In an unsurprising drawing of battle lines regarding the newly-reinvigorated battle to rid the industry of one of its worst elements, veteran comic book writer Mark Waid has responded to colleague Mark Millar’s recent declaration of war against ‘cancel pigs’ by not only dismissing it as a “cry for attention”, but also disingenuously attempting to write off its supporters as being composed of nothing more than “the Alt-Right”.
Offering his thoughts on the comic book industry’s latest turning point, as sparked by Millar after some of the industry’s loudest voices sought to bully retailer Glenn O’Leary over his very real criticisms of their current output, via a December 13th post made to his personal Facebook page, the current writer of DC’s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Vol. 1, Teen Titans: World’s Finest Vol. 1, and Shazam! Vol. 5 followed in the condescending footsteps of said bullies and opined, “And like a falling star rocketing across the sky, another former comics superstar whose heat is fading chooses to cry for attention by blaming the industry, his peers, and the audience rather than taking stock of his own professional progress, admitting that we are often the authors of our own fate, and finding the courage to reinvent himself and stay relevant.”
“It’s really Not. That. Hard,” he continued. “My star’s not gonna burn forever, either. No one’s does, and accepting that fact gracefully is a sign of emotional maturity. But if I ever, ever become That Guy, every single one of you has permission to slap me upside the head and force me to re-read the above paragraph as many times as it takes to sink in.”
Following its publication, Waid’s post would be met with a bevy of responses from both supporters and critics, the latter of which he would use as ‘jumping off’ points to further his argument.
Sharing the video of O’Leary’s now-famous rant against the industry’s turn to self-validation over good storytelling, fellow FB user Classic Marvel Era asserted, “There are somethings that can’t be agreed with but clearly there is a disconnect between the Big 2’s editorial, the LCS owners and the readers: and Mark is not wrong to highlight that.”
“More quality story telling is needed,” they detailed. “There’s a reason why you, Joe Q, Kurt Buseik, Donny Cates made a mark that still wows the readers to this day.”
Dismissing both the fan and O’Leary’s frustrations, Waid proceeded to condescendingly declare, “All this complaint about how ‘comics are dying’ because familiar characters are being written ‘out of character’ by people who want to “self-insert” their own political causes or turn them into ‘SJW mouthpieces’…but not one single legitimate example given.”
Proceeding to present one of the most dishonest reads of the entire situation that perhaps will ever be raised throughout the entire debate, Waid then questioned, “Not one. Who? Superman? Batman? Green Lantern? Flash? Wonder Woman? Spider-Man? Captain America? Daredevil? Iron Man? Nightwing? Harley Quinn? Damian Wayne? Seriously, what am I missing here? Have these complainers read a single Marvel or DC comic in the 2020s?”
“Well they have and so have we,” Classic Marvel Era pushed back. “Since we focus on Marvel Comics, the Captain America series by Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the bad examples (which seemed like a political manifesto shoved inside a comic unlike the writings of Kirby, Gruenwald and your very own Operation Rebirth) followed by post Hickman X-titles and most recently The Punisher by Jason Aaron.”
“Furthermore, shrugging an LCS owner’s opinion by simply questioning if they have read recent comics or not sounds a bit condescending, to put it mildly,” they continued. “Let’s assume you’re right but they’re the ones bearing the brunt in the form of loss of sales and possible business closure. There’s your POV, there’s Millar’s POV, there’re LCS owners’ POV and the truth is somewhere in between. Frankly you’re too benevolent when it comes to today’s comics which is surprising considering the kind of work you have produced for our favorite Marvel characters namely FF and DD.”
Proceeding to immediately prove just how dishonest his above dismissal truly was, Waid then admitted, “The Captain America series by Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the bad examples (which seemed like a political manifesto shoved inside a comic unlike the writings of Kirby, Gruenwald and your very own Operation Rebirth) followed by post Hickman X-titles and most recently The Punisher by Jason Aaron.”
“Cap hasn’t been written by Coates for some time now,” said Waid as he attempted to shift the goal posts. “The Punisher book that’s being published today isn’t reflective of your complaint. Isn’t that what you wanted? Why are you arguing so hard for something you already have? As regards the current X-books, I need you to be more specific about your complaints. In what way are they any more SJW then they have been for decades?”
Turning to the claim that he was “too benevolent when it comes to today’s comics,” the writer argued, “I’m not ‘benevolent’; I simply acknowledge that not all of these comics are written to my specific taste, any more than the war and romance books were when I was a kid.”
“Or any more than half the DC and Marvel superhero line when I was a teenager,” recalled Waid. “And that’s perfectly fine. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t automatically make it bad. I’m not trying to minimize the fact that there are real problems in the industry right now. But strawman complaints about comics that simply don’t exist aren’t helping.”
Further expanding on his argument in reply to a since-deleted post from user Getsmelifted Amvs, Waid once again turned his nose up at readers and claimed, “The overall complaint is that major classic characters are being written ‘out of character,’ causing their books to fail. Tim Drake, Jon Kent, Iceman, Star-Lord…? Those count as ‘major classic characters’? Do we really believe that the industry is ailing because of three mini-series and Star-Lord?”
However, it would be in response to a separate user, Steven McKee, that Waid would confirm just how disingenuous his arguments truly were.
“I love your work Mark but seems anybody who tries to highlight the issues that the industry is facing either gets piled on or in this case his star is fading and looking for attention,” replied McKee to Waid’s original post. “Mark [Waid] said he hasn’t relied on income from comics for a long time. See rather than this tit for tat that we are seeing throughout the fandom maybe people should actually try get together and try to fix what’s wrong. I am by no means an expert only a consumer but all this doesn’t seem to be helping matters.”
In turn, Waid made a play at fear-mongering and declared, “I think a lot of us would just rather see the industry burn down than ‘get together’ with the alt-right.”
“I know I would,” he continued his rant. “Sorry. And I call bulls–t on ‘anyone who tries to highlight the issues gets piled on.’ I think it’s far more accurate to say ‘anyone who wants to blame everything on SJWs gets piled on’ or ‘anyone who wants to complain that their favorite characters are being written as political mouthpieces but can’t provide any examples of this is being piled on.”
Eventually, Waid would exit the conversation, leaving the discourse to take on a life of its own within his replies.
However, the next day would see the Marvel’s Champions Vol. 2 author offer one final (at least for the time being), backpedaling statement regarding his recent take, beginning with the admission that “Yep, The mainstream superhero comics industry is having a rough time of it lately. Few people are saying otherwise, and my heart goes out to struggling retailers.”
Proceeding to once more misrepresent his opponent’s arguments, Waid continued, “Steps need to be taken, and even the alt-right loudmouths make some good points. But when ‘make better comics!’ becomes ‘make more comics that are to my own personal taste!’, that’s a ‘solution’ I can’t get behind.”
“Badly produced comics sure aren’t helping, and there are a bunch out there, but neither is pretending that bad superhero comics is some new phenomenon,” he concluded. “As someone who’s been reading them for nearly 60 years, I can promise you that many of the ones you remember with nostalgic fondness because you liked them as a Middle Schooler were just as bad compared to the actual classics of the day. Just because you and your friends don’t like something doesn’t automatically make it empirically bad.”
