The Four Color Media Monitor

Some of what I'll highlight here may be at least a few months old, but anyway, here's something else on CBR about the new Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes and Rivals, and something else is noted that I may not have paid close enough attention to earlier that's laughable at this point:

So the concept of the story is that the villainous Roxxon Corporation has decided to try to put out an A.I.-generated swimsuit special featuring the Avengers, and naturally, the Avengers are irritated at that, especially when the special turns out to not only be selling well (Roxxon is making more from selling this special than they are making from OIL in this quarter), but this fake special is leading to a moral outrage from conservative groups who are using it as a tool to bludgeon the Avengers with, and the Avengers, as you might imagine, aren't happy with THAT, either.

Well isn't that something: years after most conservatives wisely abandoned sex-negative positions that did more harm than good, some liberals decided to continue making it look like right-wingers are the sex-negative bunch, and not the the left-wingers who led to horrific censorship cases in the past decade, even at Marvel? Why exactly let people like Heather Antos off the hook after what even she was involved in? Such a swipe is not going to age well, and the writers probably know it. Do they actually want right-wingers to retain such shoddy positions till the bitter end of time? Sigh.

Next, here's AIPT's "review" of the special, which says:

For comic fans of a certain vintage, the Marvel Swimsuit Specials of the early ’90s were a yearly event. They seemed like they were everywhere, sometimes on the stands themselves but primarily used as images for mail-order ads in comics. Like the real-world Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, the Marvel Special was an (in)famous excuse for the hottest artists of the time to draw characters like Storm, Mary Jane Watson, Psylocke, and even The Punisher in their Summer best, often showing a lot more than just their powers. Long forgotten except for funny internet article fodder, the specials are looked back on with both laughter and a little bit of shame, something best kept to the dustbin of comic publishing history as things to bring up at parties for a laugh.

I think the writer's implying it's more like a lot of shame. Mainly because he doesn't make any case why it shouldn't be something to be ashamed of. This is practically one of the reasons why speculator buyers seem more interested in locking their graded pamphlets, old and new, away in vaults than in putting them on display in museums and gallery exhibitions. By this logic, even a portrait of Wonder Woman in a bikini would be nothing more than a source of shame too. I'm sorry, but despite any attempts to claim otherwise, the AIPT writer's clearly got a low opinion of the whole idea. And then, he says:

Is is silly? It sure is! But that’s what makes Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs’ script work. The meta narrative does tend to get a little too on the nose at times, but you can tell that the two writers behind Image’s Local Man and a host of other comics are having a lot of fun both poking fun at and having fun with the concept of this new special. The original specials were really just glorified pin-up magazines, so adding some plot, no matter how thin, makes this feel like it’s more substantial than the ones published 30 years ago. Plus, the extremely continuity light story is great for those who only know the characters from the various multimedia properties Marvel has taken over (although it’s clear that Marvel is banking on cashing in on the popularity of Marvel Rivals with this).

Sorry, but the "plot" here actually worked to its detriment, as I'd noted before. Besides, there were plots in the original specials, even if they were simplistic, and which didn't take away from the whole goal, which was to market art specials with narrative captions, humorous or serious, that worked in their favor, unlike this new special, which has no captions on the portraits, some of which are sexless and uninspired, to say nothing of coy. Yes, there are a few in the 2025 special that're better, but again, they're not enough, and the action-style panels only took away space that could've been reserved for more pictures, though I admit, I hesitate to think if those too could be as uninspired as the pictures of Rogue-Gambit and Cloak & Dagger turned out to be. The variant covers were better, especially J. Scott Campbell's, but that's surely the biggest problem - instead of being inside the special, they're on the outside, and I don't think the original Swimsuit specials had variants by contrast.

It's also telling if this special is being marketed more to people only familiar with multimedia than the comics themselves, and I guess the writer doesn't want to encourage anybody to read the archives of better comics published up to the turn of the century. That's what it sounds like. In that case, no wonder famous classics aren't getting anywhere, and Marvel/DC collapsed artistically long ago.

Then, here's what Comic Book Movie said when the special was announced:

A parody of Sports Illustrated’s annual Swimsuit Special, the Marvel Swimsuit Special was cancelled back in the mid-90s in the midst of continued criticism for its objectification of characters (though we don't know for certain that this is why the concept was scrapped).

