Above image courtesy(I think) of Bleeding Cool. Where they got it from...I dunno.Relax everyone, that's not our President, Barack Obama, dressed up as Spider-Man in the image above. Close, but not really. It's Miles Morales, the new, ULTIMATE version, of everyone's favorite wall-crawler!
Continuing a useless trend that no one cares about, Marvel Comics used their contacts at USA Today and the Associated Press to reveal/spoil/ruin the identity revelation of the new Ultimate Spider-Man. While not a replacement for the character who's been around for close to fifty years, the story is getting plenty of attention.
SUPPOSEDLY.
There are plenty of sites, legit and not, where one can discuss the racial history of Miles Morales. For the record, I've heard both "half-black, half-Hispanic" and "half-black, half-Mexican." Yeah, there's a difference.
This isn't one of those sites, however. My intention today is to point out how utterly silly it is of Marvel Comics to ruin an ongoing story for the sake of a soundbite or graphic on FOX News. Marvel Comics has done this before, having spoiled the deaths *SPOILER WARNING* of Captain America, Johnny Storm and the previous Ultimate Spider-Man, sixteen year old Peter Parker.
Therein lies the problem. Marvel has never really shown that these early reveals have helped anyone in the comics business but their attention-seeking marketing department. A few comic shops I follow on Twitter are on record as saying the reveals have not helped sell more comics in the (very short)long run.
Add to that Marvel's arrogance in telling their existing readership to "avoid the internet tomorrow :-D" for the full monty of stupidity. In this day and age, that is the equivalent of your wife/live-in girlfriend/mother saying "Dinner's in the fridge, but it's a surprise. Don't go in there. Oh yeah, your diabetes/heart/erectile dysfunction medicine is in the fridge too."
Arrgghhh.
I am excited about this story. The idea of a bi-racial character taking up the mantle of a long established superhero can be, and will be, treated well in the hands of writer Brian Michael Bendis and his rotating cast of artists. I just wish I had a chance to find out about this story on Wednesday after my trip to the comic shop, not on a Tuesday morning during a porn search.
Le sigh.
