The Fantastic Four: Does It Matter If Johnny’s White?

Earlier this week, a pair of casting rumors leaked out, suggesting that Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox may have found their Sue and Johnny Storm for the forthcoming reboot of a film franchise based on Marvel’s Fantastic Four.While Allison Williams, rumored to play Sue Storm, went largely unremarked-upon (she’s pretty, and part of one of the most popular shows on cable, so it’s not surprising that most fans had no particular qualms with her playing the part), her brother Johnny is another matter.And frankly, some of it got pretty ugly, pretty quickly.That’s because rumor has it Michael B. Jordan from Chronicle and Friday Night Lights will be offered the role. Jordan, who is black, wouldn’t be the first member of the Fantastic Four to be altered to make the team a little less lily-white…but the first time around, it was Jessica Alba, who is not only a big star but who also has a kind of pan-ethnic quality that makes her seem like her family’s history is whatever the writers say it is. There wasn’t much (that I can recall) made of the fact that she and Chris Evans didn’t much look like siblings, possibly because Alba could “pass.”