Over the weekend, an email chain that leaked out of Sony showed that the deal between them and Marvel Studios comes with the demands that Peter Parker has to be white and heterosexual. This did cause a bit of a stir around the Internet, with people claiming Marvel and Sony are behind the times of what is now socially acceptable.
But one man who doesn’t see a problem with this, is the character’s creator Stan Lee.
“I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way,” Lee told Newsrama. “But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that.”
“I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly,” he adds. “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.”
What do you make of Stan Lee’s comments?
Spider-Man will make his big screen re-debut in Captain America: Civil War next year and will get his own solo movie in 2017.
Originally published June 23, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
