Stars of Marvel movies are making it hard to watch them in hindsight based on their anti-Israel attacks

Mark Ruffalo's easily the most well known actor to appear in comics adaptations like the Avengers movies (as the Hulk), who's recently been viciously attacking the land of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's ancestry. He's done it again in his attack on Paramount over his opposition to a merger with Warner Brothers, as told in this Jerusalem Post article:

US multimedia giant Paramount slammed Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo for invoking antisemitic tropes in an Instagram post on Friday in which he accused Israel of genocide and apartheid.

The outspoken anti-Israel ACTOR, known for his roles in the Avengers films, accused Paramount moguls David and Larry Ellison of “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world” and warned of the danger of David Ellison’s bid to combine Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery.

A spokesperson for Paramount said the company is “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong – they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind – and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”

In his post, Ruffalo referred to Larry Ellison as a “classic oligarch,” and he shared a video of Safra Catz, vice chair of Oracle, discussing the technological assistance the company provided to Israel following the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

Ruffalo encouraged his followers to “look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

What Ruffalo's been up to gets even worse with his and several other actors' support for a jihadist:

Over 20 actors who have appeared in Marvel films have joined a campaign calling for the release of convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, according to an Instagram post published on Friday by the group, freemarwannow.

Among the actors who have joined the "Freedom for Marwan" campaign are Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Doctor Strange; Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk; Ian McKellen, who plays Magneto; and Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and others. [...]

Barghouti is a former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a terrorist organization that carried out many suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada.

According to Israel, Barghouti orchestrated or was responsible for, among others, the following attacks between 2001 and 2002: the murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma’aleh Adumim; the shooting attack during a bat mitzva celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera that killed six Israelis; a shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem during which two Israelis were killed and 37 people wounded; a shooting attack in Neve Ya’acov in which an Israeli policewoman was killed; the murder of an Israeli at the Bashkevitz coffee and spice factory in the Atarot industrial zone of Jerusalem; the suicide attack perpetrated by Daryan Abu Aysha at the Maccabim checkpoint in which two policeman were wounded; the shooting spree at the Seafood Market restaurant which killed three Israelis.

It's going to be very hard watching these performers from live action Marvel movies playing their roles for a long time now, based on what they've just done in the now, even if they're playing villains. Their ignorance is stunning, and most chilling is, what if they fully know what Barghouti did years ago?

A rabbi writing for VIN News described the whole repellent case as follows:

Imagine that the Superheroes known as the “Avengers” were fighting for the wrong side. Say, for example, for the Nazis. Well, it is not such a stretch anymore. But it is not the Superheroes – it is the actors who play them.

Somewhere in a publicist’s office, likely, in Hollywood – a decision was made. A list circulated. Names were added, one by one, each signatory presumably assured that the others had already looked into it.

Nobody looked into it.

More than twenty actors from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and a supporting cast long enough to fill a closing credit scroll — have signed their names to a demand that the United Nations and the governments of the world work to free mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli prison.

The statement voices grave concern for his imprisonment and his treatment inside it. Grave concern. That is the entire emotional range on offer, and it is expended in full on behalf of the man serving five consecutive life sentences for murder.

For the five people he was convicted of murdering, the statement has nothing. No sentence. No clause. No name. Twenty-plus celebrated artists, working presumably with the assistance of professional wordsmiths, produced a document about a quintuple murder conviction that manages never to acknowledge that anyone died.

I'll never be able to watch a lot of these particular movies ever again, realizing just how far into the abyss the twisted perspective of the actors in the Marvel movies goes. They've desecrated the memory of many Jewish comics creators with this abominable act of theirs, and it's stunning they'd even take the roles they did in comics adaptations to begin with. The Marvel live action movies aren't aging well, as a result of what the actors who played the casts in the films have been doing lately.

South Carolina paper fluff-coats Steve Epting's career

The Lexington County Chronicle announced artist Steve Epting is attending a book signing for one of his latest projects, and they made sure to paint a fluff-coated picture of what he did with Captain America 2 decades ago as well:

“Steve Epting is a South Carolina native who has had a huge impact in the comic industry that ultimately led to these giant blockbuster Marvel movies,” Scratch N’ Spin owner Eric Woodard said in a news release. “We love promoting local creators, whether it’s comics, music or movies. We love bringing these guests to our store to have them available to meet with our community and encourage aspiring creators (who get) the opportunity to have a space to get their comics signed without having to go to a big comic convention.”

A multiple Eisner Award-nominated comic artist, Steve Epting worked on The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Velvet, Batwoman and Superman. He has contributed art for Marvel, DC, Image and many more publishers across the comic industry.

He’s best known for Captain America and his Marvel projects, where he teamed up with Ed Brubaker in co-creating The Winter Soldier, which led to the character’s appearance in the Marvel movie hit “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

Epting is credited with “forever redefining Bucky Barnes and allowing the character to become globally recognized with a recurring role in many films like ‘Black Panther’ and ‘The Thunderbolts.’”

