With the announcement of Spider-Man making an appearance in Captain America: Civil War, the reality of seeing the Marvel Universe fully formed on the big screen draws closer, but with a recent claim by Jeff Sneider of The Wrap during the Meet the Movie Press podcast, the role of Spider-Man will likely be played by an African or Latin American. While some might make the immediate leap that any criticism of this decision would be racism, I think most fan criticism over such announcements run a little deeper than skin color.
As a fan of Spider-Man the biggest complaint I have concerning the racial change of Spider-Man is not the color of the skin, but the potential retcon of the entire origin of Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Marvel Comics has a history of providing not only a rich universe, but a rich multiverse filled with different realities, and Marvel has yet to really broach this concept in their cinematic universe. Most fans are willing to engage the concept that Spider-Man can have a different face and skin color under the hood, but simply changing the face and keeping the continuity is not only lazy, but marginalizing the diversity that exists amongst people of different racial backgrounds. A Spider-Man growing up in an African or Latin American community is likely going to have a different outlook on the world than the Peter Parker we currently know. This has been the greatest challenge when envisioning familiar characters with different personas, it’s not enough to change one aspect of the character such as skin color, the entirety of the character needs to be fleshed out and given an identity independent of Peter Parker.
Hopefully if Marvel decides to change Spider-Man’s racial background their writers will use the opportunity to provide fans with changes that do not just run skin deep. How can Marvel accomplish this? Here are some of my thoughts on how this can happen without sacrificing fan expectations:
1.) Adopt the Miles Morales storyline in the Ultimate Universe and transfer it into the cinematic Marvel universe making the events of Civil War take place just after Peter Parker’s death. Exposition could easily be used to provide fans not familiar with the comics an account of Parker’s demise, and establish Miles Morales as a rookie trying to fill Spider-Man’s shoes. Furthermore, given the Civil War storyline in the comics, the added racial tension of an African American superhero revealing his identity to the world in the way that Peter Parker does in the Civil War comics would truly be an inspirational moment and help shed light on the racial inequality that still exists in the world that Morales lives in.
2.) Make Spider-Man an immigrant, potentially one that is in the United States illegally. I could envision an alternate universe storyline in which the character of Spider-Man was brought to the United States as a young child with his parents who crossed the border illegally to escape violence in his country. Though here illegally the persona of Spider-Man learns the value of hard work and is raised with a strong moral compass. Later in life we find that Spider-Man’s parents are killed in a botched police raid, and instead of turning toward the darker aspect of the experience Spider-Man now realizes the value of equality and how power must come hand-in-hand with responsibility. This scenario would also allow for an incredibly powerful moment when Spider-Man is revealed as an illegal immigrant, and whereupon he must deal with the struggle of having both his identity and status as a illegal immigrant known.
3.) Insert within the continuity of Civil War an exposition that alternate realities exist. Possibly even have the Spider-Man of the Civil War continuity view one of these alternate realities where a different Spider-Man existed via any given deus ex machina Marvel wishes to use; Not only would this be the perfect opportunity for a Spider-Man 2099 or Noire cameo that will likely drive fans wild, but it would also allow for multiple interpretations of Spider-Man to exist within the Cinematic Universe, and bridge the current problem created by the rights issues that exist between Sony and Disney.