What Alan Moore says about Frank Miller and the industry

Alan Moore, having long had little to do with the comics medium for years already, was interviewed by the UK Observer, and has rather unsurprisingly unflattering words to say about Frank Miller. But first:

You are ‘divorced’ from your earlier works like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, but they are powerfully predictive, rather than histories.

They were never meant to be predictive. Friends want me to write something nice. Why do I have to keep doing these terrible dystopian stories that then actually happen?

Well if he realizes why, more importantly, apocalyptic stories only built upon pessimism can be discouraging when you hammer away at them with no brighter side to balance, at least that's something. Though it doesn't excuse that he's such a leftist, and unfortunately, as the following suggests, he hasn't risen above this in real life:

With the [Guy Fawkes] mask from V for Vendetta, you created a symbol for resistance.

It’s one of the works that I’ve disowned, although I am very glad if that mask has been useful to a global protest movement. I was glad that Occupy could find a use for it. I was optimistic when I saw Tunisian school kids wearing it at the start of the Arab Spring, but that replaced the old governments with worse ones and led inexorably to [war in] Syria. If the old world refuses to die, the new world cannot be born.

What do you mean by ‘the old world’?

The ferocity of the rightwing push that we’ve seen over the last 10 years. I can’t really attribute that to anything other than a desperate sense that they and their politics have no part in the future.

What a groaner. He just won't let go of the whole notion on right-wingers could be a problem, but not left-wingers. And does he turn a blind eye to the dangers of Islam, which is consuming the UK even now as we speak? If he believes the "Arab Spring" really had any positive impact in Egypt, reality contradicts that. And how come he denies Watchmen and V for Vendetta were meant to be predictive? Is it because he feels that part alludes to more recent world issues he never actually meant to write a metaphor for? Also appalling is his continued favorability to the Occupy movement, years after the fact, and if that's how he's going to opine, there's no chance he sees anything wrong with how things are really going in Syria now, and the disaster its current autocrat is inflicting upon anybody considered a "kuffar".

How did you get from learning in the library to writing Future Shocks, a sci-fi cartoon strip in 2000 AD?

I asked my friend Steve Moore, who had been working as a comic script writer. He taught me the basics, and I started submitting stories to Doctor Who weekly and 2000 AD. The 2000 AD editor rejected them but liked my style, so gave me Future Shocks. They were a great way to learn how to tell a story. I don’t acknowledge them [now]. The companies have lawyers and will fight you in court until you are destitute. I don’t want to be associated with the comics industry, which is poisonous.

OK… a couple of questions about that poison. The Dark Knight’s Frank Miller, who I think you fell out with…

He’s one of the reasons I’m embarrassed to be connected with the comics industry.

There is one year, 1986, when he releases Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, you release Watchmen, and it changes comics for ever. He’s now worth $45m.

I’m aware of this. Comics are a wonderful medium but the industry is corrupt. One of the reasons I disowned that work is because it is owned by DC Comics. They can give it to any writer. There was a TV series called Watchmen and my only connection with that was receiving a parcel with a powder blue barbecue apron bearing the hydrogen symbol and a letter that began, “Mr. Moore, I am one of the bastards currently destroying Watchmen…” I wrote back a brief letter, saying that this work has been stolen from me so, as far as I’m concerned, it is unauthorised.

Okay, so he's seriously discouraged based on his experiences with a company that came to rip off its contributors more than once, recalling how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were at one point being short-changed by DC on Superman until they went public about it in the mid-70s. A big difference is that, as the creators of the first prominent superhero, they had some backing in their time, including the late artist Neil Adams IIRC (but who knows if they'd find it now?), while Moore, by contrast, didn't find anything of the sort, if at all. And I guess he resents that, but again, his leftism is making it difficult to care.

As for his beef with Miller, I assume it's because Miller by contrast went on to work in films to some extent, even though in the end, Miller didn't have much more success than any adaptations of Moore's work did, recalling the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Watchmen films were disasters, and so too was V for Vendetta, IIRC.

Screen Rant addressed this in turn, and they unshockingly take Moore's side regardless of where Miller's been going lately, telling that:

However, that friendship was already seemingly over by 2011, when Moore was harshly critical of Miller's public comments about the Occupy protest movement in an interview. Both before and after that, Moore has criticized what he considers the "misogynistic," "homophobic," and "fascist" overtones of Miller's work. Alan Moore clearly came to dislike Miller's later comics, like Sin City and 300, but the root of the issue, on and off the page, is political.

[...] Frank Miller is frequently described as a conservative, though he disavows that label himself. Meanwhile, Alan Moore is a self-avowed anarchist and magician. But one thing they share is how much their personalities, and their ideologies, drive what they do on the page. Which makes their creative and political differences indistinguishable. Then add a professional layer to that: Miller embraced the comics industry, while Moore forsaked it.

Yes, for nearly a decade, Miller's been doing everything he can to back away from any such labeling, even going so far in his recent documentary to say he's sorry for attacking the Occupy movement. Assuming Moore knows this, it just shows that the whole notion he's going to forgive and forget so easily is exaggerated. For if the Observer interview is any suggestion, he won't change his mind anytime soon.

Anyway, now that DC owner Warner Brothers has come under the same ownership as Paramount, one could wonder, will they provide Moore with compensation, if he really deserves it? And given that the mogul who owns both is pro-Donald Trump, one can validly wonder if Moore will even accept any offered? If not, what was his whole rant about in the first place? All I know is that it's just too bad Moore has to be such a far-leftist, and it makes it hard to credit much of his resume outside of a handful of items.

