Quote:Batman can't be a black person, because the idea of a vigilante blackWay to politicize what had been a thoughtful discussion, there. Also, I haven't seen that big a load of strawmen in one place since that one airplane disappeared.(I would've said 'since I last turned on the news', but they've been too busy saying a whole lot of nothing about the plane to discuss politics as of late.)
man would scare the shit out of white Americans. Just because Batman
doesn't use guns wouldn't stop every everyone from seeing an imaginary
gun in his hand. I might logically know it's Bat-shark-repellent spray,
but it sure looks like a gun in a black man's hands. Especially if you
happen to be George Zimmerman.
Batman being rich just makes it worse. Fuck, Barack Obama tries to make
people buy subsidized health insurance, and all of a sudden it's death
panels everywhere. That's how scary black men are: they turn
formularies and pre-natal care into a thumbs down in the Roman
colluseum.
Sorry, Black Batman would a vigilante menace to society that must be
stopped. And locked away in prison with all of the other young black
men; who are three times more likely to be incarcerated than white men
are.
My opinion is basically the same as Matrix Dragon's. The more well-known a character (not a superhero, but the character behind the cape) is, the less you can make major alterations to them without the public calling foul... and it doesn't get much more well-known than Bruce Wayne. The only superhero that'd be harder to race-lift would be Superman, at this point.
Of course, all sins (against continuity, such as it is) are forgiven if they're well-enough done, but you'd have to write a darn good comic to make the public accept turning a 75-year-old character- one of the most famous and well-covered ever- into a different race. The question is whether you have the right plot, the right writers, and enough Protection From Executives to pull it off... and considering the state of the comic book industry over the last decade, I don't think they do. It MIGHT be doable as a movie, but it'd have to be a really good movie. At least as good as The Avengers, I'd say, to make it work.
Obscure characters? Easy. Minor characters in well-known stories? Still easy. Major supporting characters? Doable. Core characters? Good luck.
Now, making a black character who then becomes Batman... that'd
be much easier. The trick is to keep the writing quality up well enough
for the comics to sell, make the character memorable enough to get fan
approval, and sustain that level long enough to develop exposure. Not easy, but still doable.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.