a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man whose neighborhood looks right at last

One of the flaws in Spidey comics and movies over the past five-and-a-half decades is that his supporting cast is white as a piece of paper — while living in the most ethnically diverse city in the world. Jon Watts finally addressed this with his casting choices in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movies Homecoming and Far from Home and it’s awesome! My take on that at Tor.com….

An excerpt:

New York has always been an ethnically diverse city, as it’s historically been the primary east-coast port of call for immigrants, particularly in the pre-flight days of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ten years ago, I worked for the U.S. Census Bureau as a Crew Leader, enumerating the people of the Bronx, specifically. My crew included people whose ethnic heritage traced back to Angola, China, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Haiti, Ireland, Italy (that would be me), Kenya, Mexico, Poland, Singapore, and Venezuela. Plus two African-Americans who, thanks to slavery, don’t know exactly where in Africa they trace their ancestry to, and a couple from Puerto Rico.

So Spider-Man’s supporting cast in the comics never felt really representative.