Star Wars' leading actor continues to taint the franchise with his far-left rants

John Nolte at Breitbart addressed the recent anguish Star Wars veteran Mark Hamill caused by writing a social media post wishing ill to Donald Trump:

The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s Star Wars star Mark Hamill has not only lost his humanity, but he’s also been exposed as a bald-faced liar.

Earlier this week, and just a few days after hanging out with former President Barry Obama, Hamill took to his stupid Bluesky account to publish a photo of a dead President Trump with the caption “If Only.”

On the tombstone, the date of death is 2024, with the obvious implication being “if only” he had died before being reelected in a landslide in 2024. You can also assume quite reasonably that Hamill wishes that the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2024 had been successful.

Grim stuff. But when you allow your politics to strip away your humanity, this is how your mind warps.

Naturally, Democrats ignored Hamill’s assassination porn, and the far-left entertainment media downplayed it, but Hamill eventually deleted the post.

Then, on Thursday, he only kind of apologized, but did so by lying about his original post: “Accurate Edit for Clarity: ‘He should live long enough to… be held accountable for his… crimes.’ Actually, I was wishing him the opposite of dead, but apologize if you found the image inappropriate.”

Liar. Hamill was not “wishing him the opposite of dead.”

There was no contradiction in the original post. Hamill expressed his disappointment that Trump was not dead (“If Only”) and then went on to basically say that, since he is sadly still living, I wish all these horrors upon him.

Let's also recall Hamill did voice acting for the Joker during the mid-90s in the Batman Animated Series franchise. Seriously, he is such a sorry case, and it'll be very hard watching the SW franchise at this point when you realize how awful its original star is in his world view. It's also why some people might not be too disappointed Kathleen Kennedy turned the franchise to wokeness, because what good is something where the star of the show makes such heinous statements about real life politicians?

Hamill really crossed the line this time, and while I'd like to think maybe it'd be better reading the comics adapted from SW at this point, even that's not going to be easy.

New cartoon film based on Orwell's Animal Farm succumbs to anti-conservative propaganda

Mark Tapson at Front Page reviewed a new cartoon movie adapted from George Orwell's Animal Farm, and what a shock, it's sadly an anti-Trump metaphor:

You will recall that the fable centers on animals who revolt against their farmer master, take over the farm, set out to fashion a collectivist utopia in which “All animals are equal,” and ultimately succumb to the same fate to which all collectivist endeavors lead: all wealth concentrated in the hands of a few while the rest starve and chafe under an abuse of authoritarian power.

But while the novella may have universal themes about power, totalitarianism, and hypocrisy, Orwell’s specific target was the Stalinist regime in Russia. A socialist himself, Orwell nevertheless recognized and spoke out against the horrors of totalitarianism.

This animated version was directed by actor Andy Serkis – best-known for his role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy – who dreamed of giving the tale an updated spin for a new generation. He insists that his take is politically fair and balanced: “We aimed to tell this story examining contemporary themes and references without being in any way partisan,” he told journalists. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter who is in charge.”

This is pure misdirection. Did anyone think a mainstream Hollywood film, which this is, would miss an opportunity to snipe at Trump and capitalism? Andy Serkis gave away the game when he showed up on the red carpet at the film’s premiere sporting a red MAGA cap whose slogan was changed to read, “Make Animal Farm Fiction Again” – clearly signaling that he believes we are currently living under an authoritarian regime led by capitalist icon Donald Trump.

And he introduces a character not in the original story: the ruthlessly greedy billionaire Freida Pilkington (voiced by Glenn “Fatal Attraction” Close) who roars around in a vehicle clearly resembling a Cybertruck – in other words, she is a stand-in for the mega-capitalist the Left loves to hate, Elon Musk.

Pilkington wants the animals’ farm, so she manipulates the pig leader Napoleon (who represented Stalin in the novella), whose own greed makes him an easy mark. But in Orwell’s version, the ruthless lust for power is the key danger. Greed is not the issue – it is a consequence of unchecked power, yes, but not a central theme, although under collectivist regimes, those in power always live like kings. Serkis, USA Today notes, instead “gravitated toward themes of capitalism, wealth and overconsumption.”

Then there is the hopeful ending in which the animals still believe in the power of collective action for a better future, which runs against the grain of Orwell’s chilling final line about the animals having essentially become indistinguishable from corrupt humans. USA Today sees the movie’s ending as giving viewers “closure,” but in fact it dulls the impact of Orwell’s warning and leaves us feeling not even entertained, much less inspired. It doesn’t help that the incongruous pratfalls and fart jokes simply don’t work.

Well this is bad alright. But also appalling and stupefying is who distributed it:

The baffling thing is that the film is distributed by the pro-Christian, pro-capitalist Angel Studios. If this adaptation were faithful to Orwell’s original vision, Angel’s connection would be understandable. But why would Angel want a clunky, anti-capitalist dud in its repertoire? One social media user put forward this plausible theory: “What Angel gets out of distributing this terrible movie with an all-star cast is that it will break a taboo among mainstream Hollywood figures against working on Angel-produced projects.” If so, this would be a betrayal of Angel’s loyal, Hollywood-despising core audience, and a decision that will likely backfire.

Put another way, they sold out, all because it's such a big deal to be accepted by the Hollywood leftist mainstream. I read the original novella years ago, and IMO, it's all that's needed. Orwell's book didn't need to be adapted to screen, let alone animation, and certainly not with such pretentious people overseeing the production.