Wow, such overrated mishmash that was part and parcel of a time when Marvel was on the decline, and we're told this is what made great movie material? It's actually enough to reevaluate. The problem was that, at the time, bringing back Bucky was for little more than replacing Steve Rogers as Cap, and this was before they took to serious DEI-pandering, with figures like the Falcon shoehorned into the costume. Also, wasn't the Thunderbolts film a failure? So what good does that citation do?

As for Epting's new comic from Image, Hammerfist, which he produced with writer Rick Remender, what's it about?

The protagonist of Hammerfist is Mike Denton, “a dirtbag hitman, junkie and absentee father who’s spent his life chasing the easy fix — drugs, cheap sex and murder for money — while failing the one person who still believes he can be better: his daughter.”

“Now, on the eve of Black Noon — an ancient darkness that erases the light in all things — Mike has to drag himself out of the gutter, awaken a supernatural weapon powered only by love and fight his way through the living embodiment of evil to save her,” a description of the comic reads. “This unredeemable killer is forced to do the one thing he’s avoided his entire life: stand for something other than himself.”

Gee, yet another dark-laced product we could do without, one where a murderer is in the spotlight?!? Well that's got to be one of the worst ideas the market could turn out, and it's yet another example of too much attention paid to villainy at the expense of heroism. That the character's depicted saving his daughter and fighting another evil entity is no alleviation.

Epting's resume is decidedly overrated, and this kind of project doesn't improve it either. All we have here is another example of a newspaper making a big deal out of nothing, just because the guy lives in the area. Not every local figure is worth celebrating, and even Remender's no big deal.

An artist from North Carolina who may respect what the Punisher was created for

Queen City News spoke with artist David Vandyke, who created a comic titled Mercer. What's interesting for starters is that:

In an era of digital art, he works by hand.

“I like the tactility of it, like I like feeling the paper,” Van Dyke said.

He's got a great idea there. While it's always possible to turn out good art with computers, old-fashioned techniques still matter, and can still result in something to appreciate.

He draws a comic book series called Mercer, which he co-created with Jason Seibel.

“It’s basically if the Punisher was a demon hunter type thing,” he says.

Whatever one thinks of the premise of Mercer, what Vandyke says here does seem to indicate he has respect for what the Punisher was created for, certainly far more than some of the leftists who messed up Frank Castle since the turn of the century, not the least being the late Gerry Conway himself.

Vandyke had a very terrible misfortune in the past 2 decades that influenced his decision to become an artist:

He has come far from the chilling conversation he had 21 years ago.

“The doctor literally came into the room and said, ‘Your life as you know it is over,’” he remembers vividly.

Vandyke broke his back in 2005 while working as a mechanic in Gastonia.

“I heard a pop, and something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I just turned and caught it,” he said of a devastating shop accident. “It was like a 400-pound transmission—and I caught it at a dead stop—and it annihilated the bottom two discs in my back.”

That crushed his dream of a drumming career.

At the same time, he was almost in denial.

“This is my identity; this is everything I’m supposed to be. Like, what do you mean [doctor]?” said Vandyke.

But one night, he picked up a pencil and reinvented himself.

“Like before music, what did you want to be?” he asked himself.

The answer is a comic book artist.

Instead of dwelling on depression and anger, he practiced drawing as his body healed.

“You determine your story,” he says.

I'm terribly sorry he suffered back injuries, and hope he's recovered as best as possible since. Taking up an artist's career is certainly a great way to make a comeback, and I wish him well in his new career.

Image restores its partnerships with Warren Ellis

Some news I almost missed is that British writer Warren Ellis, who was accused of sexual coercion 5-6 years ago is now, all of a sudden, working with Image again, as told on Comic Book Club:

Five years ago, writer Warren Ellis was accused by multiple people of grooming and sexual coercion. In the wake of these accusations, publishers — including Image Comics — cut ties with the writer. Until now, I guess, as Image has announced a brand new graphic novella by the writer.

Titled Ghost Drive Stations, the graphic novella features art by Lordess Foudre, and focuses on “a haunted investigator with no time for the modern world is sent to a research station in the desert to discover why it’s gone offline. What he finds is an experiment in immortality gone horribly wrong, with stakes both global and very, very personal.” So basically, vintage Ellis, who has walked this sort of ground many times before. [...]

As of 2023, he had not taken any of the steps laid out by the organization. However, in 2025, Image published a facsimile of Fell, and just last week the publisher announced the collection of one of Ellis’s Wildstorm titles. We have reached out to Image Comics for comment.

