Dan Slott, one of the Spiderman writers, is killing on twitter.
Oh my god this is gonna be the spider man we deserve
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best Spidey writers of the past 20 years.
Awesomeness from Dan Slott!
Though I do think there is one (and AFAIK only one) superhero that really does have to be white: Steve Rogers. He has to be white, blonde, and blue-eyed, because he’s the racist Nazi ideal turned against them by a Jewish scientist. That’s kind of the whole point Jack Kirby was going for in creating the character, he’s one giant fuck-you to the Nazis, and that’s lost if he doesn’t look like a Nazi recruitment poster.
(Note I said Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Successors, legacy versions, and reboots/alt-worlds not connected to a WWII origin, can and should reflect the diversity of the American people.)
Id argue much of Tony Stark has to do with his whiteness, given how learning about his privilege and trying to make up for it is essentially what his whole character is based on.
Hmm, given that IIRC Stan Lee’s said part of the idea behind Iron Man was to more or less trick the left-leaning teen audience that made up the majority of Marvel’s audience at the time into rooting for a rich conservative, you might have a point.