The new comic book will release in July after a “long-demanded return” to tie in with Marvel Rivals, and will feature designs for new costumes coming to the game. Players will be able to purchase new swimsuit skins for popular heroes, such as Storm, Scarlet Witch, The Incredible Hulk and more.

This new take in the Swimsuit Special will also have a story, "so you can pretend you’re reading it for the articles."

Umm, if you don't know "for certain" that Marvel stopped because of the reasons you cited, then what good is it to even assume that? For all we know, it's possible the specials just lost popularity by that time, though one could also argue it's best to end some things on a good note, which the 2025 special hardly is. Of course, one could wonder if reviving the specials was long in demand, considering their regular comics are in such dire straits artistically. And again, I'm sorry, but putting in an alleged "story" only undermines the whole point of the specials, and even if that line's meant to be a joke, it's not well timed. What the line suggests is that everybody should be embarrassed to be reading the special if it were more like the originals, and let's recall those had the narrative captions the 2025 special lacks.

In another related item, Sports Illustrated even took notice of the closely connected Marvel Rivals computer game (they also reported back in April on some of this), and special outfits drawn for Psylocke, and also Loki:

On July 14 2025, Marvel Rivals announced that two Summer Special swimsuit skins would soon appear in-game. The Breezy Butterfly Psylocke skin reimagines Psylocke with a cutout one-piece swimsuit and sheer pink cover-up. The costume includes butterfly-themed accents and also adds a fish charm and a cool mint-green colorway to her katana. Meanwhile, Robe of Relaxation Loki has a luxurious green-and-gold bathrobe, a stylish sun hat and bright pink aviator sunnies.

Here's also an extra article about this. Well I do admit the design for Psylocke is great, but why exactly is Loki being emphasized more than Thor? Better still, why must a crook be the one to garner attention? Sorry, but here again, it's arguably flawed in marketing.

Anyway, I guess in conclusion, I'll post a more complete panel of Campbell's wraparound variant cover for the special, one of the few good things about it, and these news reports and so-called reviews can stand as examples of phonies who aren't really upholding anything Marvel and DC originally stood for, and their coverage didn't seem very enthusiastic as it is, which explains all the more why no objective view was made on the quality of the interior art portraits. I won't be surprised if a lot of the inner paintings, no matter the quality, begin to turn up across the web in years to come, and that's decidedly the best way to pass judgement on whether they're talented or not. And some of them, I just don't think are. Also, I think Mary Jane Watson only appears in one of Campbell's illustrations, and not directly inside the 2025 special. Why, for that matter, neither do a lot of other ladies who could use some attention, like Moira MacTaggart, or even Betty Brant, Pepper Potts and Bethany Cabe. Maybe one of the worst things about where PC led Marvel over the years is that, because Karen Page was put to death in the Marvel Knights take on Daredevil, so that's their shoddy excuse for not including her in this special either, though what's really atrocious is how "civilian" co-stars like her are rarely given the same benefits their super-doing counterparts are, if at all. Indeed, the whole casual view of death in superhero comics has only ruined creativity, especially when they act like it's wrong to do what countless other science fantasy novels can do all the time with resurrection. If it's not wrong to resurrect a civilian style character in novels, then superhero comics can't be any different, period.

Labels: censorship issues, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, technology, women of marvel

Fox2 Detroit reports a specialty store in Madison Heights was robbed, and the loot included nearly a dozen "graded" comics:

The Madison Heights Police Department is seeking a not-so-"super" man or woman who broke into Comics and More, 28059 John R Road, and stole several valuable pieces of merchandise.

[...] Among the items missing were 11 valuable graded books.

One of the copies, curiously enough, was of All-New Ultimate Comics Spider-Man 1 Pichelli variant CGC 9.6. Another was for All-Star Squadron 47, and some come from a Twilight Zone series, though I'm not sure if it's anything related to IDW's new horror-themed projects. Now, I think it's a terrible shame whenever store managers fall victim to robbery, and I hope the owners get their stolen goods back. But it's still ludicrous how we keep seeing only so many make use of these graded comic pamphlets that're sold to speculators instead of put on display in museums. Why, who knows how much value that Ultimate imprint will have in the future anyway? One comic that definitely won't have value is the disgraced Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. I wouldn't be shocked if some speculators until recently kept copies of back issues in their vaults, and now, after Gaiman's sexual assault scandal, those back issues are worthless and embarrassing. Goodness knows what any speculator foolish enough to buy those has done with them now that the scandal's long made headlines, and Gaiman's career has collapsed.