What could've convinced them to reverse course? An excellent question. What is clear is that, if no legal complaints were filed against him, then there isn't much of a case at all. Of course, it's odd in a way how Ellis wouldn't defend himself by filing a lawsuit against the accusers, since arguably, to post such claims as they did on a whole website dedicated to the accusations could be considered defamation by a legal perspective. Popverse says:

Five years since those aborted Fell plans, and six years since the very troubling allegations emerged, something has apparently changed to lead to Image to get back in business with Ellis for new comics, beginning with a November 2026 OGN illustrated by Lordess Foudre. This project would be the most significant new comics work from Ellis since the allegations were made; however, the writer has talked over the past few years about other new comics work being in progress with unspecified publishers.

Did he actually do any work during that time? I don't know, but he sure didn't seem to have what it takes to stand up to the accusations and launch a countersuit if he felt the accusers were being dishonest. Here's more:

At the time, Image Comics said it would not commit to any new Warren Ellis comics until the writer made "amends to the satisfaction of all involved" (and naming SoManyOfUs specifically). In the intervening years, Image has published a collection of older Warren Ellis comics, but now, five years later, Image Comics ramped up the relationship with the announcement of a new OGN and a reprint of another out-of-print comic, despite no appearance of "amends to the satisfaction of all involved," which it had publicly stated.

"A few people have asked me about past events in my life. It’s not my place to pick at it in public or speak for others," Ellis writes in the August 16 edition of his newsletter, Orbital Operations. "I will say that I got to apologise directly to a group of people and offer amends, which I remain very grateful for, and I keep that door open. I learned a lot and still am." [...]

In 2021, Image Comics said it had decided not to work with Ellis until he "made amends to the satisfaction of all involved." Now, with Image proceeding on new work with Ellis, it appears as if they feel Ellis has done enough for them to feel confident in working with him in 2026. It's unclear if Image believes Ellis has "made amends to the satisfaction of all involved," or if that boundary has changed.

I don't find Ellis appealing, but if trumped up accusations were made against him by the SoManyOfUs group, that was wrong, does a terrible disfavor for actual victims, and Image did not have to cut off ties with him. If the group was trying to extort Ellis, that too was wrong, and an example of cancel culture to boot. They may have said they didn't want to cancel Ellis, but that's what they did for a time, in a manner of speaking. That said, if Ellis thought they were unfair to him, then again, why didn't he sue them?

It'll be interesting to see if Ellis' newest work in a while will turn out to be "woke", since that'll only compound the impression he's suddenly got cold feet on anything that could be considered challenging subjects. Image may have resumed their partnerships with Ellis, but that doesn't mean he won't disappoint fans of his otherwise overrated works this time. And for all we know, his legacy, despite the current situation, could still be gone and never recover.

Roger McKenzie passes away at 75

That Eric Alper announced the veteran comics writer Roger McKenzie, who was active mainly during the late 1970s to late 1980s, died at 75 years of age:

Roger McKenzie, the comic book writer best known for helping shape the modern era of Marvel’s Daredevil alongside artist Frank Miller, died on the morning of August 21, 2026, at the age of 75, following months of dealing with heart failure and kidney disease while in hospice care.

McKenzie broke into comics in 1976 with a seven-page short story in Warren Publishing’s Vampirella, going on to write extensively for the company’s black-and-white horror anthologies Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella through 1982. He also worked for DC Comics during this period, creating the western character Cinnamon and contributing to several of the company’s horror titles.

McKenzie’s most significant professional relationship began in 1978, when he and a young Frank Miller collaborated on a two-page story for DC’s Weird War Tales. That same year, McKenzie took over as writer on Marvel’s Daredevil with issue #151, giving the series a darker tone drawn from his horror writing background. Miller joined him as artist on the title starting with issue #158 in 1979, and the two worked together through issue #166, laying the creative groundwork for the run that would soon make Miller one of the most influential figures in American comics. Their collaborative issues were later collected in the ‘Daredevil by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Omnibus.’

Here's the annoucement on his Facebook page, and here's what veteran writer Paul Kupperberg's telling about him. I'd read at least a few stories he wrote, and he did have talent for his time, though it's a shame he got his start through the horror genre. But when he wrote issues for a several series from Marvel, I'd say that's where he began to show promise, including on several issues of Captain America, and several issues from Marvel Fanfare. I hope Miller's thankful to McKenzie for providing him with the platform that gave his career its most serious start. McKenzie overall did some good work in his time, and IMO, his work for Marvel is what's really appreciated.

Frank Miller's relations with Jim Shooter

Here's a recent Hollywood Reporter interview with veteran artist Miller, where he continues his otherwise uninspired relay of what his relations with past comics veterans were like, and he even had the audacity to praise a certain overrated movie that unfortunately took plenty at the box office:

Miller has also been catching up on his moviegoing, and had seen Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which he calls “extravagant.” The creator behind Spartan story 300 knows his way around an ancient Greek myth or two (he can easily slip into expounding on Corinthian style helmets and their influence on Sparta) and says the movie “really did an awful lot right.”

