Marvel Comics is taking heat from fans alleging “racism” for its latest alternate reality “what if” book that ponders “what if” Miles Morales became the Mighty Thor instead of Spider-Man.
One fan even said the book is “so woke that it circles back into being racist.”
The book follows an alternate story arc for the popular black character who became Spider-Man in 2011. Morales was created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli and became so popular that he was featured as the main character in the animated 2018 blockbuster film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — the film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
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The new comic featuring Morales taking the role of Thor instead of Spider-Man was written by Yehudi Mercado and illustrated by Paco Medina and Luigi Zagaria. But it is not being well received by black readers, according to CBR.
Dissatisfied readers are upset with the stereotypical “hood” references in the comic as a black Thor lords over a world where ice giants have cornrow hair, characters spout hood-inspired quotes, Thor’s hammer has graffiti on it, and at one point he actually says it’s “Hammer Time.”
Reddit User CharacterRant blasted the book, saying “It’s a comic so bad and so misguided that it feels like a parody of how not to write a black character.”
He summed the book up:
So, the comic opens with this awful rap song sang by Odin’s crows as Miles (I’m not calling him Thor) walks down the street… the writing quickly pulls you back to Earth as we see that Miles’ Mjolnir [Thor’s hammer] is covered in graffiti, yes seriously. And Miles also fight frost giants that look like this [with cornrow hair] and this version of Odin wears Timbs [Timberland boots]. Now, you might be wondering what’s the plot of this book? Well, there simply isn’t any… no deep exploration of how this universe works, character relationships or anything really, it’s just the most cookie cutter Thor story, but this time with Miles in it and with awful dialogue by a writer that thinks black people say things like: “By Orin’s fade” or “Asgard is his hood” or even “Twist it, flip it”. This book is written by someone that watched the Boondocks religiously, but didn’t get it was supposed to be satire. Actually, why not go all the way and just make this version of Mjolnir into a gun?
Others felt the same way as readers took to Twitter to blast the “racism” of the comic.
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