Remember this? Because I think we’ve all tried to forget it.
The haters of Superman are at it again folks. It doesn’t stop. When you hate a character but want to steal that prestige because only the characters you like should be popular, you boil it down to the barest concept you can and claim the names for yourself. It’s a running complaint here at the Spotlight, and now an article by Ruben Baron on CBR, a site that used to be Comic Book Resources but decided it was too good for just comics, had decided to take concept over character and add it to their identity politics.
Look, I don’t like discussing politics but to me this is an example of concept over character and that’s something I will protest, even if someone wanted to turn something I hate into something I like for no good reason. Everyone is allowed to have their own storytelling preferences and to have those preferences met. By using the hivemind to try to subvert that in order to push your personal sociopolitical agenda (again, whether I agree with it or not is not the issue) is only the reason why, but for me and the purposes of this site it could just be wanting to take something with a famous name and slap it on your “better” idea. See also Battlestar Galactica. It’s also not a question of story quality. You can tell good stories whether you’re (mis)using a famous name or not, but why not create something new and turn potential detractors into potential fans?
So how is CBR targeting Superman? Since they only see the concept they want to make him black, for no other reason than representation. I have two videos on this subject to show you along with my own thoughts on the matter. The first (which I warn you is a bit more vulgar than you usually see around here) is from Just Some Guy, who for the record happens to be black himself and does such a good job refuting his statements that the only difference between doing a BW Versus article and just posting this is we have different ways of making the same point. One of CBR’s points of reason, that a black-skinned Kryptonian should “obviously” be able to absorb more of that precious yellow sunlight that gives Superman his powers, was examined in the past by Comics Drake, so I’ll be including that as well. I do have points of my own to make so you’re not getting out of reading tonight.
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