Marvel fuels internet clash by making Iron Man a 15-year-old black girl

Marvel, purveyor of superhero franchises, has given two vocal and constantlysparring online communities a new reason to wage battle this week by changing the gender, age and race of a canonical comic book character.

Whether or not the fans were flamed onpurpose is up for debate but what'scertain isthat Iron Man will soon be a 15-year-old black girl from Chicago.

Meet Riri Williams, a science prodigywho leaves the "chaos and violence" of her city behind toenrolat MIT, where eventually shereverse-engineers anIron Man suit in her dorm room.

Williams doesn't have the resources of billionaire weapons inventor Tony Stark, who has appeared in the Marvel universe asIron Mansince 1963, but she's got the smarts to keep up with herpredecessor. Based on whatMarvel writerBrian MichaelBendissays,she may even be smarter than Stark.

"This young woman is flying by him in terms of how quickly she's doing it," Bendis told Timein an exclusive interview abouthis forthcomingInvincible Iron Man series Wednesday."Her brain is maybe a little better than his. She looks at things from a different perspective that makes the armour unique."

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Bendissays that thecharacter was inspired by his own experiencesworkingon a TVshow inChicago, where he noticed a striking amountof violence.

"This story of this brilliant, young woman whose life was marred by tragedy that could have easily ended her life just random street violence and went off to college was very inspiring to me," he said."I thought that was the most modern version of asuperheroorsuperheroinestory I had ever heard."

Noble as his intentions to modernize Iron Man may have been, groups ofhardcorecomic book fans have been known to rail against major character changes such as this one,particularly when those changes involve a Marvel hero'sraceorgender.

LikeMuslimMs. MarvelKamala Khan, DC's gay Green Lantern, orMiles Morales,thehalf-black, half-Hispanic Spider-Man,Williams as Iron Man became the subject of heated debate almost instantly after her character's role was announced.

Much of the online commentary has beenmoderate, with people either applauding the moveor asking Marvel why white men continue to write most of its storiesdespite the public push for more diversity amongsuperheroes.

Still, those who've been around the web for some time could sense another nasty conflict brewingbetween "misogynistic fanboys" and"social justice warriors"as soon as they heard the news and they weren't wrong.

Harsh words and accusations (which will not be repeated here)are flying from extremists on both sides of the fence.

People who champion social progress and campaignaggressivelyagainst anythingthey find offensive are attacking critics of the character as "racists," "nerds" and "trolls."

People who champion "tradition" and campaign against the efforts of what they call "SJWs" sometimes to the extent oforganizingmassharassment stings or sending death threats to women online are decrying political correctnessfor ruining society, once again.

Evidence of this can be seen all over Twitterby searching for "Iron Man" or simply by reading replies to any of the more passionate tweets about Marvel's announcement.

There's more to the latest comic bookcontroversythan#gamergate-style Twitter sparring, however.

Some are alsoasking questions about Marvel's motivation for changing so many characters over a relatively short span of time.

Is the company working to better reflect the diversity ofAmerican comic book readers for the sake of progress, or the sakeofprofit?

Bendis, for his part, seems genuine in his efforts simply to create cool characters for Marvel.

"Some of the comments online, I don't think people even realize how racist they sound," he told Time. "I'm not saying if you criticize you're a racist, but if someone writes, 'Why do we need Riri Williams we already have Miles?' that's a weird thing to say. They're individuals just likeCaptain Americaand Cyclops are individuals."