Ultimate Spider-Man/Headscratchers

Questions to do with the comics.

• How exactly does Miles Morales ethnicity works? He's supposed to be "half-Hispanic and half-black", and he's said to have "an African American father and a Puerto Rican mother"; but his last name "Morales" is Hispanic, implying his dad is the Hispanic half. Unless both his parents are African-american of Hispanic descent or Miles got his name from his mom, we have a bit of a contradiction
  • Mile's dad's brother is named Aaron Davis. So presumably, Mile's dad originally had the surname "Davis", and later took the name "Morales" from Mile's mother when they were married, dropping his original last name. It makes perfect sense that he'd do that, as Miles' dad is very ashamed of his criminal past and of his brother.
  • So, long story short, yes, Miles Morales' last name is from his mother, not his father.

• • It is indeed possible that Miles' father is a black Hispanic.
    • But wouldn't that make him whole Hispanic? I mean having two Hispanic parents?
    • Another thing is that people mix up race and ethnicity. He is Black physically. That is race. His ethnicity is Hispanic.
      • Original Poster here. I'm not from the States, so I have no idea how the race-ethnicity works there; but I looked into it and according to my research "Hispanic" is a person from Latin-america or Spain (not racism there, no sire!) or anybody who identifies as Hispanic. So if I follow this correctly Miles must have a dad who is Black Hispanic and a mother who is Puerto Rican of some race (probably zaguate); and he's called Half-Black because his mom isn't. I still don't understand the Half-Hispanic part. Ethnicity in the States is way to complicated.
    • Maybe his dad has a hispanic last name for some weird reason? Maybe his dad was adopted by a hispanic couple? Maybe his dad took his mom's name at their marriage? It's not that out there.
      • His mom is Puerto Rican and his dad is black.
      • I haven't read the comic, but I think it's been clarified that Miles' dad's original surname was Davis, and that Morales is his wife's surname. Presumably he adopted his wife's surname instead of vice-versa to further separate himself from his brother.

Questions to do with the show.

• So do you also celebrate birthdays of your DEAD family members, like Parkers do? Seems weird even if Ben died on his birthday, which seems by the way like unnecessarily cruel change.
  • Well, I don't personally, but its not that weird. Some people like to honour their late family and friends on their birthdays.
  • My step-brother lost his father, and on his birthday, they still did a small party. I wasn't there for it, as I didn't know him very well, but those close to him celebrated what would have been his birthday.
• Doesn't Luke Cage's lack of a secret identity jeopardize that of his teammates?
  • Where does it say he has a public identity? He corrects Nova to call him Power Man in public, and he wears sun glasses while fighting crime, which for comic book logic is a good disguise that nobody will see through.
    • In the first episode he says he fights crime as Luke Cage, and Spider-Man comes up with the name Power Man.
      • He doesn't fight crime as Luke Cage because he hasn't fought crime before he calls himself Power Man. Spider-Man was the only one of the five who had already been fighting crime. That's why he was important to the team, because he's the only one with the experience.
• Why did no one on the team think that Venom was back in "Back in Black"? They were kinda being asses about it towards Peter and not really bothering to think that it could be the same guy they fought not too long ago.
  • It could be because this "new guy" was pretty much only half the size of the creature they had faced before. Or possibly because they knew the symbiote's greatest desire was to reunite with Spider-Man, and would be completely out of control and wreak havoc in order to accomplish this desire, yet all the new Spider-Man does is to fight crime.