So, again, I'm most terribly sorry the specialty store owners in Michigan had to experience this unfortunate robbery. But I still think there's a valid argument to be made that anybody working in comics sales have to start changing their MO, and not rely on all this speculator marketing that may not amount to much in money terms in the future. What should matter is the reading value, and all these graded collectibles can become a distraction from the ability to sell according to the more vital purpose of reading. It'd also do a lot of good if variant covers were replaced with wall paintings, for which I see big potential as a cottage industry, so what's keeping specialty stores from making the case for those instead?

Labels: msm propaganda, sales

Polygon's fawning over news of a new Batman miniseries from the Black Label imprint co-starring Green Arrow and the Question, that emphasizes one of the most pathetically cheap subjects of the modern era:

You've read countless stories about Batman battling the Joker on the streets of Gotham, but what about Batman taking on billionaires on an ocean-faring utopian city? Alongside other DC vigilantes, that's exactly what he'll do when Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia begins, with the first issue releasing on November 26.

This Black Label (DC Comics' imprint for darker and more mature stories) four-issue miniseries follows the heroes, updated "for a new era of open class warfare and ecological collapse," in a noir detective thriller, according to a news release. Bruce Wayne investigates the "climate-hardened" city of Arcadia while Green Arrow and the Question uncover the secrets buried beneath the city to try to figure out what's really going on.

This has become so cliched by now it's not even funny. It's a pathetically cheap topic that only serves as an excuse to avoid more challenging issues. Here's more from Get Your Comic On:

DC has announced Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia, a bold, character-driven new four-issue comic book series by acclaimed storyteller Gabriel Hardman, launching November 26, 2025, and publishing monthly under the publisher’s DC Black Label imprint. Writer/artist Hardman comes to DC Black Label with a hard-boiled modern twist on the DC thrillers of the 1980s, updating this opinionated trio of lone-wolf vigilantes, Batman, Green Arrow and the Question, for a new era of open class warfare and ecological collapse.

Written, pencilled, and inked by Hardman, with colors by Romulo Fajardo Jr. and lettering by Simon Bowland, Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia unites three of DC’s most ideologically distinct heroes in an expansive narrative of global stakes and personal reckoning. As Bruce Wayne forms a tenuous bond with a billionaire climate visionary, Batman begins to question the true purpose of Arcadia—an ocean-sailing city, climate-hardened against weather extremes, being constructed off the coast of Greenland. Meanwhile, Green Arrow and the Question investigate the darker realities hidden beneath Arcadia’s utopian promise.

And this is so much more vital an issue than Islamic terrorism and child abuse? Or even drug trafficking? It's head-shakingly sad how they call a premise like climate-hardening or changing "bold" by comparison, and even "hard boiled", along with babbling about "global stakes" while ignoring the serious ones in real life. The talk of "dark realities" is also appallingly laughable.

It's pretty apparent the whole Black Label imprint is only amounting to a pathetic farce, and very sad how Batman, Green Arrow and the Question are being exploited as the viewpoint of the writer's leftist politics, all for the sake of something that's far too easy. Yet chances are quite high even the preceding Vertigo imprint never amounted to much more than this either, so maybe that'll at least give something to consider regarding whatever Vertigo "represented" in the past, which could've just as well been nothing much at all.

Labels: bad editors, Batman, dc comics, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, politics

The Jonesboro Sun (archive link) tells about how Imagine Arkansas Inc. is making use of comics for children's reading education:

Brandon Jones has turned his love of comics books into a mission to help children read.

Jones, owner of Bonesy Jonesy’s Comics and Collectibles, is also the founder and president of Imagine Arkansas Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to boosting literacy through comic books and pop culture items.

He said the donation drive started with local teachers.

“Teachers would come in asking for comic books to help their kids read,” Jones said. “Literacy is 100 percent our mission. A lot of kids pick up a comic book, get comfortable and then feel confident to read other things.”

Jones said comics can be helpful for students on the autism spectrum or for those who struggle to connect with traditional chapter books. The visual storytelling and panel layouts allow readers to develop comprehension skills while engaging with something fun. [...]

The nonprofit has already made its mark locally.

Jones, Rook and volunteers delivered backpacks filled with comics like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” to nearby schools, particularly to schools affected by recent tornadoes and other Northeast Arkansas communities.

Jones said this is only the beginning.

