Comics, in black and white: ABCNews.com traces the history of African-American superheroes, and wonders how receptive readers would have been to a black Spider-Man. Here's Marvel's Joe Quesada:

"It's an interesting question, it's tough to say because often characters of a product of their times and good timing. Certainly, he would have had to had dealt with a different set of problems.

"On a consumer level, I don't know have the demographics from that time, but I would venture to say that maybe 99 percent of our readers were white maybe? And then you have a question of whether the consumer would have been ready to accept the character. Would they have been as receptive to Spider-Man if he had been drawn black? I don't know. Given what I know about the times, perhaps not. One of the beautifully universal things about Spider-Man is that the character wears a full mask. Anyone could be under that costume."