Well this is a shame, but not all that surprising Miller would ignore some of the wokest workings in Nolan's new movie, which again, regrettably grossed plenty of dough, even if it did eventually go down in sales after 3 weeks. I have no idea if it'll turn the profits the studio's doubtlessly hoping it will, or whether it'll make waves in the USA in the end, but what Nolan's brewed up sounds so unappealing based on its eyebrow raising lack of sex, though I will say I'm relieved if it's not overly gory, although this article seems to indicate it may still have something disturbing. Which is reason enough for me to be discouraged. Maybe the problem is that no distinctions are made between sex that's in good or bad taste. Miller certainly doesn't seem interested in addressing all that. And it actually makes his superficial take on the film almost hilarious.

Your book is part memoir and part lessons in creativity. Why do it this way?

I got my career started by calling up Neal Adams’ office and getting a meeting with him. Neal Adams was the premier artist in comics at the time, and his art had a great effect on me as a child. And he was listed in the phone book. And I got to meet him that day, an hour after I called. And he looked over my drawings and told me they were terrible and sent me off. I redid them and I saw him again and again and again. And he was always a harsh critic, but every time he taught me more and more, sometimes doing drawings over them. And, and as the months went by, he got me my first job and he continued to be a sensei and an advisor to me on things professional and on how to deal with being an artist in the world and many other things. Years passed and I became successful. And one time, Neal and I were at a comic book convention and I just took him aside and I just said, “Neal, how do I thank you for what you’ve done for me? You’ve never asked me for anything.” And he said, “Oh, there’s only one thing you can do. Do the same thing for the next guy.” Well, this book really is my attempt to do the same thing for the next guy. And to commit to paper my experiences, my observations and, and the lessons learned in making comic books.

If that next guy were Will Eisner, he sure hasn't done much to thank him, recalling he spoke about him negatively in the American Genius documentary. Also, what lessons learned? That he should never ever have developed the Holy Terror GN over 15 years ago? Now here's what he says about working with the late Jim Shooter at Marvel:

Speaking of mentors, Jim Shooter (the wonderkid who became Marvel’s polarizing editor-in-chief through the 1980s) was also one. Do you remember the first time you met him?

My first memorable encounter with Jim was at the Marvel offices. I basically came in and was sort of selling my services. I’d gotten some little job, doing some little three-pager of something like Doc Sampson and that had gotten his attention enough to want to keep me around. And, he gave me his lecture on storytelling. Everything was always storytelling with Jim because he felt comics had really lost track of their basic mission, which was to enchant and compel young readers with gripping stories.

He came in on a fairly loose pack of people who were all over the map creatively. And he worked to pull it all together into a more cohesive unit.

There were a lot of writer-editors and little fiefdoms at the time.

Right. He focused more than ever on the concept of a Marvel universe.

How did you guys work together?

He was eager to change things and I was eager to learn. And we both had strong opinions. I think one of the reasons we got along was we were both up for a good argument. Arguments can be a very creative thing and a very good thing.

Be that as it may, Shooter's focus on the concept of the MCU included pushing the whole concept of line-wide crossovers, something that's sugarcoated quite a bit these days without any objectivity, and no questions as to whether it helped Marvel and DC artistically to go galaxies out of their way to turn out repeated crossovers every year, and increasingly, more than one every year, effectively making it increasingly difficult to find any creative autonomy at either company. That's something Miller doesn't dwell upon, even as he tells why he left Marvel, for DC and later Dark Horse:

You left Marvel in a pretty high profile fashion twice. And I say high profile because your profile was very high and you were creatively cresting, twice with Daredevil. What caused you to leave that first time?

Well, I didn’t leave anybody. I chose to take a project to another publisher who was more amenable to kind of freedom I wanted to do it with. The message underneath all this was that it was important to demonstrate that talent is portable. Let me say that. When a publisher is releasing your work, that does not mean you’re saying an oath of allegiance to a military operation. It’s not a marriage.

But again, no in depth mention of but one of the ways creative freedom was turned into a thing of the past at the Big Two. Nor of how horrific it's become ever since figures like Joe Quesada and Dan DiDio originally took over as EICs, and has never recovered even after they left. Why doesn't Miller have the courage to get into any of that? Perhaps because he never had much respect for Marvel and DC's creations to begin with? After all, he only seems to care about his own stories, and few others. He does address something I can't recall hearing about before at Marvel:

Uh, speaking of stories that never happened, what happened with the Doctor Strange run you were supposed to have with writer Roger Stern?

On that one, I really had come to realize that I was just dying to write my own material. And, I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to start writing and drawing my own comics and, you know, start being a cartoonist rather than just an illustrator.

