Miles is an ordinary teen he likes basketball, won his school’s science contest, and goes to a prep school. He isn’t walking around low-riding, saying the N-word or using a gun. Many of his mannerisms reminded me of my geeky but athletic little brother - who has just the normal amount swagger for a teen of any race.īeing of African-American and Puerto Rican descent, Miles Morales is by no means a stereotype.
Insomniac also did a good job with the character, and Nadji Jeter portrayed Miles excellently. For example, a single tear of joy rolled down my cheek when I made my Pokémon trainer Black for the first time, so playing as the Black Spider-Man, Miles Morales, was a dream come true. I’m the type of person who always tries to make my RPG characters Black when the option is available. I was so happy to finally be playing a story-driven video game as a Black character that I started crying. When I played it for the first time, just seeing Miles walking along the street listening to music, helping someone get their couch onto a moving truck, and walking with such joy made me feel overwhelmed.
Series based on Batman, Superman and Spider-Man have always lacked diversity as well. While X-Men added some diversity with characters like Storm (my favourite hero ever) and Bishop, the focus has always been heroes like Jean Grey, Professor X, Wolverine and Cyclops. Growing up, I was fascinated by superheroes, but the vast majority of them - especially in animation - are white. Since 1967, several different Spider-Man TV shows have aired, and while I haven’t seen them all, I’ve watched a lot of them. Just like many of the X-Men’s mutants, my dad faced discrimination because of what he looked like.Īs a result of my dad’s influence, I’ve always loved superheroes, and the one I’ve seen the most adaptations of in my life is Spider-Man. My father moved to Canada from Jamaica when he was 13, and as a young Black man in Toronto, he encountered a lot of racism. He loved the mutants and how they faced similar adversities to what he dealt with in his life. When I was a kid, my father and I often watched VHS tapes of the ’90s X-Men series.