http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/05/06/the-racial-politics-of-regressive-storytelling/

Reading the fan boards, I see a conflict between fans calling for more diverse superheroes and those who reject new minority characters as mere tokenism. The hostility seems particularly virulent toward legacy characters who are replacing the “classic” versions of superheroes. But who knows whether that’s just typical fannish nostalgia or whether white male comic readers struggle to identify with minority characters. If it’s the latter, you’d think readers would then understand why broader representation is important — especially given comics’ shrinking readership.

But the fact remains that non-white male superheroes tend to sell poorly, sometimes leading to the deemphasis of their ethnicity, as you point out with Spider-Girl. It’s a complex issue — thanks for the post!