| Death of The All White All American Costumed Superhero |  |  |  |
| Written by John of Gwent |
| August 2011 |
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Eventually Sir Arthur relented and at great risk to the health and sanity of John H Watson MD late of the Indian Army, had the great Consulting Detective reappear in Dr Watson's surgery in order to expose the criminal Moran. Holmes would end his days quietly, having rejected a knighthood, accepted The "Legion d'Honneur", and moved to Sussex where he kept bees. But at least Conan Doyle knew the place for a mulatto in crime fiction. Today the sick peddlers of the gospel of diversity and MultiCulturalism are wetting themselves as they rolling with laughter all the way to the bank. Or so they hope. On this page of the Guardian's "literary" supplement Alison Flood reported how at the end of June this year Marvel Comics went where they have never gone before, publishing in "Ultimate Spider Man #160" a story line in which Peter Parker, the teenager raised by All White All American parents in the largely all white area of Queens who once bitten by a radioactive spider became The Amazing Spider Man, the ultimate home-grown All-White, All-American Costumed Super Hero, meets his end. Not a dry eye in the death scene and not a dry eye in the animation studio either. But Spider Man as we know him had to go. Unlike another Costumed Super Hero we might mention, who despite his square jaw white face and serious muscles was actually an immigrant from another world - which may explain his persistent desire to wear his underpants outside his trousers - The Amazing Spider Man was the real home grown deal. So Spider Man meets his end at the hands of his arch nemesis the Green Goblin (although I bet BNP Wales will be blaming his end on another green superhero by this time next week). Search Google hard enough and you will find all sorts of stories starting with "it brings the story full circle since Peter only became Spider Man to avenge the death of his uncle" and Marvel themselves saying it marks and end to a story arc and they were not sure which way to go. Well if that's right they didn't take long to make their mind up. Marvel senior editor Mark Paniccia said of the death scene "Peter's death doesn't signal the end of their larger plan - it's the start of one of the most ambitious stories you've ever read in comics". Thay aren't kidding. For here comes a rewrite of history that Orwell would have wept at. Here comes the "We have always been at war with Eurasia" moment. The truth is Marvel Comics didn't even give Parker's body the time to go cold in the grave. "Miles Morales" is a half black, half hispanic teenager, who lives with his black and latino parents in "diverse" Brooklyn a world away from the all white Queens where Parker was raised. Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso said the new web-slinger "speaks to our rich cultural heritage" in the US. "Going into this we knew we wanted to make a statement about the 21st century," he said. Alonso is himself of mixed race, having an English mother and a Mexican father. He says "he cried when Barack Obama was elected president partly because he was African-American but largely because of the fact that he was mixed race". He felt it necessary to add that the chief writer for the comic's Spiderman story line, Brian Michael Bendis, is Jewish and has two adopted children from Africa. What Next, I ask? Maybe Captain America Transgendered, mincing across Times Square in pink leotard and five inch heels ? If he/she/it does, you heard if first here people. For those who feel this is a diversification too far, Peter Parker lives on in "The Amazing Spider Man" comic as he has since 1962. Let us hope that for the "Ultimate Spider Man" magazine, this outrageous mulatto takeover of the All American Costumed Superhero marks the ultimate (as in its true sense, i.e LAST EVER) issue of the publication. |
When Conan Doyle chose to kill off Sherlock Holmes at the hands of his arch enemy Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls, there was uproar. Young men who avidly bought each new issue of "The Strand" magazine to read the latest instalment of the life and times of Conan Doyle's creation went about their city jobs with mourning crepe in their hats.