The film's amazingly gotten a poor reception, as John Nolte at Breitbart notes, even from leftists, and it's thudded at the box office. Making matters worse is what one of the actors in the film wants in real life, which doesn't help the film's PR any more than Pedro Pascal did the latest Fantastic Four movie when he engaged in political rhetoric. Unfortunately, if recent conduct in Hollywood is any suggestion, neither director Serkis nor the studios involved will learn serious lessons from the catastrophe their political obsessions resulted in, and we could be seeing more of the same in the coming years.

Back issue bins can turn up interesting items, but why not trade collections?

CTV News wrote about what people find in back issue bins, at conventions like FCBD and the Calgary Expo:

If you’re the right kind of geek, there’s a good chance you’ve spent some time lately rooting through comic book back issue bins.

Calgary Expo and Free Comic Book Day are just freshly behind us.

Maybe you were hoping the next flip would bring you a particular something on your list for a mere dollar or two.

Maybe a successful dive through the cheap reads means getting exactly issues 520 and 521 of Journey Into Mystery.

Or maybe you were flipping aimlessly, and it was by the Comic Book Gods’ good grace you hit on the “fear-filled final issues” of that specific Marvel Comics series that someone else either didn’t want anymore or couldn’t sell at face value.

It was a rescue mission, regardless.

How comic book collectors approach it is what can vary, says Bill Bateman from Alpha Comics in Calgary.

“While some are looking for anything to fill in the blanks in their collections, others are looking for that elusive rare book that may have been missed by the store,” Bateman told CTV News.

“Some people show up with a binder of notes showing what they’re missing, (while) some have apps on their phones that do the job a lot faster, and some just know all of the books well enough.”

Sure, there can be gems to find in back issue bins, but if the same issues have been reprinted in trade collections, why must we hear about would-be collectors zeroing in almost entirely on said bins and not searching for paperback/hardcovers reprinting the very same issues? Why not even whether anybody wants specific issues reprinted, if they haven't yet been? That's what I never seem to see these news outlets bring up, nor do they interview people who do. But trade collections or paperback/hardcovers are what comprise the bulk of my collection now, and I think it's working a lot better that way, because thanks to the Marvel Epic Collections and the more recently launched DC Finest archives, I now own hundreds, perhaps thousands of old issues reprinted through these forms of collections for older comics. And these news companies don't want to talk about how great those can be for everybody who hopes to acquire a complete run of various classic series? That's just the problem here.

Rhiannon Mesler says comic book bin diving “runs on the same machinery that powers a slot machine.”

Likewise, the University of Lethbridge marketing professor and expert in consumer behaviour and decision-making says, “the same machinery social media platforms have spent fifteen years optimizing.”

“What makes it irresistible isn’t the find. It’s the unpredictability,” she says.

“Neuroscientists have shown that the brain’s dopamine system fires hardest not when reward arrives, but when reward arrives unexpectedly.

“And that the dopamine signal actually peaks when the odds are roughly 50-50, when you genuinely don’t know whether the next comic in the box is going to be ‘The One.’”

They make it sound more like a game of hide-and-seek than searching for the best reading material. Another clue the speculator mentality plays a part in this whole affair, which effectively ruins any attempt to sound convincing in their fandom.

In addition to the above, ComicBook also told about a guy who, with aid from his dad, managed to purchase at least 400 of the Amazing Spider-Man issues printed up till around the mid-90s:

Many times, comic book collectors are only interested in building a collection for bragging rights or to hopefully one day make money off of the collectibles. However, there are other times when a collector has a more personal reason for collecting memorabilia, and it has a purer meaning than just looking for the big bucks. In some cases, the idea of collecting comics or other items of memorabilia is passed down through the generations. In those cases, it is more about the relationship between a person and their parents, and that makes completing a collection something that means so much more.

This was the case for a Redditor known as joeltheconner, who just revealed that he finally completed his Amazing Spider-Man run of the first 400 issues. He then added that he has his father to thank for this fact.

In his post, joeltheconner wrote that his dad was a comic book collector and would take him to comic shops when he was a kid. However, he said that he was never as interested in comics until he was nine years old. “At the age of 9. My dad gave me a copy of ASM 300 to read. I was hooked instantly,” he wrote. “From then, we started collecting together. For two years we took our vacations to Chicago so we could go to the big convention up there.”

Around 1998, he said he lost interest and stopped collecting, and then moved on. However, he admitted there was something his dad had said to him before that he thought was cool. They discussed having the full run of a specific comic book title. He chose Amazing Spider-Man and decided he would collect the run of the first 400 issues. That led to a few years ago, when his dad asked if he was still interested in completing that collection. His dad then did something that meant the world to him.

His dad had his “prized” Silver Surfer comics, and he offered to sell those to the local shop to get credit so that his son could work on finishing his Amazing Spider-Man run. “I honestly tried to talk him out of it, but it sounded like a really fun thing for him and I to do together again,” he wrote. “From the first time I stepped back into a shop, it took me right back and I was hooked again. 2 years later, today I bought the last book that I needed to complete the run.”

That book was Amazing Spider-Man #2, which was the first appearance of the Vulture and which was the first book where Spider-Man fought a superpowered villain (Chameleon was the first villain in the debut issue). This man’s dad gave up a prized possession to work with his son to help fulfill a dream. It was obvious that it meant the world to this man. “It’s so hard sometimes for sons to tell their fathers what they mean to them, and I’m going to figure out a way to really tell him,” he wrote. “But thank you, Dad. I owe more to you in this life than I could never repay.”