“I want to make this an annual thing across the state,” he said. “We want to reach the places that might be overlooked, the communities with lower literacy rates and just get kids excited about reading.”

The nonprofit is looking to expand its reach beyond Jonesboro. Jones said he hopes to eventually establish donation centers in every county in Arkansas and work with other comic shops so more communities can participate.

Provided that the examples they offer to children are age-suitable, that's what can make this work. That's why it's highly appreciable when education movements like these supply comics for children to read, and develop their reading skills with.

Labels: sales, science

I looked at some preview pages posted on Comic Watch, taken from the latest Titans Annual, and here's another sad example of how a favorite heroine's been made to look less sexy in the name of sex-negative political correctness: The art may be competent enough, but notice how Donna's not drawn with any noticeable bust. Oddly enough, Wonder Woman does appear to be, but it's still no excuse for belittling Donna. Also vital to consider is how, for practically over a dozen years now, Starfire's costume has been watered down considerably too. And there's at least 2 other illustrations of Donna where her breasts look very muted in design. If this is what DC's still sticking with, it's an utter embarrassment, and pales horribly next to the late George Perez's far superior character designs from the 1980s.

So here's another reason to continue avoiding modern DC like the plague, here based on how they force PC upon the character designs, much like even Marvel is surely doing now in some of their own comics. What they've done here only does a huge disfavor to fans of Donna, along with past artists with far better character designs.

Labels: bad editors, censorship issues, dc comics, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, politics, Titans, women of dc

Here's a review from Noahpinion of several GNs focused mainly on the subject of immigration, and wouldn't you know it, one of the products listed here is written as a form of Islamic victimology of the most grating kind:

If rightists want to read a story about immigration that confirms all their worst fears, Huda F. Cares? will probably do nicely. It’s a story about a deeply conservative, completely insular Muslim family who lives in America but is not fundamentally of America. They stick primarily to themselves, living out their traditionalist religious lifestyle in seclusion. Their family trip to Disneyland — the one time they let themselves venture outside their enclave — is the subject of the story, and yet almost none of the book is spent describing Disneyland at all. Instead, it’s all about internal family dynamics.

They do occasionally encounter Americans outside their family, but these are pretty much always presented as threats or opponents to be overcome. Regular Americans insult Huda’s family and try to sexually harass the (conservatively dressed) women. When one of the girls is detained at the park for hitting a sexual harasser, the mother takes a video and threatens to summon the online mob against the park security, ultimately forcing them to let her daughter off the hook. At the end, the family decides that the world is always going to be against them, and that they have to stick together as a family to resist.

This is presented as a hopeful conclusion, since the family ultimately puts aside their constant squabbling to unite against the outside world. But it’s not the kind of story a lot of Americans would probably like to hear about immigration.

What's offensive here, of course, is how it presents regular Americans as revolting (and if the writer sees fit, I'm sure she'd also villify Europeans), and isn't that fascinating how the American citizens are even presented stooping to sexual misconduct. With the biggest oxymoron being that yes, of course even Muslim obviously aren't safe from sexual violence, but it's mainly that committed by Muslim men, and almost 2 decades ago, there was a horrifying case in Iran of a woman who killed a rapist in self defense, also to defend her niece, and for that, she was tragically sentenced to hang. Yet the writer of this disgraceful GN would rather accuse Americans, no matter their ethnicity, of being that evil.

Making matters regarding this propaganda GN worse, there was an atrocious incident in Westchester, New York back in 2011 where a Muslim group at Rye Playland caused a ruckus after women from the group wearing hijabs were denied access to some of the rides because they went against safety rules. Last year, a vaguely similar case regarding burkas occurred in Kansas City after a Muslim woman was told she couldn't wear it on the roller coaster ride for safety reasons. And she had the gall to call the staff "racist", but never "anti-religious". As a result, one can legitimately wonder if Huda F. Cares? really is based on fact, assuming that's how it's marketed. If anything, it's a pretty sick example of a propagandist who follows the beliefs in Islam that make a woman's body out to be an abomination, and has no confidence or self-respect. Stories like this are also obviously written as a belief that the host country should literally conform to the twisted beliefs of the "immigrant", but not the other way around. Is that acceptable?

This also reminds me of how almost 15 years ago, the awful Geoff Johns wrote apologia for the Religion of Peace when he shoehorned a Muslim protagonist into the Green Lantern franchise, and regular Americans who aren't Muslim were depicted as hostile and repellent. Similar problems occur in the Muslim Ms. Marvel series by the equally awful G. Willow Wilson (and later written by the now equally awful Saladin Ahmed). So this new GN is nothing new. But neither is it approvable.