Even back then, I think it's better Miller didn't take part. He may have at least a few science-fantasy themed stories in his resume, but it seems like the stuff less emphasizing of that genre is what he's most known for, and maybe for the best. Somehow, his artwork doesn't seem like a good fit for even the Sorceror Supreme, though I realize he must've been considered based on the dark themed stories he's most known for. As for Stern, he was a talented writer back in the day, but he regrettably has appalling viewpoints too, like his positions on Mary Jane Watson, where he acted like she was a real person, and look what good it did for comics in general ever since. All because people like Stern, much like Joe Quesada, had to be so petty and pointless.

The time of Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and Maus is looked at like a revolutionary era at this point where comics were reinvented. How healthy is the comic art form now? Is the wall still being pushed?

Sure it is. I mean, it’s easy to look back on that time and say, “Wow, what a sunburst. That changed everything.” But in fact, that was a pretty small amount of work that we’re talking about that caused a big splash and that’s what people remember at the time. Because people tend to remember the stuff that really made a splash when they think back on a given period. We certainly have a pretty wildly diverse amount of stuff coming out now.

Well if there's anywhere the form isn't being pushed, it's at the Big Two. And if Miller meant what he said, why did he all but disown Holy Terror 8 years ago in a defeatist interview with the UK Guardian? It didn't even help prevent him from being shunned by a UK convention. Something he's never seemed to address either.

This year, there was upheaval at Dark Horse Entertainment, the home of your Sin City books. But you announced a new book that you’re writing, Invasive Species, with them. How did you decide to stay at Dark Horse for the new book and not take it elsewhere?

Well, the relationship was a good and strong one, and it served us all very well. I met with the people there. The philosophies of the company seemed to be close enough to what I’d always known them to be, and they certainly had the infrastructure to do a good job at it.

Going back to Sin City, the only thing happening now is the Western that is being drawn by Milo Manara, right?

Right now, yeah, but I’ve got a dozen ideas for new ones. Sin City is my life’s work, more than anything. Milo is well along. I just gotta teach him how to draw girls. (Laughs.)

Gee, I wonder how that'll turn out, and what Miller means? I remember when Manara got censored or cancelled at Marvel over an absurd illustration he did of Spider-Woman's butt, for a series that didn't get much fanfare, and was cancelled and forgotten pretty quickly. What if Miller's gone so woke, he'll want Manara to dumb down his art styles for the wrong reasons? Based on Miller's positive comment about Nolan's Odyssey adaptation, it wouldn't be too shocking if that were the case.

Here's also an extra interview Popverse did with one of Miller's business partners, Silenn Thomas, who oversaw the American Genius documentary, and what he's got to say about working with Miller:

You are CEO of Frank Miller Ink, COO of Frank Miller Presents. What does that entail besides… well… everything?

Thomas: Well, you said it. It entails everything, and as you know well, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

You've been working with Frank for a number of years, even before becoming CEO of his shingle. What have you learned about him as a creator?

Thomas: I met him on the movie 300, and one consistent thing with [Frank Miller] is that he is one of the hardest-working people I have ever met. His dedication to excellence is absolute.

Yeah, and look how that turned out for the adaptation of the Spirit comic strip, and also the Robocop sequels and the sequel to the Sin City movie. Certainly if we take his cinematic ventures into consideration. But if the comics matter, his artwork's long become mediocre, and it's hard to say he's dedicated to excellence based on that.

You directed the recent documentary Frank Miller: American Genius. What did you learn from doing it, and taking it on the road for screenings?

Thomas: I have gained a deeper understanding of comics and its culture. The project gave me an all-access pass. I saw the universe of comics in every corner of the world. Taking it on the road now at festivals, conventions, and schools has been exhilarating. It was a joy to make, and it is a joy to show.

And I guess Miller's regression to a left-wing advocate's also quite exhilarating and overjoying, huh? Such signs turned up in the documentary, and that makes it less appealing.

My editor Chris has told me of how much of a champion and protector you are of Frank in the worlds of comics, movies, TV, and even cons. Where did you learn to be such a carer while also managing the business side of things and standing up for people?

Thomas: At the rebel camp on Tatooine in Star Wars. All jokes aside, what else is there? I believe we are in a creator-driven era. At least, that is the side I’m on.

Trouble is, what if Mr. Thomas is only willing to champion and protect anybody who's as left-wing as Miller sadly remains? Some creator driven era it'll be then. These are yet more examples of why I'm just not impressed with Miller by today's standards, and would rather not work with him if I were in the business myself. And maybe a most prominent reason why, other than his troubling politics is that he's too obsessed with the darkness, and not enough with the lightness. Which has become a very sad staple of modern entertainment as we know it.

