All I getting from you “all for it guys” is nothing matters, change whatever you want,and no respect for the comics these characters came from.
You got Steel, Icon, Val-Zod, and Calvin Ellis who are all Supermen, but you want to change a character that is older than every person who has posted in this thread. You are pretty much saying existing black characters suck so we need to take another characters name because they can’t hack it.
If nothing matters to you guys than atleast respect that their are actual ppl out here that do care and respect Superman, and want him to be what he has been for 80 years.
Btw Superman is about truth, justice, and the American way, oh and striving to be the best person you can be.
this bull crap wear you can change every white character to black or any other race that you want to is a complete load of crap because if you change a black character to another ethnicity everybody freaks out create new characters for ethnic races stop changing or childhood we live with these characters are entire life they’re supposed to look a certain way
Changing a characters race is a slap in the face of ALL fans that love that character. Superman being white is part of his character just as John Henry Irons being black is part his character. I would not pay to see a movie where Superman has been “diversified” black, just as I wouldn’t want to see a “diversified” Steel. There are plenty of excellent diverse characters: Steel (and his niece, Natasha), Black Lightning, Simon Baz, and Jessica Cruz, among others. Bring me more! Don’t crap on history!
I’m a traditionalist, so I think Superman should remain as he is. Changing established character’s for the sake of diversity seems like a gimmick. DC/Warner should take their cue from the Green Lantern Corps (the most diverse group of characters in all comics) and create new characters to enrich the mythology. Hal Jordan did not disappear to make room for Simon Baz or Jessica Cruz. Val Zod or Calvin Ellis can exist in comics and on screen without replacing Clark Kent.
I am a fan of good storytelling. I am also a fan of superman story. Part of his story, let’s be honest, could only happen if he were a Caucasian male. Had he been able to blend in with african Americans, weather in the city or country, he would have been treated Far differently. If they do change the color of his skin, going the earth 2 or 23 route would be the only way to make that realistic, relative and interesting.
It’s fine that he’s been portrayed as a Caucasian, but Superman was written as a interpretation of the Moses story. I don’t think he’s ever been portrayed as the original Jewish superhero.
The thing with Superman is he was introduced to the world with a image that became iconic. he wasn’t a character in a book that the reader could interpret and Invision. When it comes to films some actors just embody the role and we look past a certain look. Dean Cain isn’t white but you look at him and say oh its Superman but he also fits the artwork we have been viewing. But you never know. With this new platform we should be able to get the different versions of Superman from alternate earths all this stuff is interesting in it’s own way.
@Kingdomcomevalzod
That would only make sense if it was set in the 30s-40s when he was created. A modern-day take on the character wouldn’t have that presumed problem. Take Man of Steel, for example. Just replace Caucasian Clark with any person of color, and the story would still be the same. His “whiteness” wasn’t part of his character. Just an awkward kid getting bullied, while occasionally saving ppl. Can a non-white person play Clark Kent? Absolutely. Would it make ppl uncomfortable? Sure, but they’ll get used to it.
Speaking as a life long Superman Fan, his “Caucasian appearance” has certainly had it’s effects on how I’d choose be a fan. As a child, it never thought twice about what I wanted to be for Halloween, but before hitting double digits I HAD made up my mind, that I was not interested in emulating white people. While I never considered Superman to be “white” it was hard to escape/ignore the obvious, and my cape wearing days were over… for about 25 years, at NYCC 2017 a spent a day as Earth 23 Superman (President Calvin Ellis) and to be honest, it was pretty damn awesome and I’m glad I did it. It was a really good experience that I could have missed out on for lack of comfortable representation.
I guess if I had to boil it down to a final position on the subject, I’d say: I don’t feel Clark Kent needs to altered in that way, but it would not bother me to see his ethnicity changed to one other than “White”.
For those who do/would have a problem with Superman looking not-white, please consider: We already accept that an alien life form completely separate from our own evolutionary tree has some how developed into a state that is indecipherable from modern humans, by the naked eye, and oh yeah they also have Earth Dogs (Krypto). If you then take issue with a change in what humans he looks like, then you might wanna take a hard look at “WHY” because you could be racist. Let’s hope not!
I don’t have a problem with a Superman of a different ethnicity, but I do feel that he should be a Superman from a different Earth in the multiverse. I say this because Superman is a extremely well established character and to just up and change him would be hard to except. I do believe comics should use more ethnic diversity, but why must the old change for that. I feel like some new and fresh super heroes would be great. They found a way to have a black Batman with out chaning Bruce Wayne.
Throwing around the “rascist” term toward ppl who see a character the way he was portrayed for 80 years and want their comic characters to “leap off” the page, kinda makes me feel that you should be checking your own bigotry, not the other way around.
Even forgetting that Superman has been an icon that has changed so little since his prominence that even changing his underwear upsets most people. The problem is that Superman’s ethnicity IS a big part of who he is. He was born in Kansas to a white couple and brought up on a farm in a town so tiny “Small” is in the name. This shaped his whole character as he was instilled with very ‘heartland of America’ values, so much so that he seems completely out of place in a big city like Metropolis.
Culturally he grew up white.
His parents who adopted him as their own and passed him off as their son were white too. You would have to change their race as well or else it would be awkward to try to explain why a white family had an ethnically diverse child. You could do that sure, but it changes who Clark is. He would have different struggles growing up and it would inherently shape his character differently. If it didn’t then what is the point of changing his race in the first place? There IS an interesting story to be had there, but just race swapping to race swap feels like a cheap gimmick to create controversy and stir up interest in the film. Not to mention it’s an easy way to piss off a lot of fans.
To be clear, I am opposed to race changes and here’s why. I find it to be flat out wrong to change a characters race. Not only do I find it sort of disrespectful to the creators, but its not fair to the fans. Not only that, it doesn’t do any justice to the diversity. If we want to see proper diversity, what companies should be doing is giving characters that are African American, Hispanic, Latin, Asian, European, and so on their time in the light. Also, if they are going to change a character, it is best to another version. So in my eyes, Clark Kent/Kal-El is Caucasian, but a Superman can be of a different race. What I liked about the whole Rebirth comic book line is that there are many Supermen, and they are all of different background.
But in terms of the DCEU, I still want to see Henry as Superman, and I do not want to see MB Jordan. He is no superman in my eyes. I’ll watch him Creed and many of his other roles.
To clarify my mentioning of European, if you want to break it down by country and so on, some people would be upset if we saw an Italian, Spanish, German… Speaking superman… Anyway, I am kind tired of this whole race thing in general. Keep things the way they are, and bring some new characters to the light and or do what they did in Arrow, and create awesome new characters like John Diggle!