Oddly enough, there's another GN on this list that might involve Muslim characters titled I Was Their American Dream, and this, by contrast, doesn't seem to build upon victimology propaganda:

I Was Their American Dream follows an archetype that has basically become the staple of the immigrant memoir genre — the story of a kid who come to America at a young age, and struggles to fit in at school while also dealing with their parents’ old-world quirks and problems. Malaka Gharib executes this in fine form, telling the story of her mixed Egyptian-Filipino family with humor and warmth, and adding plenty of informative cultural context.

Of all the immigrant memoir comics I read, this one was the most unambiguously positive. America never wrongs or excludes the protagonist in any way — she finds a way to fit in at school just as easily as any white kid in the 80s or 90s, and then she goes to college and has fun there too. Her parents get divorced, and her dad moves back to Egypt for a better job, but America remains the land of promise, wealth, and safety. The art is pretty cartoonish, but it adds to the generally silly fun tone.

Racial exclusion barely comes up. The protagonist/author grows up in an immigrant “ethnoburb” in Southern California where there are almost no white people, so white people are simply exotic and interesting to her, rather than dominant and threatening. When she first encounters white people en masse, it’s as a college student, and while they can sometimes be obtuse, she generally views them as fun and even exotic.

Overall, if you want a story of successful middle-class immigration, this is a good pick. There’s also a sequel called It Won’t Always Be Like This, about the author’s time visiting her father in Egypt.

This doesn't sound noxious like the prior example, so at least we're getting somewhere with this item. In a footnote, interestingly enough, the blogger also notes:

At one point the protagonist declares that “I KISSED A LOOOOTTTTT OF WHITE GUYS.” This is not necessarily the kind of thing you’d want to write in a graphic novel in the “woke” age, but I found its innocent confident positivity to be extremely charming.

One could wonder if the star's background is why he's letting it slide? Well, in any event, it's not something to get hysterical about if a non-white girl decides to date white guys. That's her choice, and nobody else's. What should matter is horrific incidents like this recent one that occurred last year.

And then, amazingly enough, Noahpinion also lists an item that covers the negative side of illegal immmigration, Just Another Story: A Graphic Migration Account:

This is the best comic I’ve read about illegal immigration. It’s about a Salvadoran boy (the author’s cousin) whose mother decides to take him to America to escape desperate poverty and the constant threat of violence in El Salvador. The story is gripping, tense, and harrowing — it feels like Lord of the Rings, with hobbits sneaking across Mordor. The main danger is not the U.S. Border Patrol, but the various criminals who try to exploit, rob, kidnap, or murder would-be illegal immigrants headed north. In the end, they make it, but only barely, and they’re emotionally scarred for life by the journey.

If you want to understand what’s really at stake when people immigrate illegally, and what they have to face in order to do so, this is a good lesson.

Those criminals who attack the illegal aliens could surely include Mexican mafias like Los Zetos. I'm amazed a blogger who confirms he's a leftist is willing to highlight a GN of this sort. However, he also lists one that, despite attacking communism, also attacks Donald Trump, titled Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey:

This is another story about a refugee from a communist dictatorship — this time, Castro’s Cuba. American leftists tend to have romantic fantasies about revolutionary Cuba, but Worm depicts an impoverished, slowly decaying country filled with fear, where neighbors rat on their neighbors and daily life is ruthlessly repressed. (The art style really compounds the feeling of anxiety.) The title refers both to a parasite that almost kills the author/protagonist, and to the protagonist’s father, who is labeled a “worm” for daring to secretly oppose Castro.

In the end, Rodriguez and his family escape Cuba on the famous 1980 Mariel Boatlift, and make it to America, where they succeed economically (after facing the usual challenges). The Rodriguez family idolizes America for saving them from a brutal dictatorship and giving them the opportunity to become middle-class.

But then Trump gets elected, and the nation suddenly seems far less friendly to immigrants. A now-grown-up Rodriguez decides that Trump is similar to Castro, and decides to use his art to oppose Trump. Rodriguez creates what’s probably still the most iconic political cartoon about Trump — an image of a melting, screaming, eyeless orange head that appeared on the cover of Time. It’s not the happiest ending, but at least America is a place where dissidents can still go against the President in public — at least for now.

