Current Events > Does Superman need to be white?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Freddie_Mercury posted...

he gets his powers from the sun so he needs to look like the race that burns the easiest

You mean the race that most easily absorbs sunlight.

Melanin's purpose is to block the sun's rays

Superblack will team up with Blackula and Blackenstein to fight crime, pimping style!
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Dash_Harber posted...

MAGA2020 posted...

Im not white, and I voted yes. Stop turning all white characters into minority characters. Come up with good minority characters instead.

The problem with this logic is that the same people making it, also often complain when minority characters are added to existing franchises, calling them 'pandering'.

Nah. Virtually no one is saying characters like Storm, Jubilee, Mr Terrific, Steel, Cassandra Cain, Aqualad, Sunfire, War Machine, Bishop, Black Adam, Amanda Waller, etc are "pandering". There are a lot of minority and women characters in comics that are loved. Enough that recasting or replacing white males, instead of utilizing the ones they have does get seen as pandering.

What does get called pandering is when you see something like what Marvel did when they sidelined their white, male big-name heroes to replace them with All-New, All-Different minority heroes.

Captain America can't be a white man, make him evil and replace him with a black man. Hulk can't be a white man, depower and then kill him and replace him with an Asian boy. Iron Man can't be a white man, put him in a coma and replace him with a black girl. Thor can't be a white man, make him unworthy and replace him with a woman. Replace Wolverine with a girl too, while at it.

Now, as isolated incidents, I don't think most fans would care and some of the replacements make sense. For example, Sam Wilson is actually an entirely valid successor for the Captain America mantle, second only to Bucky. As is Laura Kinney for the Wolverine mantle.

I do think other choices, like replacing Thor as Thor with Jane Foster was the dumbest choice, but replacing Tony Stark's Iron Man with Riri Williams' Iron Heart seemed unnecessary when they had s perfectly good War Machine and replacing Bruce Banner as Hulk with Amadeus Cho seemed pretty far fetched.

But when they drop so many of their biggest classic white, male heroes to replace them with minorities or women during a rebranding period, I think the accusation of pandering is fair. Now, if Marvel wants to do that, it's their books and they have that right, but don't be surprised when some of their fans don't like the changes.
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How else would he be considered super?
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Dash_Harber posted...

MAGA2020 posted...

Im not white, and I voted yes. Stop turning all white characters into minority characters. Come up with good minority characters instead.

The problem with this logic is that the same people making it, also often complain when minority characters are added to existing franchises, calling them 'pandering'.

The problem is usually that the minority characters are being written by out of touch white liberals who turn them into SJW propaganda instead of real characters.

Milkman5 posted...

How does this end up?
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Burgess posted...

He's been black before.

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Dragon239 posted...

Milkman5 posted...

How does this end up?

S: Lois... Im an alien, that makes me different than every human on this planet, no matter what color they got.
L: But you are still white, the correct color. I am black, I have seen how people react to me, will you be able to marry me?
S: Lois...
*Lois suddenly turns white again and the question is unanswered*
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If Lex is black I see no reason why Superman can't be black.
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Black washing
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Foppe posted...

S: Lois... Im an alien, that makes me different than every human on this planet, no matter what color they got.
L: But you are still white, the correct color. I am black, I have seen how people react to me, will you be able to marry me?
S: Lois...
*Lois suddenly turns white again and the question is unanswered*

That's it? Lame, man.
Does it frame white as being "correct" as in unaltered from his 'base', being what is most advantageous in their society, or like..."correct" in the normal racist way? I suspect it's the racist way.
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Wouldn't bother me if superman was black. It would bother me if James Bond was.
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There are black Kryptonians so
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He doesn't need to be any color.
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Dragon239 posted...

Foppe posted...

S: Lois... Im an alien, that makes me different than every human on this planet, no matter what color they got.
L: But you are still white, the correct color. I am black, I have seen how people react to me, will you be able to marry me?
S: Lois...
*Lois suddenly turns white again and the question is unanswered*

That's it? Lame, man.
Does it frame white as being "correct" as in unaltered from his 'base', being what is most advantageous in their society, or like..."correct" in the normal racist way? I suspect it's the racist way.

