Spoiler in link.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=33673

I hate to be one of "those guys", but I'm predicting right now this will fail. I don't care if he's half black/half hispanic or Chinese or President Obama or Dick Cheyney or Hugh Jackman... Peter Parker is irreplaceable.

I assume this is their way of introducing a new hero in hopes of spinning him off into his own title once Peter returns. That's the usual scenario.

I may indeed be condemning it without trying it. I didn't want to try new Coke, and I don't feel much like trying this.

well, the Ultimate universe is pretty messed up right now, with no clear direction and lots of dead characters.

I am glad Marvel took this chance, even if it is with a dying line. Hopefully it'll pay off. I did read an interesting reaction that stated when you're a non-white kid, it doesn't take long to realize that none of the heroes look like you. So hopefully this is one step towards correcting that.

Black fan response to the new Spidey

I agree 100%. ;)

Spider-Man purists are "racists"??? Damn. People who want to keep black people in their place? He equated people who don't like the idea to racists in his "comedy" routine.

You agree with this dude?

It's a joke, man. He spends just as much time goofing on Spider-Man being black/multiracial as he does "supporting" it. It's pretty clear that it's a satirical statement from a unique perspective.

Is it awesome? No. Is it funny? If you don't take it seriously, yeah.

I disagree that that's part of the joke. I'm usually pretty good at picking out people's jokes and not taking things too seriously. The rest of his stuff was clearly a basically unfunny riff on the whole thing though I did like his take on the classic Spider-Man song at the end, but I didn't get that part of it as a joke.

I'm glad to know you at least don't think he's serious and agreed with him. If that were the case I'd have seriously misjudged your character. ;)

Given that we can see this guy's face and here his tone, yeah it's still a little tough to tell how serious he is. Given that he burst out laughing at the start though, I think he's mostly joking.

But it's a sensitive issue for sure. Introducing new heroes of any race is hard right now, even for the "big 2." If people were rejecting new heroes just based on race, why did Gravity, for example, fail to find a large enough base to succeed?

At the end of the day i think it comes down to: comics are expensive and people are just going to buy the tried and true stuff rather than new stuff. And while I think putting new faces under old code names generally just divides the fan base, Marvel did it in such a way as to give people a solid choice. The Ultimate Spiderman is someone new and different, keeping the Ultimate line relevant to some degree, while maintaining the original character safely in the original universe.

Good luck to both spider-men I say!

I really think that the problem is that acceptance of new superheroes is very hard in this day and age. People like what is safe. Our boy, Nightwing, really is one of the exceptions if you think about it. But you can see it with JT. He was not accepted and then, because of it, he was killed off. Gravity is a great character (or was, don't know if he's still alive, what with all the gratuitous killings that occur in Marvel as well as DC). I really liked him but at the time, like many, I could either purchase his comic or one of the characters that I was already following up. I really think that the best way to introduce new characters is as part of a team that is popular. If the character shows strong fan support, then give said character his/her own mini and then if that works, then a series. It was done like that before. Don't understand why they can't continue doing that. Or just cycle miniseries for the popular characters and keep them like that every year or couple of years, while maintaining them in their teams.

As for the new Spiderman. Personally, hats off for them actually going for it. I wish they hadn't killed Pete. But if they didn't, people would just be waiting for him to take the big white eye mask back at some point. Or they could have done the whole "power transfer and then Pete is a mentor" storyline, keeping people waiting for him to return to power but never actually doing it. Still, I am Latino and am all up for new multicultural characters, as our society has really changed.

Heck, Michael Jordan, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry (mamacita). All of them are people that enjoy huuuuuge popularity. Everyone likes what they do! Except for Catwoman. God, that was awful. Still, if our society has been accepting other than white heroes and role models, then why is it so hard for our comics to reflect that support?

I guess that this is really a much deeper issue than we can cover just chatting about it but it is an interesting thing to look at.

Hopefully, the new Spiderman in the Ultimates world can get the support. I really think that they can tell very different stories with a character like him and still keep the heart of who Spiderman is. After all, he was always the underdog. That is definitively still there. I just hope they can get the heart to be there too.

For me, it's not a matter of it being a mixed race character, it's that it's not Peter Parker and Peter Parker is Spider-Man to me. Unlike Batman, who's basically just a skill set, Spidey is unique. I am all for other races as heroes. Fine by me. I just don't see anyone else as Peter Parker. Now, I'd be far more forgiving if they made Ultimate Peter Parker a non-Caucasian from the get go, like Nick Fury.

I just find it kind of funny that in all the news stories I have seen of this from big mainstream news sites (non-comics news sites) they are trying to pass this off as this happened in the real Marvel Universe. No mentions that this is the Ultimate Universe Spider man that has been changed.