‘Superman’ Reboot Being Produced By JJ Abrams With Ta-Nehisi Coates Writing

[Amadeus Arkham]

If it's Calvin Ellis (which, if they are going with a PoC, would be a safe bet). I'd be all over that. But a race bended Clark Kent? No way. The character is who he is. Simple as that.

There is nothing about Clark that tells me he has to remain White in order to retain the core traits of the character that most matter. If they end up using Clark I would prefer he’d be a white male but if a black actor comes along who captures the inherent qualities of the character then I’m mostly fine with it.

Either way, as I stated before I’ll reserve judgement for the project until a director is announced. Whether I get excited for the project or not depends on the caliber of filmmaker they hire.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

All this talk about how a white character being white doesn't matter is troublesome on the face of it. No one would say that about any other group.

There is nothing about Cyborg or John Stewart that says they have to be black, but I don't think it would go over so well if they tried to make them another group.

I understand that there's tons of white superheroes and much fewer minority superheroes, but the idea that white superheroes and white people should be erased as a way to fix that has a subtext that's really unsettling.

[Triple J]

If it's Calvin Ellis (which, if they are going with a PoC, would be a safe bet). I'd be all over that. But a race bended Clark Kent? No way. The character is who he is. Simple as that.

Again, we don't have much to go on but speculation. But a line has to be drawn somewhere with all this. The problem with DC characters not working in film isn't because they are white guys in their 30s. The problem is because we have had incompetents at the wheel. Man Of Steel would have worked fine. Cavill was great in the role. But we had a studio who had success with one franchise (Batman) and suddenly everything had to be dark and gloomy and have the hero resort to breaking the villains neck for "see? Our Superman means business." It totally missed the mark on what the character represents and stands for.

Get someone in there who 1. Actually wants to work on that character, 2. Understands the character and 3. Has a vision, and leave them alone. Warner Bros saw the money Marvel was making and rushed in with no clear plan in place (like the cock up over at Sony by trying to rush a Spidey verse). Snyder is a good director. But no way was he the guy to have as a "godfather" overseeing the cinematic universe for DC.

I am totally not the guy who they make Luke Cage or Black Lightning comics for. I am a white Australian (albeit with indigenous heritage) and I come from a semi rural town in public housing. But I love those characters. People who say they "can't get into a character because they don't share the same outlook or skin colour" is fine. You can, but that is besides the point. But this constant fuss over changing things to appeal to other markets is getting right up my nose.

Why? And who decides where the line has to be drawn?

I don't think anyone is claiming that the problem is with Superman's race (or what he comes across as anyways). Whatever happened with Cavill's Superman is WB's fault - with their constant meddling and all.

WB is doing this is to capture the BP market - also a clean slate (and remove the baggage associated with Cavill's Superman). For better or worse, they are simply going after the money (which is normal for studios anyways).

All this talk about how a white character being white doesn't matter is troublesome on the face of it. No one would say that about any other group.

There is nothing about Cyborg or John Stewart that says they have to be black, but I don't think it would go over so well if they tried to make them another group.

I understand that there's tons of white superheroes and much fewer minority superheroes, but the idea that white superheroes and white people should be erased as a way to fix that has a subtext that's really unsettling.

Keep in mind, Clark is not actually Caucasian. He's an Alien, so his skin color could be whatever an author wants it to be. No one is saying anything about race bending actual Caucasian characters (like say Bruce Wayne). Same with Cyborg - because he's actually a Black American.

Take Martian Manhunter for instance. He's an Alien as well (though unlike Clark, he has freedom to change his appearance and skin color at will). In either case, character's race isn't important, you can still capture the character's traits while changing their race.

[Castle]

I think a black Clark Kent will not be the best of ideas. I also fear that if it flops, it will do collateral damage to any potential movie of the other original DC characters that were created to be blac from the on set. examples Batwing and Jon Stewart.

I am in for a black Superman not just a Black Clark Kent because it is so unnecessary and dishonest.

Superman can go for the Spiderman mythos route. anyone can be Spidermanm even a female like Gwen Stacy. which is also the reason Miles Morales is such as awesome character, who has become an icon in his own right and he is black/Latino from origins not same race swapped character because hollywood loves their superficial diversity.

Let the new superman be a brand new character from Kyprton, who goes also goes by the name Superman and he can be black because we can have many Supermans, I don't just agree with many Clark Kents

[Amadeus Arkham]

All this talk about how a white character being white doesn't matter is troublesome on the face of it. No one would say that about any other group.

There is nothing about Cyborg or John Stewart that says they have to be black, but I don't think it would go over so well if they tried to make them another group.

I understand that there's tons of white superheroes and much fewer minority superheroes, but the idea that white superheroes and white people should be erased as a way to fix that has a subtext that's really unsettling.

