RE: CBR Article - "Does Batman Need To Be White?"

[Killerbee911]

Lewis Tan wont be Batman for one.
Secondly Judiasm is a religion.
Italian, Irish, Russian etc are nationalities. This is like asking " is Cyborg Nigerian, Ethiopian," etc. Bruce is a White man, he is Caucasian of which there is no doubt whatsoever and yes Batman traces his ancestry to Scottish nobility. Gotham Academy was the most recent book to touch on that.

Jewish is ethnic group and a religion no correction needed.

[millernumber1]

I was nervous about coming into the thread, but seems pretty okay. First things first, I think Bruce should be white (though...white is really lazy, and I wish there was more sense of his heritage - someone mentioned Scottish).

I'm not sure that just changing the race of a legacy character is the way to go; I think it's lazy. DC didn't give Batwing a good chance--or even a second chance--Lu Fox is a great character and all he needed was some TLC. He could BECOME a legacy character, but a legacy character takes TIME to become just that. BRING BACK BATWING !!!!!!

I'm also a huge fan of Luke (and Lucius, and Tam) Fox, and would love to see a Superheavy-style arc where he had to fill in as Batman for a while. Glad to see other people like him!

Honestly I do like Luke and Tiffany Fox and hope they get more of a push. I wanted to adapt Scott Snyder's Superheavy arc as an animated movie but with Luke filling in for Gordon as the main character. In the animated movies he's already established as Batwing so it's easier to set-up. They could sell Luke easier than Gordon whose just done the traditional Gordon stuff up to this point. Him being the public batman fits his character arc of not knowing where he belongs or what he should be doing. Batman's older and you could have him think about possible replacements etc. He's got plans for each of the bats but Luke is the one he picks for the public persona as he's moderately famous for being a Fox and has served three tours overseas. Dick's building his own life, Damian is too young and Kate's too much of an unknown (i need a better reason for her but you see where I'm going).

Regardless of whether or not Luke and the public Batman programs succeeds it's a direction Luke should go in.

I don't know if I'd want to remove Gordon in Superheavy, since I think Snyder wrote Jim amazingly well there, but if you wanted to redo, say, Bad Blood with Luke as Batman, I wouldn't complain at all. I would like to see Luke appear anywhere, honestly. He's great.

You really don't know what you are talking about when it comes to Tynion's run if you didn't see everyone in one issue. If you didn't like the run to each his own.

At least Tynions run was directly related to the Rebirth agenda and that served as at the very least a path forward while also in my opinion expertly handing Batwoman, made Clayface a scene stealing and ultimately tragic character to be cared for, and continued to bring the world back to the way we knew before the New-52 and for me that is what I need as a fan right now. Not the romantic comedy of the World's Finest. But to each his own sir.

PS: Oriental refers to rugs and food and region. Call an asian an oriental to their face and see their reaction. I dare you. The More You Know.

Nice to see love for Tynion's Tec run, too! Even though I actually do enjoy King's run, I've only bought scattered issues, whereas I bought every single issue of Tynion's run.

And yes, I am...distinctly annoyed when someone calls me Oriental.

Here in England Oriental is perfectly acceptable for Chinese. Asian is Indian or Pakistani.

Balanced and A'level is subjective mate.

Possibly because I'm American, but it's not really cool here. At least in my experience.

[Rakiduam]

I think Bruce being a son of privilege is an essential part of his character, you would need a brilliant writter to adapt that to a minority, and an universatly idolatred writter to seel the concept to fans that are in their majority already set against changue. (Tynion is any of theose)

Now if they were to cast a black actor as Bruse Wayne they would need a super brave guy to deal with all the aggression directed to him, if Batman wasn't Bruce Wayne the opposition may be less vicious but not less tenacious.

[Mistah K88]

I was avoiding this topic...

When it comes to a BRUCE WAYNE born in the United States, I think the old money aspect is part of his character... Interestingly no one else in his cast really has too much linked to their ethnicity or race. Maybe Alfred being British is something integral to his character.

[batnbreakfast]

I was avoiding this topic...

When it comes to a BRUCE WAYNE born in the United States, I think the old money aspect is part of his character... Interestingly no one else in his cast really has too much linked to their ethnicity or race. Maybe Alfred being British is something integral to his character.

This.
I wouldn't mind Dick Grayson being black (add Damian, please) or a movie about Batwing. There are enough great black DC characters: Bronze Tiger, Black Manta... Deadshot could be black but please no Will Smith

[DevilBat66]

I just like all the characters to be portrayed how they were created be they black, white, or any other race.

