Marvel getting desperate

hockey2112 said
Why not just do Norrin Radd now, and Nova later? Will they swap Nova as well? If so, what's the point of swapping in the first place? If not, why not?

Let's say you own a steakhouse. You have a loyal customer base (comic fans) who have been coming to you for years, expecting the same quality and product, and you have always delivered that expected product to them. Everyone is happy. The restaurant makes money, the customers eat their fill of something they enjoy. Then one day you decide, "I will now serve everyone a pork chop, even though they all want and expect the steak we have always delivered to them, just because". Why would the restaurant expect their life-long customers to be happy with that? That's what this feels like... casting the Silver Surfer as a woman "just because".

Who is asking for SS to be a woman? Where is the outcry for him to be cast as such?

Not a great analogy
To torture it a bit, the restaurant would have to notice that the customer base for their franchise is dying out and the next generation wants something different
Problem is that the transition is slow and filled with pitfalls
Status quo makes sense, but it’s got the shortest timeframe and the greatest chance to wither and die
The ‘compromise’ option is to try to find alternative meat sources but keep most of your recipes- that will ease the transition a bit, but doesn’t have much room to grow
Then there’s ’let’s keep the nostalgia’ but really update the menu - this one is the riskiest but with best chance to grow

But fossil fuels into alternatives might be the better analogy

BUT to answer your rhetorical question- it’s not a matter of who wants it, it’s an acknowledgment that when most of these heroes were developed it was mostly all white, str8 men creating characters from their demographic appealing to a fanbase they assumed was just like them
If the studio wants to use known characters- which makes the most sense- there’s really no reason the fantasy story/characters need to stay rooted in 1960s origins
Making Jane Foster into Thor for a movie doesn’t disenfranchise str8 Nordic men in any way
Making silver surfer a woman doesn’t disenfranchise naked silver men in any way