Difference there though is Cyborg and Jon Stewart were created with the purpose of adding more representation to comics at the time. Superman, and really most white heroes weren’t really created to add more white male representation. Take these two Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s creations like Black Panther and Reed Richards. Technically, one could make the same argument that you could race-bend both of these characters; Black Panther could be changed into being a white king from a fictional European country as opposed to being a black King from a fictional African nation and Reed Richards could be changed to an black scientist as opposed to a white scientist. However, it doesn’t take a genius to know which between the two changes of these characters would be much more inherently problematic. T’Challa(as the case with virtually every other non-white POC character) was specifically created with the purpose of bringing more representation to a homogeneously white comic book world. While Reed, the white character, as well as almost virtually every white comic character was not created with that specific intention in mind.

Now there are certain white characters that race-swapping their race might be problematic(Jewish characters like Magneto and Ben Grimm come to mind) but as a whole I don’t think it’s unsettling to alter White characters race, especially when racial/ethnic representation has never been a reason for most of their creations in the first place. That being said, I would prefer if Clark remain an alien looking coincidentally like a Caucasian human instead of coindentally looking like a black human. That’s my personal preference, though but I don’t think it’ll be the end of the world if Clark Kent doesn’t look like a white person again for the gazillionlith time.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Not if most Kryptonians are shown to be white, then his skin color would matter, not sure about the racial differences amongst those from Krypton...

[Amadeus Arkham]

Not if most Kryptonians are shown to be white, then his skin color would matter, not sure about the racial differences amongst those from Krypton...

I don’t think so but at this point whatever.

[Kirby101]

The only problem with making him Calvin and not Clark is the wider audience doesn't know who Clavin is. Will they think that WB played a trick on them, calling this guy Superman who isn't the character they know from the other movies, TV and the comics they read as kids?

[Amadeus Arkham]

The only problem with making him Calvin and not Clark is the wider audience doesn't know who Clavin is. Will they think that WB played a trick on them, calling this guy Superman who isn't the character they know from the other movies, TV and the comics they read as kids?

I mean...was the wider audience that familiar with Miles Morales before Into The Spider-Verse? These movies can introduce these less well known characters to a wider audience.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I'm curious and concerned about the creative team. A black Superman isn't that big a deal because we have two already. We also have a Chinese Superman and a Mexican Superman so I'm hoping a South Asian Superman is around the corner .

A Black Clark Kent is trickier but still do able. If we can have a Black Lex Luthor we can live with a Black Clark Kent.

[Kirby101]

I mean...was the wider audience that familiar with Miles Morales before Into The Spider-Verse? These movies can introduce these less well known characters to a wider audience.

No, but that movie had two Peter Parkers and a great story and animation. So the audience went with it.
Will a movie about Calvin reference Clark Kent, or are they just going to say, this guy you never heard of is now Superman.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

No, but that movie had two Peter Parkers and a great story and animation. So the audience went with it.
Will a movie about Calvin reference Clark Kent, or are they just going to say, this guy you never heard of is now Superman.

It seems that the upcoming Flash/Flashpoint movie will introduce the concept of the Multiverse to DC Films just as the upcoming Dr. Strange and Spider-Man movies will introduce the Multiverse to the MCU.

Given that, it seems that the Flash movie will be the appropriate place to clue people in that there's an alternate universe where Superman is black. They could just show a montage of alternate Earths for a few seconds and briefly show the Earth where a black Superman is flying over the city.

Then, maybe audiences will actually buy in to the concept and be curious about seeing the subsequent solo Superman movie from Abrams/Coates.

If they just drop their movie cold into theaters with no context, then it's probably true that a lot of people would reject it -- whether their Superman is Calvin or Clark.

[SiegePerilous02]

No, but that movie had two Peter Parkers and a great story and animation. So the audience went with it.
Will a movie about Calvin reference Clark Kent, or are they just going to say, this guy you never heard of is now Superman.

Yeah, I think the main difference is that Spider-Verse still had focus on Peter, the character audiences were most familiar with. Plus I think Miles had way more of a presence in the comics even before that movie than Calvin or Val-Zod have had so far.

If this is just Calvin with no reference whatsoever to Clark, it'd be a much different story. Unless it's a black Clark

[Mia]

Very cool if they actually do a black Superman. Superman is a character for all people, not just the honkies.

Exactly!!

https://giphy.com/gifs/sRmt0pp7qgWS4/html5

[Castle]

I mean...was the wider audience that familiar with Miles Morales before Into The Spider-Verse? These movies can introduce these less well known characters to a wider audience.

I was going to say this. the wider audience did not know miles compared to peter but it worked with spiderverse.

this is my issue with the superficial diversity in Hollywood. If Hollywood really cared about representation, they need to do this series right,

make a brand new black superman not clark kent and really build it up. let the audience fall in love with this newcomer, it does not need billion dollar budget, it just needs to be a very good, well made film that covers its budget and let the sequels keeps building from that.