And the New Ultimate Spider-Man is....(spoilers)

[stillanerd]

As some of you folks know, Peter Parker was killed off (the Ultimate Comics version, that is) after fighting one last battle with the Green Goblin in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160, the final part of "The Death of Spider-Man":




And, as part of the second relaunch of Marvel's Ultimate Universe imprint, an "all-new" Spider-Man is going to debut:



Now remember how Marvel decided to spoil the outcome of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160 to USA Today the day before the comic hit the stands? (Yes, I know, since the title of the event was "the Death of Spider-Man" there wasn't much to spoil) Well, after releasing these promos...





Guess what? Marvel decided to do it again!  This time, they've leaked to USA Today the identity of the "all-new" Spider-Man.

So who is it?  A Peter Parker clone? Miquel O'Hara? Ben Reilly? Gwen Stacy? Mary Jane Watson? Aunt May?  Nope.  None of the above!  

Revealed in Marvel Comics' Ultimate Fallout Issue 4, out Wednesday, the new Spider-Man in the Ultimate universe is a half-black, half-Hispanic teen named Miles Morales

Um...Who?

Seriously, you've got to applaud Marvel for not only making the new Spidey both an African American and a Latino, but also for making him an original new character exclusively for the Ultimate universe and not just using another pre-existing 616 counterpart.  And when the article mentions this:

Italian artist Sara Pichelli, who was integral in designing the new Spider-Man's look, says, "Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal.

You can't help but think that Marvel was making a shout-out to the former Donald Glover for Spider-Man campaign that was going on prior to Andrew Garfield being cast.

UPDATE: Well, what do you know!  It was a shout-out (and a whole lot more) to Glover by Bendis. :)

All it took was a scene last fall in the NBC TV series Community to convince comic-book writer Brian Michael Bendis that he was on the right track for a new Spider-Man.

A year ago, Community star Donald Glover embarked on a Twitter campaign to play an African-American version of Spider-Man in a new movie (a role that went to white actor Andrew Garfield for next summer's The Amazing Spider-Man). As an inside joke, he appeared on the season premiere in Spider-Man pajamas.

"He looked fantastic!" Bendis recalls. "I saw him in the costume and thought, 'I would like to read that book.' So I was glad I was writing that book."

The writer gives Glover "mucho credit" for the way Miles Morales looks in Ultimate Fallout issue 4, which is out Wednesday and marks the first appearance of a new Spider-Man.

Comments

The only thing wrong with this...

[steverodgers5]

Is that they should have done this to begin with, when they were launching the Ultimate line.

(Or maybe they really should have let Loeb trash the ultmate line completely, and then start a new alternate line from scratch.)

Because the main problem I see here is, that this is gonna suffer from what I call the 'Ben Reilly effect.' i.e Because Peter was the character people read the title for and there is that emotional attachment from all the stories with him, then his replacement gets chalked up as being just that, and not the 'real' spiderman.

And thus they'll be a backlash, which could result in low sales after the initial curiosity of the new first issue wears off, with the comic maybe even being cancelled somewhere down the line.

And then of course, Marvel will be able to throw up their hands, and say 'oh well, we tried..' (And somebody could even end up bringing back Pete, at that point)

So maybe I'm being too cynical, but as much as I wish this could be a step in the right direction, there's a part of me that thinks it's really not going to work. And when it doesn't, you know some folks will inevitably cite the wrong reasons for it not doing so.

I hope I'm wrong, but I guess I'm a bit jaded from changes in the past that seemed a big deal, but then got reversed. Time will tell I guess..

Re: The only thing wrong with this...

[stillanerd]

Well, having a new character take up the mantle of a pre-existing superhero is nothing new, and has been a pretty difficult sell. Like you said, this was the problem Ben Reilly had when Marvel tried to make him "the real Spider-Man" during the Clone Saga. DC ran into a similar problem when they replaced Hal Jordan with Kyle Rayner. But the difference there is that Kyle was not portrayed as being some carbon copy of Hal Jordan but someone who was an individual character, with his own unique personality, beliefs, and background.

For me, the biggest mistake Bendis could do is to make Miles Morales exactly like Peter Parker, only African American/Latino. Even though Miles is adopting the moniker of Spider-Man and has similar powers, he, just like Miquel O'Hara from Spider-Man 2099, needs to be a character in his own right. If, like Peter, Miles is a character whose life becomes a bigger mess because he's a superhero, he needs to have his own unique set of problems and obligations. If, like Peter, Miles has a sense of humor, it needs to be of a different brand and style than that of Peter's. It can't just be changing the costume and altering the power set--he needs to truly be unique. Hopefully, Bendis will do this.

Re: The only thing wrong with this...

[18lemons]

I think you're right, a lot of reactions I've seen have said that Spider-Man was about being Peter Parker. We as readers are very much invested in Peter's life and problems as much as we are in his masked heroics. More so than we are with any other hero I'd say.
I think there might be some backlash, but I doubt the book will get cancelled. Bendis is too big of a name for Marvel to cancel. The first ten years of Ultimate Spider-Man were pretty cool, I trust that the next ten will work just as well.

Besides, maybe there's a twist in here somewhere... And from my mind comes a bad fanfic plot! Ultimate Ben Reilly has a sample of Peter's blood, and was very involved in Connors's research, and as a result of continuing that research, he's created a Symbiote out of Peter's DNA. The new suit attaches itself to Miles and sensing his heroic resolve, grants him spider powers!
Or, you know, Bendis could write something awesome and we'll all love Miles just as much as we loved Pete.

Re: The only thing wrong with this...

[kd_the_movie]

Yknow? I actually have faith in this.

Re: The only thing wrong with this...

[fifthie]

Per my comment above yours I pretty much agree about not putting a lot of stock in SHOCKING NEW CHANGES, although per stubbleupdate's response to my comment I agree with him that if there's any chance in hell of this character succeeding it's with Bendis writing him.

Like maybe the timing would have been better in 2000 or in whichever year Loebmageddon happened but I think timing means less here than that as a new character in a Marvel Comics comic book pretty much your flat-out best chance of actually mattering as a character is to be one of Brian Bendis's darlings, the same way your best shot at DC is to be whatever Geoff Johns liked when he was seven years old.

As long as Bendis wants to write comics about this character there is pretty much no chance of anyone going WE TRIED, this book could crash to like, negative a thousand per month and it is still a comic that would keep being printed.

LOL! Good point..

[steverodgers5]

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of what Bendis has done to the avengers title in the regular universe, but obviously he's been given free reign (Or even a dark reign!)..there to do whatever he pleases, and has been pretty much untouchable as a result regardless of the quality or direction resulting.

Though from what little I've read of it, (both on here and in the british reprints..) it looked like his Ultimate Spidey title was a lot better, so maybe the new book will be good.

Concerning some of the other issues people have been raising, I kinda feel like Bendis is dammned if he does and dammned if he doesn't as regards the similarities to Peter's character. If Miles does end up having same sense of humour/problems as Pete, he might end up suffering by comparison. But if you go too far in making him totally different from Peter, you risk alienating the fans who supported the original ultimate spiderman run, as it may just be not the type of character then that they like reading about. (Like if he's too serious or there's not as much focus on real life teen problems etc, etc.) It's definitly going to be a challenge, I'll give em that..