Stan Lee Wants To Keep Spider-Man Straight & White

In response to ongoing debates as to whether any future big screen representation of Spider-Man might change the character’s ethnicity and/or sexual orientation, the iconic character’s creator Stan Lee says he’d rather the wall-crawler remain white and heterosexual.

Lee was questioned on the matter by Newsarama, in light of recent, further revelations from the Sony e-mail hack scandal, revealing that part of Sony’s stipulations of allowing Marvel creative control of the character was that they must not change his race or sexuality, as well as that he must not drink or smoke.

Lee admits he has no problem with this: “I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that.”

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Regarding Spidey’s sexuality, Lee explains, “I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly. But again, I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established. I have no problem with creating new, homosexual superheroes.

“It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that. Latino characters should stay Latino. The Black Panther should certainly not be Swiss.

“I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”

Even so, Lee notes that a key part of Spidey’s appeal is that, in costume, he could literally be just about anyone: “What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Despite these comments, Lee has voiced no opposition to black actor Michael B Jordan’s casting as another of his white creations, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, in 20th Century Fox’s upcoming ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot. (When still attached to Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield once suggested that very same actor to portray Mary-Jane in a third ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movie.)

Additionally, while the new cinematic Spider-Man will once again be Peter Parker, as previously portrayed by Garfield and Tobey Maguire, there remains the possibility that at some point the movies might use the new comic book Spider-Man, the half-black half-Latino Miles Morales.

While his casting remains unconfirmed at present, the new Spider-Man is expected to make his debut in next year’s ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ before taking the lead in a Marvel/Sony co-produced ‘Spider-Man’ solo movie in summer 2017.

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Picture Credit: WENN, Marvel