While it's great for dads and sons to do all sorts of things together, it's simply ludicrous how somebody would like to get as much of Spidey when it mattered in pamphlets, but not in trade collections, which at this point is precisely what I own. As of now, I own, for example, the first 12 ASM Epic archives, and have plenty more coming after that, and hope the ASM run will be more or less completed eventually, so that then, I can try to buy complete sets myself, though admittedly, at this point I'm hesitant to buy those collecting the Clone Saga, which, while it may not be as awful as some other artistic humiliations to come down the pike later, was still very damaging to the Spidey legacy, and certainly the part where Peter assaulted Ben Reilly in frustration and accidentally injured Mary Jane when she tried to get him to stop, after which Peter just ran out of the laboratory in horror instead of doing what he could to mend the damage to MJ. That kind of scene is far more reprehensible than claiming Ben was the protagonist all along between 1975-95 (and it was soon confirmed by writers that Peter was the protagonist within that time frame, not Ben, in their efforts to apologize to Spider-fans they alienated).

And I have plenty more Epic Collection and Finest archives I've bought, including a few dedicated to Superman's series and spinoffs, all 3 for Black Panther, several for Daredevil, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Dr. Strange, Justice Society/League, Punisher, Luke Cage, X-Men, Capt. America, Thor, Hawkman, Defenders, Moon Knight and even Excalibur. I also have several omnibuses to boot. And I hope other Spidey spinoffs like the 1976-98 Spectacular will see some Epic archives eventually too. That's what serious "collectors" should really be buying, and considering the back issues are highly likely to become increasingly expensive over time, if they really want to read this stuff, that's why they'll buy the trade collections.

So again, why are we still seeing this otherwise absurd news about people searching for back issues instead of paperbacks/hardcovers? That's another huge letdown with modern news coverage of comidom. Because in the end, it only hints they still don't take the medium seriously, otherwise, they would talk about all these reprint collections and how they can introduce new generations to older classics as a great reading pastime. And this demonstrates how the MSM continues to belittle the medium, by not highlighting a far more convenient approach to collecting notable stories of the past decades by today's standards. Unless something is done to dissuade speculators and collectors from back issues and try trade collections instead, the problem's going to continue for at least another decade or three.

A suicide note by a deceased criminal was found inside a GN

Comic Book Club says a suicide note written by the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly discovered inside a graphic novel, and the news provided even includes a connection to IDW, of all companies:

They say all press is good press, but I’ll be honest: I don’t know if that applies here, because Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was found inside a graphic novel.

The news comes via the New York Times, which right under the headline “Purported Epstein Suicide Note Is Released” is the subheadline, “A federal judge released the note on Wednesday, which Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate said he found in a graphic novel. The New York Times has not authenticated that Mr. Epstein wrote it.”

Now, there are a lot of important questions about this. Is the note real? Did Epstein write it? And what does it mean, if the pedophile and abuser did, indeed, die by suicide versus the multiple conspiracy theories about how he went out. But if you’re like me, aka, brain totally broken, the main question is… Which graphic novel? That’s certainly a question, and online at least there were plenty of jokes. But can we figure out which graphic novel Epstein was reading before his death? Sorry, alleged graphic novel. [...]

The second, and slightly more eye-opening set of documents are financial reports from ADW Capital Partners from February 17, 2016. Why is this interesting? That’s because the documents are about ADW’s investment in… IDW. And they call out mostly media properties like Wynonna Earp, but specifically also mention, “One of the Company’s most famous properties, ‘Locke and Key,’ is co-owned with Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son).”

Look, someone more financially minded than me should explain this, but as far as I can gather, ADW, which it’s likely Epstein was an investor in (given he was receiving emails from the fund) was heavily invested in IDW. And so much so that on March 5, 2019, ADW urged a sale of IDW in a publicly released press release. Later than month, IDW hired JP Morgan to explore a sale, and then less than five months later, on August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein, who we’ve now established was conclusively a huge fan of Locke & Key, committed suicide. Coincidence??? Yes.

Be that as it may, one could wonder if IDW arranged to be sold away from any business Epstein had an ownership stake in because they realized the embarrassment that could entail, after all the woke pandering they went miles out of their way to work on. Or, did they turn to woke pandering because they thought it would serve as a shield from any severe critical drubbing they could receive over an unfortunate if coincidental connection to such a monster? Well even that kind of notion is starting to fall apart, as seen in the near decade since the Harvey Weinstein scandal, so perhaps IDW might want to stop taking a woke position with their comics writing now for a change, since, if they had any kind of meetings with Epstein like Simpsons creator Matt Groening did, it wouldn't help their reputation at this point.

Whatever the case, there's a number of decent products IDW used to publish comics for that I'd rather they never get a license or permit to publish ever again. They've insulted my intellect so badly over the past several years, and have hired at least a few very bad apples of recent, that, unless they took time to overhaul their management properly, it would be ill-advised to buy their post-2020 products again.

Marvel's abuse of Mary Jane Watson continues

Marvel continues to degrade the Spider-Man legacy by using Mary Jane Watson as a source of projection, and the worst part is that Popverse, unshockingly, is acting as an apologist for it. Case in point: the Death Spiral storyline, where MJ, in the Venom guise, is the one to terminate the villain Torment, with the problem being that it all sounds vaguely similar to the time when Wonder Woman broke Max Lord's neck in 2005 at the time of Infinite Crisis:

In the last few pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #27 from Joe Kelly, Carlos Gómez, Ed McGuinness, and Francesco Manna, MJ's Venom grabs the crossover's villain, Torment, dragging his body against the side of a building before throwing him down onto a roof, after he was about to hurt Aunt May and Mary Jane's own beloved aunt, Anna Watson. For context, Mary Jane's father, if we can even call him that, was an abusive man who left his daughter with emotional wounds she's bravely worked to heal in adulthood. Luckily for MJ, her Aunt Anna was able to step in as a mother figure for her. This is all to say that when Torment attacked May and Anna, he gave himself a one-way ticket to the afterlife via Venom Airlines.

