brevoortformspring:

“It’s always funny to see people hiding behind an anonymous tag daring people to face them. Take off your sheet, step into the light, and we can have a conversation. Otherwise, you can do like the other lot.”

Tom Brevoort, 2014


My name is Daniel Tonner.

I’m 27 years old. I live in Bremen,…

Okay, here’s the problem with the “just create new characters” argument:

There are dynasties within the comic world, held by a few characters and their publishing titles. Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Captain America, etc. are powerful names. They carry a lot of meaning. Creating new characters of color is a good idea, but these characters will not have the gravity of dynasty titles. They are easily overlooked and may not get the publicity they really need to make a difference.

To a young black man, seeing a black boy take the mantle of Spiderman - a character everyone likes, that has movie franchises, products easily bought, and a legion of other young fan boys and men - means more than you could ever realize. It’s a visual acceptance into a massive international community.

On another note, I saw someone make a very good point in the comments: you see little to no uproar regarding Doc-Oc becoming Peter Parker. Why is this alright, but Miles Morales is crossing the line?

He makes a lot of other very good points, about the lack of actual diversity in the diversity pushes within the industry. He also makes a lot of good points about very harmful misogyny still going on. I’m just very disappointed it was accompanied by other, misguided vitriol.

Part of sharing the spotlight and having true diversity within comics is going to be losing some real estate for white people. That’s an immutable fact. Accept it with grace and realize you’re not really “losing” anything at all.