Marvel Editor Accused of Politically Discriminating Against Trump Supporters

  |  
Mar 5, 2018
Alanna Smith

Marvel Assistant Editor Alanna Smith has been accused of politically discriminating against President Donald Trump supporters.

Smith is the Assistant Editor on a number of current Marvel titles including Tales of Suspense, Hawkeye, Falcon, and Quicksilver. She also previously worked on The Thunderbolts, The Unstoppable Wasp, and Ultimates 2.

The accusations were made by comic critic Diversity & Comics in one of his recent videos.

His evidence includes a tweet from before the 2016 election dated October 16, 2016. In the tweet Smith writes, “Make no mistake: even if Trump loses, we will remember who supported him.”

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/787746066552807424

While this doesn’t mean Smith is using her position as an Assistant Editor at Marvel Comics to discriminate against Trump supporters, it is extremely troubling.

Smith would Tweet out other political messages around the election in November, but they were typical of a number of Hillary Clinton supporters and people who were against Donald Trump. They didn’t seem out of the ordinary or even vengeful. However, she does allude to Trump supporters as “evil,” but given the hyperbolic partisan rhetoric it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.

I mean Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters, “a basket of deplorables.” She then went on to describe them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it.” If you actually believed Hillary Clinton about these people, it’s not too much of a stretch to think Trump supporters are evil.

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/796210844233252864

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/796301661388029956

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/796328198321610752

What’s interesting is that Alanna Smith admits she has family members who voted for Donald Trump. So when she alludes to calling Trump supporters “evil,” it definitely comes off as a hyperbolic statement with no real power behind it.

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/800821952722194432

And while Smith’s political views are nothing out of the ordinary for many people. She didn’t appear to be applying them to discriminate through her job as an associate editor. She actually defended Thunderbolts artist Jon Malin after he was accused of sexism because of the way he draws the female figure.

Jon Malin and Jim Zub were asked by a fan, “Why do you keep including the insane accusations of sexism in your book in the Letters sections? Don’t feed those trolls.”

Malin responded, “If they’re ignored you lose the opportunity to change their POV. #Thunderbolts.”

That’s when Alanna Smith appeared to come to Malin’s defense, “besides, they’re not trolls–many are people who have felt alienated by comics before. I’ve been there!” She would add, “reaching out to people who were bothered by something helps keep comics inclusive!”

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/782075789575593984

In fact, Smith even laments what “social-justice-y reviewers” have made her feel. She writes, “I gotta say, no one at Marvel has ever made me feel like the token female on a book, but social-justice-y reviewers sure do.”

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/788748400330207232

She would elaborate, “Either the onus is on me to fix the problematic thing, or it’s ‘Poor assistant editor Alanna Smith, the Only One, must have been powerless.'” She continued, “Or it’s ‘Even Alanna Smith, the F*E*M*A*L*E*E*D*I*T*O*R is defending this problematic thing!!!’ like I can only have one kind of opinion.”

https://twitter.com/AlannaWrites/status/788750391546699776

We asked Jon Malin about the possibility of Alanna Smith discriminating against Trump supporters. He didn’t specifically mention her, but he did point out there is a major problem within the industry where “political intimidation has become acceptable.”

“I haven’t seen the D & C video, my only comment is that there is a serious problem growing as this industry shrinks and retailers close. The mainstream will continue to become more sterile as more and more ideologues of far left PC culture smell weakness and run their views headfirst into this artform to castrate it, be that by censoring the art needlessly or making creative decisions to push political views on readers, some of whom are children. Everything from open racism, sexism, and political intimidation has become acceptable and this should be a concern for all. Political intimidation should be unacceptable for an editor to use on co-workers or freelancers, I don’t believe editors should be fired for this but they need to be removed from creative control positions so talent can feel welcomed to maximize a stories potential to sell. Selling more books by telling the greatest stories and making the most exciting art possible needs to be the only agenda right now and taking the overly PC handcuffs off will help push ideas further in the age of the internet and ever growing battle for attention spans. Everyone benefits.”

Malin isn’t wrong there is quite a bit of trouble lurking within the comic book industry and we’ve reported on racist behavior as well as comic book professionals targeting Ethan Van Sciver because he is a Republican.

But honestly, it doesn’t look like Alanna Smith is using her position as an Associate Editor at Marvel Comics to discriminate against Trump supporters. She has Trump supporters as family members and has even appeared to come under attack for defending Jon Malin from “social-justice-y” comic book reviewers. If anything Alanna Smith is an anti-Trump person. And I might disagree with her, but she’s entitled to her own political beliefs.

We reached out to Alanna Smith, but did not receive a response at the time of print.

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