Once on the roof, Torment rambled on about wanting to "help Peter" before making a threat against his life, at which point Mary Jane's Venom dropped him off the roof of the building, where he fell to his death. Now, killing someone this way is relatively tame for Venom as New York City's Lethal Protector, but it's a shocking moment for both the symbiote and MJ because they've been trying to rein in their more violent instincts. After seeing Torment dead on the sidewalk, Venom asks, "Was that you...? Or me?" implying that it's unclear whether the symbiote or Mary Jane or both of them were responsible for dropping Torment's body.

You might be wondering: Mary Jane Watson, murderer? Venom writer Al Ewing has been setting up this turn of events for MJ and the symbiote over the past year. In 2025's All-New Venom #9, MJ and Venom nearly murdered Doc Ock by drowning him in symbiote goo before Flash Thompson intervened, telling them, "That's not you. That's not either of you." After a moment, Venom said, "No. No, you're right. That's not who we want to become," before releasing Doc Ock. Sadly, with The Amazing Spider-Man #27, it seems that Mary Jane and Venom have become what they feared most.

Even if this is a murderous villain in focus who got sent to the afterlife, we're way past the point where this could've been plausible, and one of the worst things about this storyline is that the writers doubtless were banking on that it would all be divisive, not unlike the time when Jason Todd supposedly killed a rapist in Batman in the late 80s. Also note that, when a writer as woke as Ewing is involved, something is terribly wrong.

And is the columnist saying Torment is MJ's father?!? If memory serves, there was one time in past decades where the dad did appear as a broken old man, hopefully portrayed as repentant over whatever abuse he subjected MJ's family to, and if this new supervillain is the dad, they've ruined whatever perceptive impact the older Spidey story had. This also reminds me that about 26 years ago, Geoff Johns and David Goyer depicted Obsidian murdering his abusive dad in the pages of JSA, and while it may have been due to influence by a Golden Age villain named Ian Karkull, that shoddy tale still had no good impact at all. So why must we see this Spidey story as any better? It only proves Kelly's another writer who's overrated to begin with. Also, Karen Page's dad in Daredevil may have been depicted in a way vaguely similar in the late 60s (issues 56-7) that was more plausible, so this whole idea in Spider-Man isn't new so much as it's contrived and forced.

Another writer at Popverse is making things worse, lecturing that MJ is better off as Venom than as Spidey's girlfriend/wife:

Lots of people around the world relate to Spider-Man and Peter Parker, but I've come to realize that I share more of a kinship with the people around Spider-Man than the web-slinger himself. The guy frustrates me. He can be a lousy boyfriend, friend, journalist, you name it, and I hate feeling let down by his shortcomings. And this is precisely why, when I heard that it was Mary Jane Watson beneath the Venom symbiote goop, I felt an unbridled sense of joy. Oh my god, MJ can finally be free, I thought. And free she has been.

Let's be real, none of us will ever catch Mary Jane Watson slipping. Her hair is always perfect, she can rush around the city in heels without getting a single rolled ankle or blister, and she's got a rock-solid moral constitution. But that isn't all she can be. And it's this element that writer Al Ewing has been exploring with the All-New Venom and its subsequent Venom ongoing series with MJ as the symbiote's unexpected host. As Venom, Mary Jane has redefined the significance of Marvel's most popular characters while also injecting a much-needed sense of joy and whimsy where there was once only trauma and sorrow. With MJ at the symbiote reins, her character has gotten the chance to directly address the damage that the symbiote wrought on her life when Eddie Brock and Peter Parker were its hosts, while also publicly being a weird, goopy freak protecting her fellow New Yorkers. Talk about a power fantasy!

Oh my god, is this utterly stupid. On the one hand, he writes a classic putdown of a hero because being one is somehow one-dimensional compared to a villain. On the other hand, he acts like MJ as a fictional character is literally portrayed as flawless, when there were times she's been depicted as sustaining injuries (like the time in 1974 where Harry Osborn took up the Green Goblin outfit) and other accidents, and the part about "rock solid moral constitution" is nullified by the very story in issue 27. If Spidey was depicted in the past as the kind of hero who usually refrains from killing, MJ was usually depicted as more or less the same, and this pretentious tale is clearly a cheap excuse to have a co-star in Spidey's world do what he might not be written doing. Worst of all, it was, again, doubtlessly written to be divisive.

Later on, in Venom #251 by Al Ewing, Paco Medina, and Frank D'Armata, the pair disguise themselves in Iron Man armor and zip across New York City on roller skates - because MJ knows how to roller skate, of course. "You're not having fun?" Venom asks her [and by extension, the more humorless of us] when she says, "This is ridiculous." "Symbiotes don't know how to roller-skate, remember? I couldn't do this without you." Indeed, the very best symbiote shenanigans have been only possible in these books because of the woman beneath the goop.

Mary Jane Watson has been through it. From growing up with an abusive father, to having the people closest to her become supervillains and superheroes, to watching Venom transform her partner into a violent man she was afraid of, to listening to Peter Parker whinge on countless occasions, New York City is lucky that this woman hasn't been consumed by her own demons. With everything her character has gone through, why wouldn't she become a host to Venom at one point or another? As Venom, Mary Jane challenges our understanding of the symbiote-host bond, taking it from a relationship built on toxicity with nu-metal blasting in the background to a place of nuance, reflection, courage, and creativity.