Oh, good grief. A better question and topic would be why anybody approves of allowing a communist regime to continue existing instead of finding how to depose of the commies in charge and replace them with more civilized representatives. And how come Trump's seen as a problem, but not the time when Bill Clinton sent a Cuban boy, Elien Gonzalez, back instead of allowing him to stay with relatives? That wasn't bad in any way?

If one really has to take issue with Trump on anything, it's whether he's being soft on Cuba's communists, which is no more acceptable than being soft on Russia's. But when a GN like the above builds so predictably on a intentions that may not be altruistic, that's why it's appalling that yet again, another comic was written as an unfortunate excuse for attacking conservatives. Granted, the GN may take an objective look at how communism is an evil ideology. But that still doesn't make it okay to merely bash Trump because he supposedly created an atmosphere hostile to Cubans. I'll admit though, it's amazing the blogger acknowledged there's leftists who regrettably take a romantic view of communism, when it's all a lot darker than we think.

Labels: Africa, Europe and Asia, indie publishers, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, politics

John Nolte at Breitbart comments on what turned out to be the latest fantastic flop of a live action Marvel adaptation:

“Fantastic Four grossed $11.7 million domestically in its second Friday on the big screen, marking a devastating 80% drop from its debut,” reports Variety. “If the poor turnout continues, the film will most likely fall short of its initial weekend two estimates of $45 to $52 million by Sunday.”

And “fall short” it did, grossing just $40 million with a 66 percent drop.

After ten days and two weekends, this well-reviewed Marvel entry sits at just $198 million.

That’s nearly as bad as Captain America: Brave New World, which dropped 68 percent, and a lot worse than the 56 percent drop Thunderbolts suffered. Both of those 2025 Marvel releases are considered box office bombs. [...]

The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s turn towards the anti-art and anti-storytelling lunacy of identity politics, gender politics, and all that LGBTEWW stuff has already destroyed their Star Wars and Pixar franchises. And now it seems pretty official: The woketards killed Marvel.

The problem, I think, is that star Pedro Pascal alone alienated a considerable amount of the potential audience, with all his obsessive defenses of LGBT ideology, even going so far as to attack J.K. Rowling. One of the stars, Joseph Quinn, may have suggested Johnny Storm would be portrayed in woke ways too. In this Collider article:

The 2025 movie doesn’t shy away from the core of how people see Johnny: he’s still the handsome, charming, young man who flirts, jokes, and flies through the skies of New York as the Human Torch. But in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Quinn’s portrayal marks a striking departure from Evans’ take because it has to. While Evans leaned into Johnny’s cocky, thrill-seeking persona, Quinn introduced a more grounded and introspective version, a quiet genius who cements his place in the team as more than just a ladies' man. The movie makes good use of his character traits from the comics by showing how he’s able to help Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Reed (Pedro Pascal) pilot their spacecraft and navigate. He even figures out on his own how to shoot beams into the side of the wormhole to use its curved trajectory to attack Silver Surfer (Julia Garner).

Well this sure doesn't sound encouraging to believe Quinn plays Johnny much different than from what wokesters of the past decade would prefer. Of course, because Nolte's official review is behind a paywall, how can I clearly confirm from him that it's not PC as he's saying? And by the way, it's not like Johnny in the comics was portrayed slacking off all the time. There were plenty of stories where he was battling baddies just as much as his family partners were, and the Collider article actually admits as much. But, it also points to something Nolte must've strangely overlooked - the Silver Surfer was changed from a man to a woman. Seriously, why are we supposed to find that impressive? What's so wrong with Norrin Radd? I'm okay with creative liberties, but it looks like this might've wound up being too much after all the insults to the intellect in earlier movies.

Warner Todd Huston also addressed the current catastrophe:

The film suffered a surprising 66 percent loss of revenue in its second weekend, dropping from its $117.6 million box office take last week to a mere $40 million over weekend two, according to The Wrap.

Its overseas impact mirrors its domestic box office, as well. The film opened strong with more than $108 million overseas. But for weekend two, that take collapsed to only $39.6 million.

In the end, this may portend bad news for the film. Even though it had a nice opening weekend and received hearty praise from critics and fans alike, the money is simply not following. It could mean that the film may fail to break the $500 million threshold worldwide.

It all smacks of superhero movie overload, as the genre seems to be giving studios diminishing returns.