Animation can be a great spot for superheroes, but only if they aren't subject to PC

Indiewire says there's animated series based on superhero fare that's more interesting than the live action film adaptations, but unshockingly, they sugarcoat the presentations, beginning with what the Supergirl movie was adapted from:

“Supergirl,” the second film in James Gunn’s developing DCU and one of the biggest box office bombs of an otherwise strong year for movie theaters, isn’t the worse movie I watched in 2026. But it’s probably the most disappointing. An adaptation of an acclaimed standalone series called “Woman of Tomorrow,” “Supergirl” has a great lead in Milly Alcock and nothing else worth remembering. Whereas the comic it is based on is stunningly bright and beautiful to look at, “Supergirl” is a murky, brown-tinted eyesore. Its generic plot strands the character in a sci-fi universe that feels microscopically small, populated by third-rate archetypes the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies would barely have time for. There are interesting threads to unravel regarding Kara’s grief and anger, but the story she’s stranded in doesn’t have time to do that in any meaningful way.

I just don't understand why we keep getting lectured about why the overrated Tom King's tale is a modern "classic". The artwork I've seen is certainly overrated. And King's stories about "trauma" are forced and contrived. And we're not told anything in regards to that.

Even more galling: as “Supergirl” was tarnishing the character’s reputation in movie theaters, a great adaptation of the character was airing on Adult Swim. “My Adventures With Superman,” an animated series reimagining the early career of the most famous superhero on the planet. Ostensibly, Clark Kent is the main character, but Season 2 introduced Kara (voiced in the show by Kiana Madeira), and the currently airing Season 3 — which airs its season finale this Sunday — sees her take center stage. And she rules: reimagined as a former brainwashed intergalactic conquerer attempting to atone for her misdeeds, the show’s Kara is charming, funny, badass, with a meaty arc about atoning for her misdeeds and a super cute romance with Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid) that slots right in with the show’s bright, optimistic tone and focus on these character’s day-to-day struggles contrasted with the sci-fi operatics. If “Supergirl” the movie only scratched the surface of the character’s potential, “My Adventures With Superman” takes the time to really examine what makes her tick.

“My Adventures With Superman” is one of three animated shows adapting popular comic book superheroes that ran over the course of this summer, along with “X-Men ’97” on Disney+, which concluded its second season earlier this week, and “Batman: Caped Crusader” on Amazon Prime, which premiered its second season in late July. Pitched to a slightly older audience than usual for an animated comic book series, teenage up as opposed to for children, these shows aren’t flawless. But as comic book film studios continues to struggle to adjust to a world where they are no longer the center of the entertainment landscape (give or take “Spider-Man”), these shows demonstrate that these characters are better suited for serialized storytelling in the first place.

Would this be the cartoon where Jimmy was changed from white to black? And where Lois Lane's turned into a short-cropped tomboy? In that case, I regret to say, but this puff piece amounts to little more than misleading the audience by obscuring how the production is allegedly optimistic with strings attached. It's also worth considering that, if Kara Zor-El was changed from an innocent girl to a former conqueror, brainwashed or not, that too, unfortunately, is tasteless. It's also symbolic of the modern era's inability to appreciate a simpler concept of a character who could be written with flaws and mistakes, but doesn't have to be written as that guilty of wrongdoing as Kara sounds characterized here.

One of the major criticisms of superhero cinema for the past decade has been its resolute sameness: while certain MCU movies may have loose genre window-dressing, they’re fundamentally tonally similar in their quippy characters and excess spectacle. But all three of these series have strong art direction and visions for these characters that feels spiritually true to the source material but also provides something fresh and new that fans haven’t seen before, and are all radically different from one another.

Heavily inspired by early 2000s anime, “My Adventures With Superman” is the bright, zippy, lighthearted offering. The show takes the characters and their battles seriously, but it provides a wonderfully comforting take on Superman that also heavily foregrounds the love story between Clark and Lois; it’s a rom-com as much as it is a series about fighting invading aliens. It works because of how well-drawn these versions of the characters are, and because his relationship with Lois was always what made the seemingly invulnerable Clark feel most human. If the 2025 James Gunn “Superman” film sometimes strained to reinvent the character’s optimism for modern audiences, “My Adventures With Superman” makes that challenge look effortless.

But again, we're not being told about the character design, and that's being dishonest with the readership, for the sake of virtue-signaling. They may not have done to Kara's hair what they did Lois', but that's still no excuse, and that Lois' ethnicity may have also been changed only further (she looks darker complected in the cartoon) confirms the disrespect the producers actually have for Siegel and Shuster's creations. The writer also made sure to take a biased look at the aforementioned Marvel cartoon:

“X-Men ’97” is another successor of a ’90s kids’ cartoon, albeit a direct sequel. The 1992 “X-Men” animated series that aired on Fox during the decade was a foundational series for fans of the Marvel superhero team, providing definitive versions of the mutant protectors in all their messy, soapy excess. “’97” picks up where the series left off, but again ages up the content for adults who grew up with the series for a much darker tone. The animation emphasizes fidelity to the original show and the time period’s garish aesthetic in general, for a show that, more than almost any film, truly feels like picking up and reading five random issues of a comic run from 30 years ago.