But the writers involved don't. Of all the shoddy "op-eds" Popverse could've written till now, this is one of the dumbest ever. Writing merit (and art) are what make anything involving Venom work, not because there's a woman now combining with the symbiote. There's nothing creative or courageous at this point about turning MJ into another Venom host, because all these changes have only served as a pathetic excuse not to deal with more challenging issues or even develop plausible relations between heroic characters and their co-stars.

Venom is many things: an alien symbiote, a lethal protector, an antihero, a destroyer of carpets, and above all, a creature who craves companionship. As monstrous and intimidating as Venom can be, the character is driven by the fundamentally human truth that we're social creatures. For all the talk of the supposed "male loneliness epidemic" today within toxic online spheres, the Venom symbiote can and will die if it can't bond with someone. At the end of the day, even the biggest, burliest, and goopiest of us need someone whom they can confide in, even if things aren't always smooth sailing.

And frankly, with all the waffling over the state of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's relationship (or lack thereof) at Marvel's Spider-Man office, perhaps the best thing would be for Mary Jane to cut ties with Peter entirely and fully embrace being Venom for the foreseeable future. If anything, it's a refreshing story about a woman's trauma that isn't traumatic to read. And as Venom, Mary Jane has the unexpected chance to develop into her own standalone character, no Peter Parker needed.

I think the best thing for the columnist to do is stop writing about comics altogether. Interesting he talks about a loneliness epidemic in toxic circles, because that seems to be an allusion to what PC advocates consider fans who're "obstacles" to the cruder, more degrading ideas they want to force upon corporate-owned characters, and tragically, as this Spidey tale makes clear, already have. The writer also implies MJ was never written with personal agency when she and Peter were married, and it's literally impossible. This also ignores that even recently, there were a few stories that depicted MJ working without Spidey around, and as the above makes clear, don't matter to the columnist in the slightest. The "op-ed" only perpetuates a classic propaganda cliche that a character can only work when portrayed as a villain, and that's repellent.

I also noticed another site writer was talking about how the now late Gerry Conway worked towards making Peter and MJ a couple after putting Gwen Stacy to death:

While Peter and Mary Jane had casually dated after her introduction, their relationship halted when Peter realized Gwen was the one he cared for. Peter and Gwen became an official couple, and Mary Jane began dating Peter’s roommate, Harry Osborn. However, Conway always felt MJ was the more interesting character.

“She seemed like she would be a real match for Peter on a verbal one-to-one give-and-take sort of level, and I never felt the same way about Gwen. I’m sort of the guy who never saw Gwen as a real serious match for Peter. She seemed more like Stan’s fantasy than mine. So, there I was, and I sort of put my hand up and said, ‘Well, why don’t we just kill off Gwen? That would be kind of cool. Then we could get Mary Jane into the book more.’ And there was no real serious debate about it. It was sort of like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

“You have to remember that Gwen had been Peter’s serious girlfriend for about five or six years, but the book had been out for about 10. So it wasn’t like Lois Lane, who had been there all the time. Peter had several girls in his life. He had Betty Brant sort of semi-seriously. Liz Allan had been an interest at one point. Mary Jane Watson had been around. So, while Gwen was his official girlfriend, for those of us who had followed the character from the very start, she didn’t feel like she was that integral to the character. To people who had been reading the book for the last five years, she was Lois Lane.”

While I think the death of Gwen was written as well as could be expected for a story of its time, it's annoying how Conway obscured the fact that writing quality is what made MJ's assigned personality more interesting than Gwen's. But of course, was it Gwen's fault for not having a great personality? I'm as much a fan of Stan Lee as the next person, but I recognize that like me and you, he had his flaws. Yet nobody wanted to improve upon his flaws in writing, as John Byrne and Chris Claremont later did with Wolverine in X-Men when they took over for writers like Len Wein? Well that's the problem. Make Peter and MJ a couple, but that doesn't mean killing Gwen to get to that point is the sole option in the whole universe. For all we know, they could've had Gwen pair up with Flash Thompson or even a new character they could create if they'd wanted to. And to say killing Gwen would be "cool"? Seriously, that's not in good taste. Even if one can write a death scene with talent, death is not something to celebrate.

And then, as though things couldn't get more absurd, Comic Book Club says Marvel's actually celebrating 60 years since MJ officially debuted on-panel, and look who one of the writers is:

Mary Jane. Wacky Weed. Reefer. Sweet Green. Marijuana has many names, and frankly it’s disgusting that Marvel is celebrating the 60th anniversary of this DEADLY drug with… Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being told this is the anniversary of the fictional character, Mary Jane Watson. My bad!

Anywho, because Mary Jane said a thing one time 60 years ago, the publisher will release the one-shot Mary Jane: Face It, Tiger #1, a celebration of all things MJ featuring all-new stories and a glimpse of what’s to come.

In the book, you’ll get stories from J.M. DeMatteis, J. Michael Straczynski, Ann Nocenti, and Ashley Allen, alongside art from Phil Noto, Alina Erofeeva, Andrea Broccardo, and Luigi Zagaria.

JMS alone is enough to shudder at this point, and I don't like how the writer makes jokes about how MJ's name was also a slang in the past for cannabis. Even Phil Noto's reason enough to avoid this, because like JMS, he's quite a leftist too. But the former, well...after all the insults to the intellect he heaped upon the Spidey franchise in his writings, to have him return even for a single special has long become insufferable. With all the repeated damage inflicted upon Spider-Man and MJ (and even Gwen) over the past quarter century, what is there to celebrate?