If I remember correct...
The comic starts with Lois trying to interview some random black persons on the street, but they all ignore her. So Lois does the only thing she can do, she forces Superman to use one of his Only Seen Once-machines to turn her black for 24 hours.
Then she goes to Salem, or whatever place it was, gets totally ignored by white people, gets invited on coffee by a poor black mother, meets her brother who gather groups of blacks and speak loudly about how bad they got and how evil the white man is, he gets in some kind of accident, I cant remember exactly what but he needs to be taken to the hospital and need a blood transfusion, which of course Lois does, then Superman appears and they are worried that she is still black when 24 hours have passed, that is when she goes on about marrying him, she turns white, they learn that the black guy have woken up, they get worried that he will go crazy that he got "white blood", he gets surprised when he sees that she is white, but then he smiles and it ends happily.
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Zikten posted...

not technically cause he's not human. but kryptonians look like humans and he traditionally is of a white equivalent race of Kryptonian

This.

It would be super easy to spin him as a green guy with purple hair. I don't think skin colour matters too much unless it's a film trying to strictly adhere to the historical aspect of whatever it's conveying. Things like super hero movies, action, etc. should be based more on performance than skin colour.

They could kill off Superman and make a new black character to take the spot of Superman easily.
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It's funny. It's easy to talk about a lot of Superman's upbringing being essential to his character, so one definitely could make the case that, were we to keep the idea of Superman's character consistent, then it'd be "best" to make him white in order to blend in with the rural America he was raised in.

But, it's not like non-white people living in rural America these days is completely unheard of. In an optimistic light, one could easily suggest that a black family growing up there could produce the sense of idealism and optimism that is endemic to the character of Superman.

But the racial aspect of the story would not be able to be avoided. It will come up at some point. Regardless of whether Clark is a Kryptonian, he will look how he looks and people will react how they react.

For me, though, I'd like to see it tried.
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CyricZ posted...

It's funny. It's easy to talk about a lot of Superman's upbringing being essential to his character, so one definitely could make the case that, were we to keep the idea of Superman's character consistent, then it'd be "best" to make him white in order to blend in with the rural America he was raised in.

But, it's not like non-white people living in rural America these days is completely unheard of. In an optimistic light, one could easily suggest that a black family growing up there could produce the sense of idealism and optimism that is endemic to the character of Superman.

But the racial aspect of the story would not be able to be avoided. It will come up at some point. Regardless of whether Clark is a Kryptonian, he will look how he looks and people will react how they react.

For me, though, I'd like to see it tried.

I think him being white is a reasonably important part of his character because I don't know if he would have the same Truth, Justice, and American Way idealistic boy scout type of guy if he were, say, black. I think he would have to have had a lot of bad experiences with systemic racism that would dilute his idealism.

Would Superman be the same character if he were black and had white rednecks calling him the N-word all his life, was unfairly targeted by police, etc?

I guess you could right a story about him overcoming it, but I think growing up white in an overwhelmingly rural, white, protestant environment despite secretly being an alien is a contributing factor to his character development and how he was able to so resolutely accept Earth as his new home. I think it would have to be a different story if he was a secret alien who was raised in an environment in which he had to the deal with racism growing up.

You get what I'm trying to say?
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Yeah, he would most likely still be raised right by the Kents no matter if he was white or black (thinking about it, they would most likely have him being raised by black farmers if he was black just because), but he would still meet so much racism once he left his farm, both as Clark Kent and as Superman.
And think of the propaganda Luthor would spread...
Superman only hunts down white criminals. It is strange that he is always busy saving the world when a black criminal robs a store.
White housewife Jennifer Garnet was killed by a bullet that bounced from his chest, how can he call himself Superman if he cant steer his bullets anywhere he want?
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Roshon posted...

They could kill off Superman and make a new black character to take the spot of Superman easily.

Hence Steel.
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