Not all of these series are of equal quality. “My Adventures with Superman” has been the most consistent of the three, a nice good time throughout all three seasons without ever being exceptional. “Caped Crusader” Season 1 was a promising start, but Season 2 ramped up the stakes and serialized storytelling for a much improved follow-up. “X-Men ’97,” meanwhile, had a near flawless debut season, but a divisive Season 2 that struggled with unfocused storytelling and weaker stakes, albeit with a standout fourth episode that ranks among the best of the series (the show’s production was likely marred by the firing of head writer Beau DeMayo during work on Season 2 for allegations of sexual harrasment).

No surprise they'd sugarcoat X-Men 97 as well. They made Rogue otherwise sexless, drew Storm with a mohawk forcibly, and even the treatment of Morph was reprehensible. The part about the darkness predictably goes by without objectivity, and seriously, what "fidelity" is there truly here? And why does the writer talk about being "unexceptional" when Jimmy's ethnicity was changed, while Lois was made to look unattractive, and Supergirl gets a questionable premise shoehorned onto her? Such dishonesty indeed.

I'd spoken before about why brightness and optimism can't come with strings attached, yet that's exactly what the producers of My Adventures With Superman did, and it's disgraceful how Indiewire's writer doesn't have the courage to admit it's ludicrous, divisive, and conflicts with entertainment value. Animation can certainly be a great venue for superheroics, but not if woke changes are forced onto established creations. There was once a saying that change must be consistent with what came before, and the Hollywood phonies who turned out these items certainly aren't proving much different from the live action moviemakers who race-swapped and sex-swapped any of the characters in specific adaptations.

Baseball franchises being turned into comics collectibles

From this Major League Baseball announcement, it sounds more like Zero-Zero Entertainment, the publisher of these comics, is interested in catering to the speculator market as much as the mainstream industry itself:

Calling all comic lovers and baseball fanatics: All Baseball Comics is debuting a collection of three officially licensed books to expand your collection.

Centered on the thesis that baseball is “the story of America,” the trio of issues features one spotlight on each of the Yankees, Dodgers and Cubs. They are available for preorder now on baseballcomics.com. Issues are listed at $19.99 apiece for standard printed versions, while a signed variant cover is also available for $49.99.

The history of these teams may be well worth telling, but marketing the comics as collectibles instead of history stories is the grave error made here. And seriously, people have to pay that much for something only 32 pages long? This is only taking advantage of customers for the sake of quick bucks, and does a disservice to the very sport they claim to be honoring.

What's more, if they can't tell a story that's the length of a paperback, which could be 50 or 100 pages, then they've proven they lack the talent and dedication needed to honor the sport of baseball. I'm sorry, but this is nothing more than a foul ball rife with cheating customers. 3 strikes and you're out. Once again, the medium's being exploited for profit instead of talent and dedication, and this only proves the point all the more why comics have to stop relying on the pamphlet model.

Art Spiegelman continues his far-left act

The UK Guardian interviewed far-left cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who says America's in need of a "counter-revolution", which sounds very appalling coming from his perspective. And when he began drawing comics again after a hiatus in the post-911 years, this is what he did:

He produced a series about 9/11 for the German magazine Die Zeit, which was later run by other European magazines and American Jewish weekly the Forward. On one page he describes himself as “equally terrorised by al-Qaida and by my own government”. He felt that other American publications were too quiescent in the aftermath of the attacks, and not yet receptive to his fear that the US government was using 9/11 as cover for a massive crackdown on civil liberties and to launch xenophobic wars. “Sigh! It’s hard to be an artist who is consistently Seconds Ahead of His Time,” he writes in the foreword to In the Shadow of No Towers, a book that compiled these comics and is being reissued to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11. (Although, he says, it may come out late – a shipment has been held up in the strait of Hormuz.)

Why was he so alert to the implications for US civil liberties? “Well, my tendency is not to trust the government, so that came easily,” he says. “But it also seems so obvious, like all of a sudden there were police cars and military trucks on Canal Street. We were being told where we could walk, where we couldn’t walk, what we could say, what we couldn’t say. It’s visceral. It’s not like: ‘OK, I’ve read this book on propaganda and here’s how it works.’” Spiegelman notes the direct link between the post-9/11 security crackdowns and some of the excesses of the Trump administration: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ice, was created in the aftermath of the terror attacks.

Sounds like he doesn't respect special rules set in place for security reasons. And he seemed less offended by al Qaeda's behavior than by his government's. Very troubling. Let's be clear. The Bush administration did do some bad things. But to say it was inherently wrong to deploy security measures in the USA meant to prevent further jihadist attacks at the time is very disturbing, and takes away from the more serious issues involved. Though if Spiegelman doesn't trust the government, is that only when a right-wing government's in office? Does a left-wing government count?