Marvel’s other recent superhero flick, Thunderbolts, was also a disappointment for Disney. According to World of Reel’s math, Thunderbolts will lose more than $100 million for Disney.

With a budget of $400 million, including production and promotion, Thunderbolts only earned about $350 million in its first month in theaters. And Thunderbolts was the third film in a row for Marvel that did not perform as hoped. Captain America: Brave New World, and The Marvels were also box office disappointments.

I wonder what leftist writer Kurt Busiek, who created the original Thunderbolts series in the late 1990s, thinks of the catastrophe, since he's such a woke advocate in his own way. And there's also the box office intake of Superman to ponder:

Meanwhile, DC Comics’ movies for Warners is finding a similarly hard slog at the box office. Despite that James Gunn’s newest Superman reboot was well received by fans and critics, the film has earned less than hoped.

After its first two weeks in theaters, the film earned about $406 million worldwide, but with a $400 million budget, that take is not near enough to earn back its production costs.

Let's recall promotional and marketing costs can figure heavily into a movie's budget as well, not just how much it costs to film it. As I've noted before, the political metaphors in Gunn's Superman film are a turnoff, and he did give additional hints at where he stood politically, so maybe when a filmmaker says stuff that divisive, you can't be so surprised when the audience doesn't go for it.

Then, here's an extra commentary from Nolte:

Now that the collapse of the Disney Grooming Syndicate’s Marvel brand is no longer in dispute, the far-left entertainment media continue to deceive their readers by blaming everything except what’s really to blame — Marvel’s lunatic embrace of woke.

“Woke,” of course, means that Marvel put identity politics above effective storytelling and relatable characters. Woke cares only about pushing a left-wing propaganda message that seeks to normalize homosexuality, spread the lie that women are physically as strong as men, girlbosses are appealing, and everyone wants to talk about feminism and race.

[...] Forbes blames the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) collapse on too many TV and theatrical releases, on losing its core cast of heroes, casting off new ones after a one-off movie, and excessive nostalgia.

And…? And…? And…?

That’s it?

The far-left Wrap makes a complete fool of its sycophantic self by shamelessly aping the Disney Grooming Syndicate’s excuses that blame Marvel’s implosion on streaming and still — yes, after five years — the pandemic.

At least I’m willing to admit that some of this played a role. But these gerbils refuse to even go near the truth.

You don’t think feminizing and emasculating Thor played a role?

How about all that “black girl magic” nonsense in The Marvels?

How about two hairy men necking in The Eternals?

How about removing all the female sex appeal in everything?

How about a “group hug” saving the world in Thunderbolts?

Lesbians, gays, obnoxiously unappealing girlbosses, racial resentment, basing the virtue of characters on their skin color… Nobody wants to watch that crap.

Yes, all the above doubtless played some role in guaranteeing the new FF movie's failure. But even gender-swapping the Surfer could've too, and it'll make no difference whether Human Torch is supposed to fall in love with the lady playing the Surfer in this film - how does that substitute for a civilian co-star to rival say, Alicia Masters, who began as the woman the Thing fell in love with, and the blind daughter of the Puppet Master? Again, I think it's okay to take creative liberties with screenplays adapting from comics. Even manga in Japan sees it on the way to anime. But when it's all exploited for the sake of additional woke brownie points, that's when it all goes awry, and the relentless way Marvel movies went about that definitely rubbed off on the new FF movie, along with Pascal's divisive politics. Something I'm not sure Nolte dwelled upon, so that's a flaw of his there.

Will comics adaptations evaporate after this latest thud? Maybe, and maybe not. But for all we know, there might be far less coming along, certainly superhero fare, and if so, it'll be for the best. Moviegoers should take a good look at how woke Marvel and DC's comics became since the turn of the century, and when the situation is that bad, how can you feel up trying out more live action adaptations?

Labels: dc comics, Fantastic Four, golden calf of LGBT, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, politics, sales, Superman

KAXE interviewed Minnesota comics and novel writer Benjamin Percy, who's writings include Wolverine, X-Force and Ghost Rider at Marvel, and predictably, they sugarcoat his resume:

Percy was excited to write two X-Men-related books during a big paradigm shift in the mutants' world. For decades, the mutants and X-Men have represented marginalized groups in society. In this new storyline called the “Krakoan Age,” the mutants decide to start their own nation on the island of Krakoa. Percy was put in charge of X-Force and Wolverine to help kick off the new era.

