Comics

Michael B. Jordan speaks race and being Fantastic Four‘s Johnny Storm

Published

9 years ago

May 23, 2015

michael b. Jordan as the human torch / johnny storm in fantastic four. the action pixel. @thectionpixel . marvel. 20th century fox

Race and Sex are the last plateus to be conquered in the realm of the comic. No more apparent is this than the internet flack Fantastic 4‘s Michael B. Jordan has been getting for being cast as Johnny Storm, a character depicted in the comics typically as a blonde, blue-eyed Caucasian.

And the trolls of the internet, not to mention a few that work at Marvel, have been bashing Fantastic Four film before the trailer even came out.

And in classy fashion, finally, Michael B. Jordan addresses some of these issues and people hiding behind “comic narrative integrity” to spew ignorance and hatred:

You’re not supposed to go on the Internet when you’re cast as a superhero. But after taking on Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four—a character originally written with blond hair and blue eyes—I wanted to check the pulse out there. I didn’t want to be ignorant about what people were saying. Turns out this is what they were saying: “A black guy? I don’t like it. They must be doing it because Obama’s president” and “It’s not true to the comic.” Or even, “They’ve destroyed it!”

It used to bother me, but it doesn’t anymore. I can see everybody’s perspective, and I know I can’t ask the audience to forget 50 years of comic books. But the world is a little more diverse in 2015 than when the Fantastic Four comic first came out in 1961. Plus, if Stan Lee writes an email to my director saying, “You’re good. I’m okay with this,” who am I to go against that?

Some people may look at my casting as political correctness or an attempt to meet a racial quota, or as part of the year of “Black Film.” Or they could look at it as a creative choice by the director, Josh Trank, who is in an interracial relationship himself—a reflection of what a modern family looks like today.

This is a family movie about four friends—two of whom are myself and Kate Mara as my adopted sister—who are brought together by a series of unfortunate events to create unity and a team. That’s the message of the movie, if people can just allow themselves to see it.

Sometimes you have to be the person who stands up and says, “I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll take the brunt for the next couple of generations.” I put that responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much. Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.” Or maybe we have to reach past them.

To the trolls on the Internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It’s okay to like it.

Well that should put an end to all the naysayers… right?

See the official trailer for Fantastic Four in the player below:

Description for Fantastic Four (2015) reads:

A contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

The cast includes Miles Teller as Mr. Fantastic, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Jamie Bell as Benjamin Grimm, Toby Kebbell as DOOM.