Silk courtesy Marvel
The next friendly neighborhood Spiderman is going to be Korean American.
Silk, a superhero with the same skills as Peter Parker, will be front and center in a new television series developed by Sony and potentially distributed by Amazon, Deadline reports. If produced, Silk would be one of the first TV shows to star an Asian American superhero.
According to Variety, Korean American writer Lauren Moon is in talks to write for the film. Moon previously worked on shows such as Atypical and Good Trouble.
While Asian comic book characters have long been a part of the superhero world, Deadline reports, most have been regulated to the sidelines as supporting characters. These trends are slowly changing as series such as Ms. Marvel feature the first Muslim, Pakistani superhero.
According to TIME, Marvel is also in the process of producing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the first Marvel movie to star an Asian American hero, along with a predominantly Asian cast.
Michele Yeoh, a prolific Malaysian actress who may be in the movie, said ‘contemporary’ views of Asian Americans are finally reaching the big screen.
“When Crazy Rich Asians came out, it changed the map,” Yeoh said, TIME reports. “It changed the whole way Asians were represented and seen… Not just in period pieces or flying across rooftops or something like that, but in a way little girls and little boys look up and go, ‘Oh my god, I can see that’s me up there.’ That is very, very important.”
“When [Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings] was announced last year and they introduced who they were doing as the Marvel superhero and it was an Asian superhero, it was like, ‘Yes, finally!’ When do we get to be represented like that?” Yeoh said.
Silk, whose real name is Cindy Moon was originally written as Peter Parker’s classmate, Variety reports. She also gains her powers through a radioactive spider bite, but is differentiated by a more advanced Spider-Sense (known as Silk Sense).
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