Also note how he's indicated he's anti-ICE, and that too says something, considering how many sex offenders infiltrated the USA, and some of al Qaeda's terrorists also got into the country through lax immigration policies, and, with the spread of Islam in the USA, things could chillingly get worse. Is that what Spiegelman wants? I don't know, but the following is very chilling:

When it comes to 9/11, however, Spiegelman’s perspective has shifted. He no longer views the day as an “end of the world moment”. “It was a big deal. But it was a small big deal compared to the big deals that are going on now,” he tells me. “I’d much rather be in New York than in Iran, for example.”

This is disgusting, because it minimizes the tragedies and losses of 911 Families, many of whom recently launched a petition to have NYC mayoral incumbent Zohran Mamdani barred from the 911 Memorial, based on some of the most offensive things he's said and done that also minimize the repulsive incident from a quarter century ago, along with the memory of the actual victims. And Spiegelman's comment on Iran is fishy. Does he believe it wrong for the Trump administration to take down a barbaric dictatorship? I don't know what Spiegelman believes in fighting for at all.

Around 50 minutes after Spiegelman fires up his Nespresso machine, he finishes making two coffees, and we carry them up to his sunny roof terrace, which as he promised has beautiful views of downtown Manhattan. Spiegelman muses that the US’s volatile politics might reflect humankind’s natural tendency to self-destruction. “I guess, after a while, you get restless, so if you get too comfortable you create problems for yourself, even in more mundane, small-time life, never mind as a nation. At this point, we just had the bad luck of having a megalomaniac walking onto the scene,” he says, of the Trump presidency. American politics is, after all, “entertaining if you don’t give a shit, if you’re nihilistic”.

Spiegelman’s mood is sombre as he discusses how Trump has “very effectively dismantled” the country’s democratic ideals: “Whatever the ideals were, we never lived up to them, but at least we had them. Now it’s all so cynical and sordid and stupid.” The president “is cutting off civil liberties and using his powers to squelch dissent and enrich himself in such thoroughly illegal ways, it’s kind of mindblowing”, Spiegelman says, and he finds himself watching in alarm as the “plutocrat in chief” and his “few dozen toadies” get ever richer while ordinary Americans struggle and suffer a “new indignity every day”. He has no hesitation in describing the Trump administration as fascist. “It’s fascism,” he says. “It’s not nazism, per se, but it has a template that it’s following. And it does have to do with othering, which is the basis of what Maus is about, it’s: ‘OK, you guys are mice, we’re cats.’” Maus is among the many books to be banned by various Republican school boards in recent years, but Spiegelman says he has a “predilection” for producing the kind of art people will seek to ban. Sales of Maus spiked in response to the bans.

“I tend to be pessimistic, but this is worse than most things I know,” he says of American politics. “I just don’t see how we get out of this.” The media are struggling with how to convey the stakes in this post-truth era, he explains, the courts are packed with Trump appointees, democratic norms have been destroyed, and there is no effective opposition. The Republicans are “at this point the equivalent of made men in the mafia,” Spiegelman says, “they’ve committed a murder, they’re complicit in something and they have to keep moving as a complicit unit, so it’s very hard to get someone to blow the whistle and say ‘This is crazy.’” The US needs a “counter-revolution”, Spiegelman says. “But I don’t know where to look for it because the Democrats are so timid.”

*Shudder*. That sounds like he wants riots, as if there weren't enough already 6 years ago. And no concrete evidence is given for the claim the Republicans "committed a murder", nor whether the courts are literally packed with Trump appointees, but not Biden's appointees. This is very troubling, and Spiegelman's hatred for right-wingers is very noticeable, making this much sadder.

The Daily Cartoonist notes there's a flaw in their claim Spiegelman was the first cartoonist to win a Pulitizer for Maus:

As we all know the Pulitzers had been handing out Prizes to cartoonists for 70 years before Spiegelman got his. Some quantify Spiegelman’s Pulitzer by explaining that he was the cartoonist to get a Pulitzer outside that Editorial Cartooning category as his Pulitzer was a Special Citation. But even that must be further narrowed down to the first cartoonist to receive a Pulitzer prize for a specific graphic novel since Dr. Seuss had earlier been awarded a Special Pulitzer for his body of work.

And I can't recall Spiegelman ever speaking in Theodor Geisel's defense after a number of the latter's children's books were withdrawn from publication because of alleged stereotypes. The Guardian's errors shouldn't be surprising though; they're a horrible newspaper of poor quality as it is.

Spiegelman's given signs he has a despicable, narrow viewpoint that totally absolves leftists of any mistakes they make, even as he says the Democrats are too timid to carry out his ideas of how to manage business. I have no interest in buying his products, and seriously, I don't find his artwork appealing anyway. The worst part is how guys like him never seem to speak of groups like 911 Families, and don't consider how actual victims of serious crimes feel about anything. His political views are insufferable, and if Trump is what he cares about, it's all he's going to care about. One more reason there's no point in wasting time on any comics and cartoons he illustrates.