Morales the same way they fell in love with Peter Parker.”
Alonso said the idea of a black Spider-Man first came up when President Barack Obama, whose father was African, ran for the White House, becoming the first president with African-American roots. The decision to go with a mixed-race character instead of just black (like Black Panther in the 1960’s), was also important.
Alonso has also said that his father is Mexican and mother British, while writer Brian Michael Bendis is Jewish and has two adopted children from Africa. “So I know for him it was definitely personal,” Alonso said.
But Marvel needed the right occasion to make the switch and that came when the story resulted in the death of Peter Parker. “In order to kill Spider-Man, we needed to know who to put in his place,” Alonso said.
In addition to the name, Miles Morales has a connection to his predecessor in how he received his powers. But he will have different abilities, as well. Supporting characters including Peter’s Aunt May and Gwen Stacy also will give Miles bits of wisdom along the way to help in his path to New York City superhero.
“The theme is the same: With great power comes great responsibility,” says writer Brian Michael Bendis. “He’s going to learn that. Then he has to figure out what that means.”
Italian artist Sara Pichelli, who was an integral part in designing the new Spider-Man says, “Maybe sooner or later a black or gay – or both – hero will be considered something absolutely normal.”
Um… Gay? Well, it worked for Northstar.