If you want to do a story about a certain specific race, use one of the many characters that already exist.

I would rather see a Black Lightning movie than a black Bruce Wayne. Hell, Even an Orpheus movie would be better than that.

[Mistah K88]

I just like all the characters to be portrayed how they were created be they black, white, or any other race.

If you want to do a story about a certain specific race, use one of the many characters that already exist.

I would rather see a Black Lightning movie than a black Bruce Wayne. Hell, Even an Orpheus movie would be better than that.

With me it depends... of course major characters need to stay recognizable...but when it comes to minor characters, I say have a field day and alter them (it might even make some more interesting). For example, I'd call you a liar if you said you cared about Commissioner Loeb being portrayed by a black guy in the Nolan Batman movies.

[Starrius]

Jewish is ethnic group and a religion no correction needed.

That is correct.
My maternal grandmother's mother was Ashkenazi Jewish.
Her father immigrated from Romania, and her mother immigrated from Latvia.

At DNA sites, my mother and I have a lot of DNA relative matches that are Ashkenazi Jews

In our ethnic analysis at DNA sites, she and I have Jewish listed as part of our ethnic components


Genetic studies show that the many various ethnic Jewish ethnic groups are actually related to each other.

Genetic studies show that Ashkenazi Jews are mixture of mainly Middle Eastern and Mediterranean European ancestry.
Most of the Ashkenazi Y DNA is Middle Eastern, and most of the Ashkenazi Mitochondrial DNA is Mediterranean European.
There is history of Jewish men taking Italian wives that converted to their husband's religion.


I identified as multiracial/multiethnic of black/African American, white/Caucasian, native american, hispanic/latino on 2000 and 2010 Census forms and other forms


A few years ago, I have come to the view that "black" and "white" races are social constructs
Africa doesn't mean black just like Europe doesn't mean white
there is much diversity in Africa, and there is much diversity in Europe
the human race is too diverse and complex to divide people into black,white,yellow,red,etc ......it's ridiculous

[Gurz]

Hmm... i don't want Black Panther, Blade or Rene Montoya to be white and i don't want Batman to be black or hispanic or asian... why there should be a veriation of a character from every race ?

[bat39]

If its an Elseworlds story, or a Batman other than Bruce Wayne...go crazy!

If its the 'mainstream' Bruce Wayne, or some variant/adaptation of him...then no, he has to be white. If for no other reason than that's what the character was created as, and changing his race for the sake of forced diversity is only going to be controversial, to say the least.

I've never been a fan of race-bending. Yes, there have been instances where I've liked such portrayals, but usually, in those cases, the characters involved haven't been the protagonists and/or there wasn't an effort to have the casting be "in your face" to score cheap "diversity points".

That's the major difference, IMO, between Iris West being cast as a black woman on the TV show, and Wally West being made into a black kid in the New 52 comics. In the case of the former - Iris, while a major character in the Flash mythos, wasn't 'Lois Lane' level iconic to the extent that the change would arouse controversy, and also, the CW didn't make a big deal saying "we're turning Iris black...look how progressive we are". A major supporting character was race-bent, but it was treated as just a normal casting decision. A few people grumbled and some racists found an opportunity to vent, but other than that things were pretty smooth. Contrast this to Wally - I seem to remember Dan Didio crowing over the fact that they race-bent Wally, saying "Wally West is now going to be black FOREVER" or something along those lines. That, coupled with the fact that the character was given this pretty stereotypical story of being a messed-up black kid from a broken family, and generally had no endearing qualities, and no wonder people were up in arms against him. Then there's also the fact that the original Wally West was THE face of the Flash franchise for a quarter-century and was an icon almost on par with the Trinity, so changing him was bound to court controversy even if it hadn't been done in such a ham-fisted way.

Interestingly, the TV show's Wally, who's also black, has been received much better than the black kid Wally of the comics. Maybe the fact that his being black is just the incidental result of the West family being black in this continuity, and that his backstory and characterization is somewhat closer to classic Wally's, are major contributors to his acceptance.

MOS' Perry White and Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury are also examples of what I consider to be successful race-changes in adaptations. In Fury's case, the fact that Marvel didn't go all "Look how progressive we are...we made Nick Fury black" but rather went "We got Samuel F%CKING Jackson to play Nick Fury" went a long way towards making fans LOVE the decision.

Unfortunately, however they go about it, changing the race of a character like Bruce Wayne in a major mainstream adaptation is bound to court controversy.