“It would be awesome to write the X-Men at any point in history, but to be able to write it then was really exciting and really special," he said.

The X-Force series was supposed to be the Black Ops team of Krakoa, or their version of the CIA. Wolverine was the head of their field operations, so the two series were constantly interacting with each other.

Percy credits comic writer Jonathan Hickman, who came up with the Krakoan Age idea, for being so generous to other writers in the X-books.

Going into the series, Percy would have more leeway than you would typically get in comics. Usually, writers are given the okay for five issues, and if they do well, they’ll get 10 issues, and if those do well, they get 15 issues, and so on. Hickman told Percy he would probably get 20 issues right away. Percy ended up doing 50 issues each for X-Force and Wolverine, and that’s not counting the crossover event books he worked on as well.

“So, it became a very novelistic endeavor," he said. "And it's one of the most rewarding projects I've ever done.”

It sounds like Mr. Percy's glossing over how overrated the run actually was, right down to how Hickman later admitted he wasn't impressed with the finished product. But clearly, Percy saw nothing wrong with the retcons forced upon Kitty Pryde and Moira MacTaggart, if he's got nothing to say about such directions. It's not too surprising he could get to write as many issues as he wanted either; there's surely only so many overrated scribes who get that much, based on how accepted they are by the PC establishment.

Percy found camaraderie in writing the X-Men books. He said the writers were in constant contact with a weekly Zoom meeting to discuss storylines. At one point, there were 16 different X-Men titles in process.

“Being part of a team of artists, being able to work with these incredibly talented people and the colorists and the letters, and you're all just trying to make the best story possible together," he said.

"Which counteracts my tendencies as a novelist, where I'm just alone in the dark, playing with my imaginary friends. It's nice to be part of a team.”

Unfortunately, that "team" he was part of was little more than a bunch of yes-men, seeing where they really went, which was nowhere. A point can be made that, much like with Batman, there were too many X-Men titles in publication, and no doubt, all within the pamphlet format that's long become outmoded. Not much talented about today's writers, who were hardly trying to develop the best possible stories when they refuse to draw from today's most challenging issues.

He was hearing “no” from comic publishers up until 2014. His comic writing debut arrived in two issues of Detective Comics, starring Batman.

“I put everything I had into those two issues, and things blew up from there. I was able to get Green Arrow. I was able to write Teen Titans," Percy said.

"Then I jumped over to Marvel, and I've been writing Wolverine for Marvel since 2017. It's gone from being sort of a twinkle in my eye and then a bit of a side hustle to dominating a lot of my time at the desk.”

If he had anything to do with the tedious storyline in which Wolverine was sent into the afterlife, what's so special about that? I hesitate to think what his Batman, Green Arrow and Titans stories could've been like. What a surprise his 1st assignment would be on the Masked Manhunter's titles. It's a hint at the angle his storytelling could take, which has also been a sad staple of modern writing. To get into the business, I'd want to debut with Superman, and have it all start from a point where it left off in the early 2000s, since what came after in the wake of the repellent Identity Crisis was a disaster, it's long gone without saying.

Also, a comic writer wants to put their unique stamp on the character and not do what’s been done before. There’s an elasticity to the story, but it can only go so far.

“I can't suddenly have Wolverine pop his claws and start burrowing underneath the ground and become the 'Mole-verine,'" Percy explained. "I have to think about 'What are the acceptable parameters? How far can I take this in one direction or another and not betray what's come before me?'”

If that's what he thinks, does he find it ludicrous that Brian Bendis was able to write a story 2 decades ago where Wolverine was seemingly reduced to a skeleton from burning, then suddenly his whole flesh torso reintegrated? (I think it was in the 6th New Avengers issue.) If Percy's not willing to take issue with Bendis for writing something that exaggerated and silly, he'll never convince he understands what's gone wrong in the years since. What Bendis did also made a joke out of Days of Future Past. There's also something problematic with wanting to leave a "unique stamp" on a character, rather than offer the best possible writing/art efforts, because without convincing talent and a coherent point to begin at, what's to be accomplished with what can be considered more a rubber stamp technique?

I think what's wrong with Percy's statements is that he didn't take the job so he could mend the damage that's become so commonplace with mainstream comics even before the early 2000s, but rather, just so he could have the pleasure of having his name credited to what's considered a prominent title and franchise. In which case, he didn't take up the career for altruistic reasons, one more reason why writers like him are so uninspiring.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, Titans, women of marvel, X-Men