"Why Batman Can't Be Black"

[Bob Schroeck]

Bluemage wrote:

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Way 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.)
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.

The thing is, it's all political regardless.  And the race-lift of Superman has already been done -- it's called Man of Steel, and it changed Superman from All-American Hero to Dangerous Alien.  Doesn't matter that he stayed white and was still raised in Kansas -- as far as the government was concerned he was the Other, and the ultimate potential terrorist nightmare in a post-9/11 world.  MoS' Superman is never going to be the Citizen of the World welcomed everywhere he goes; that Silver Age optimism is loooooong gone.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.