Anayway, Popverse has once again proven they're one of the most bottom of the barrel news sites to come about in recent years, and if they're to be considered a successor to the now defunct Newsarama, "op-eds" like the above prove they're easily worse. How they get their funding is mystifying, seeing how they're just as loyalist to the establishment Joe Quesada was part and parcel of, and claim as they may to being Spider-fans, this proves they most definitely are not.

Even British comics are made the subject of useless auctions

ComicBook's fawning over the news a collection of British comics is being put up for auction, alongside more DC/Marvel back issues, and even harcover compilations:

Excalibur Auctions is running the massive auction of British comics, which includes thousands of popular comics, cover artwork, advertising ephemera, toys, merchandise, and fanzines. It was the collection of private collector Peter Hansen, and that collection includes a number of books that DC fans will want to take note of. Books included in the collection are Batman Double Double Comics #1 – #3, which are actually made up of unsold DC comics that were returned to publishers and rebound in groups of 4, giving the comics their name. Other Double Double Comics include Justice League, Jimmy Olson, Strange Adventures, Lois Lane, and Worlds Finest, though there are also Silver Age issues of The Brave and the Bold, The Flash, Aquaman, Detective Comics, and more. You can check out the full collection right here.

The Peter Hansen Collection of British Comics and Comic Art Is A Truly One of a Kind Auction

The Peter Hansen Collection features an array of items that Hansen had generously loaned to numerous institutions over the years, including the Cartoon Museum and the National Centre for Children’s Books. This collection was so expansive that it had to be split up into multiple sales, and that’s why it’s a truly one-of-a-kind auction and collection.

[...] There are all kinds of gems in this collection, including POW! #1 from Power Comics (Oldhams Press). The issue comes with the Spider Matic Gun and all of its Spider Disc bullets, and those are in the original press-out card as well. This is also key for Marvel fans, as it reprinted the first story of Amazing Spider-Man #1 for British readers.

There’s a host of other Marvel books in the auction as well, including a collection of 27 hardback Marvel annuals that feature The Amazing Spider-Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Star Wars, and The Avengers. There’s also a bound volume of Captain America that includes assorted issues, as well as a bound volume containing issues of X-Men Vol. 1, and a host of characters make their first appearances in the collected assortment.

It's very disappointing what could be the most engaging of UK comics are reduced to rotating relics on the speculator market as much as the DC/Marvel comics they speak of. Most eyebrow raising is that this private collection was put on display at some museums, yet now it may never be seen there again, and remain collecting dust in vaults. Also quite telling what's wrong with the speculator mentality is that even compilations that sound like paperback/hardcover are being sold to collectors who may not read those either. In which case, one could understandably wonder what's the use of trade collections any more than pamphlets?

Another article that's trivializing comics for the sake of meaningless auction sales.

2 more examples of news propagandists exploiting Gerry Conway's rejection of the Punisher for their own leftist agendas

It's been a week or so since veteran comics and screen writer Gerry Conway passed away, and here's 2 more examples of leftists exploiting his rejection of his own creation, Frank Castle, for the sake of tearing down on crimefighting as a vigilante, Spider-Man's being built on this theme notwithstanding. First, there's Polygon:

Over the years, the character has been fleshed out by dozens of creators, multiple films, and even a popular Netflix TV series. Details and timelines have changed, but, through it all, Frank Castle has remained solidly in the realm of antihero. With hundreds of deaths on his conscience from his time as a shell-shocked vigilante, he claims to only kill those that "deserve it." Yet, considering the pretty clear PTSD he's suffering dating back to his first appearance, let's just say that he might not be of sound mind to make those choices.

Conway himself was actively outspoken for years around the misappropriation of the Punisher's logo by deluded militants vowing to take justice into their own hands. Both on his personal social media and through various interviews, he maintained that a violent police force would have no common ground whatsoever with Frank Castle. Deluded though he may be, Castle believes himself to be a complicated necessity in a world of bright optimism. In Conway's words, “He thinks he's doing right, but we know he's doing wrong.”

All this coming from possibly the same kind of people who do virtually nothing to make the neighborhood/city safer. What exactly is so literally wrong with terminating murderers and rapists? This kind of thinking is practically what led to the demise of Jason Todd in Batman back in 1988, even though it was never clearly confirmed he'd actually thrown a rapist off the roof in a storyline from several issues prior. Simultaneously, it's bizarre and hypocritical how the same propagandists never take issue with how Wolverine's been depicted killing plenty of similar villains in past comics, and nobody utters a word about that, if at all. Even Lobo at DC never seems to undergo this kind of scrutiny.

And then, interesting how they bring up optimism; the same people who go out of their way to defend Batman's angle at all costs, along with horror movie franchises and such like Aliens, and never had any issues with DC going miles out of their way to make their universe dark as possible in the worst ways over 2 decades ago. Also, what's so inherently optimistic in a universe where the Hulk and Daredevil reside and received such an emphasis? Or the X-Men and Dr. Strange? Somehow, it doesn't sound like an accident they brought up optimism. But, why do they think that bizarre exaggeration is actually going to make a great shield for their positions, built as they are on lapses in logic?

Next, there's Popverse, who begin with the following:

In 2022, Gerry Conway recounted meeting someone with "the Blue Lives Punisher logo — you know, the blue stripe variation on it" tattooed on their arm. "And then above it," he said, "They had tattooed 'I don’t read,' and then below it, 'Punisher comics.' And I thought, yep."

Was Conway telling the truth? Or a half-truth? Since he's gone, there's no way to ascertain it now, but if he was taking things out of context or lying about the tattoo saying "I don't read Punisher comics", that was very appalling, because it suggests he was trying to make out "right-wingers" to be inherently stupid and uneducated.

Conway's April 2026 passing has left a giant hole in the comic book community, and in looking back at his legacy, it's hard not to see his relationship with Frank Castle - who he co-created with John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru in 1974 - as less than triumphant. For his entire life, Conway held that the Punisher was not created to be emulated, and that the adoption of his logo by members of the military, police, and overarching alt-right movement signaled both a deep misunderstanding of the character and a moral failing of those institutions.

I'm not here to argue that he got any of that wrong. Even if he wasn't the guy who, you know, helped created the goddamn character, I'd take a look at today's headlines and be pretty convinced of his position. But what I am here to tell you is this - that as we remember Gerry, we should not only recall his critiques of the deeply confused wannabes that wear the Punisher's symbol - we should remember the time Gerry fought back.

That moment was in part the subject of a 2022 episode of the 99% Invisible podcast, which is where I got the opening quote to this article. The show, which is a psychological deep-dive into the ways design affects our lives and culture, decided to dedicate an entire episode to the Punisher skull logo, its usages by conservative groups, and of course, the comic book history that led Conway & Co to creating it.

To truncate the (very listenable) episode, Conway speaks about making the Vietnam War an important part of Frank's past, which he calls the "fundamental social crime that we [his generation] felt that the government was perpetuating," and the bitter irony that now members of the government are putting the Punisher skull on their squad cars and humvees. And after years of witnessing them do so, Conway found a perfect opportunity to counter their misusage, and in doing so, support a movement that those tough-guy claimants couldn't stand:

Black Lives Matter.

In 2020, as the nation saw a tide of protests inspired by the murder of George Floyd, Gerry took a stand in a way that only a comics legend could. That was the "BLM Skulls for Justice campaign," in which the seminal Marvel and DC writer tried to reclaim the logo "potentially as a symbol for justice rather than for oppression. That, while The Punisher was a very problematic hero, he was trying to fight on the side of right."

The BLM Skulls for Justice campaign gave artists of color - Demonte Price, Don Nguyen, Wess Hancock, and Sam Ines, to be specific - the opportunity to rework the skull logo into a symbol that stood against the alt-right, not bolstered it. By the end of the campaign, a number of redesigned skulls adorned merch like t-shirts and hats, and perhaps most importantly, raised $75K for the LA chapter of BLM. Now let me ask you this, reader - does that mean that Conway was successful?

No, or at least not ideologically. Also note how they obscure Floyd's criminal record, in one of the saddest cliches of modern times, which is to totally distort facts for the sake of political agendas. Oddly enough, the columnist does admit it's not like Conway's "campaign" was truly successful:

That's up to the individuals who come across this article to decide, and for my part, I think the answer is somewhere in the vicinity of: "not for long." The 'I don't read Punisher comics' guy is still doing his thing, most likely, and the logo is still being used in some outrageously toxic places (for example, as a personal motif of the current FBI drinker - sorry, director). But here's why I say this story matters. When Gerry Conway had the opportunity to stay silent about an important issue, he didn't. Whether or not the proverbial needle was able to move regarding the Punisher skull, he pushed. Listen to Gerry put the idea into his own words as he wrapped up that podcast interview.

"I’ve heard one or two people on Twitter," Gerry told his interviewers, "Saying that there’s literally no way that the Punisher logo can ever be anything except a symbol of oppression. I think that’s just, you know, no, come on. But even if that were the case, sticking your finger in the eye of the bad guys is always a good deal. And putting out sweatshirts that had the BLM logo with The Punisher logo is a, you know, it’s a pretty hefty 'F- you' to people who deserve to have an 'F- you.'"

Maybe the Punisher's skull being a symbol of something decent, or at least, a symbol not to be idolized, is a battle we've lost. Symbols can go that way. But as one of the greatest Marvel Comics creators seems to indicate here, maybe we can trade that skull for a middle finger, and maybe do just as well without it.

Well that has to be one of the most vile suggestions a would-be "journalist" could possibly make. And we wonder how good manners have deteriorated for many years, as less seem to be teaching any valid etiquette today. And somebody who makes a fuss over what he claims are "important issues", yet has none when it comes to the horrors illegal immigration into the USA has resulted in, has no business claiming moral superiority, let alone reading any comics himself. Come to think of it, what if he doesn't read Punisher comics either? Don't be surprised if quite a few leftists stay away from even the modern Punisher comics being turned out by Marvel, and from what I can tell, there's probably less at this point than before anyway. Besides, the real Frank Castle's tales pretty much ended when his last solo book did in 1997. Most annoying, IIRC, is that prior to the Punisher getting his own solo books, writers like Frank Miller and Bill Mantlo expressed dislike for the character in the very pages of the comics they wrote, all without considering it's not Frank's fault for the personality components he was built upon. Remarkably, writers like Steven Grant, Mike Baron, Carl Potts and Chuck Dixon showed more respect when said solos were launched, and the stories they wrote that I read portrayed Frank as anything but an insane man who didn't make distinctions between worser and lesser evils. What Mantlo did should honestly be expunged from continuity altogether, and now that I think of it, he was one of the earliest writers who put questionable politics into some, if not all, of his writings.

I guess if there's something really sad about Conway's passing, it's what he left behind - a political agenda he did not need to build up. Like various other comics writers today, he set a poor example by going out of his way to insult entire segments of fandom who did appreciate the subsequent stories starring the Punisher, which Conway didn't even write himself. So, did he believe successive writers who took even the most perceptive approach to how Frank could be characterized were wrong? Sadly, we'll never know now, and there's no telling how much longer Marvel's going to keep trampling on Frank Castle as a fictional character for the sake of woke brownie points.