Marvel Sets A Dangerous Precedent
Less than a week after the announcement that Chuck Wendig would be developing a Darth Vader miniseries for Marvel’s Star Wars comics, the writer reveals that he’s been removed from the project for firing back at the property’s notoriously toxic fandom.
In a series of tweets (and a succinct blog post), Wendig revealed that he has been removed from issues 4 and 5 of the Shadow of Vader comics, as well as an unannounced Star Wars book on account of “the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring… It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part,” most of which were actually in response to a harassment campaign targeted at him for including LGBT characters three years ago that was buoyed by the negative reaction to The Last Jedi. Wendig also assumes that the decision was likely influenced by a ‘tweetstorm’ about civility following the confirmation of sex offender Brett Kavanaugh to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States earlier this week.
I also started receiving TONS of harassment – harassment that has gone on for years, harassment that has required me to contact local police and warn them of SWATting attempts, harassment across all corners of the Internet, here, FB, Reddit, YouTube.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
When pressed for comment, Marvel simply stated that the company and Wendig would be “parting ways,” which is the corporate version of saying “it was mutual” after a horrific breakup that was in fact not mutual.
In the past two years the notoriously toxic Star Wars fandom has driven Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran off of the internet, the former for being a woman, the latter for being an Asian woman.
This also comes hot off the heels of Marvel’s other high profile instance of caving to people who voted for someone currently detaining children for being immigrants, in which they fired Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn over offensive tweets made over a decade ago, a decision that has been widely regarded as unfair and stupid as best, pissing off Dave Bautista to such a degree that he may actually reveal himself to be the real life Hulk at any moment. (Seriously, imagine that guy being mad at you – I would never be able to live with clean underwear again) Since then, James Gunn has been offered the chance to write and direct Suicide Squad 2 for some reason, which will likely make it a more tolerable and profitable experience than its predecessor.
Marvel is setting a dangerous precedent by consistently giving into these racist, sexist crybabies, ensuring that their employees are bound to silence when it comes to politics of the country they live in or being harassed, and making it clear that they are putting their bottom line first and foremost with no regard to the safety of the humans who work for them, and this bullshit has unfortunately made its way to the gaming industry as well. When companies continue to do this, they send the message to the hate groups they’re giving into that this is okay and normal behavior, which I’m pretty extremely confident that Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, Captain Marvel, Vision, all five Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, Scarlett Witch, Falcon, and even Thanos himself would strongly disapprove of. The only Marvel character who would stand by this shit is Red Skull.
I think it’s important we all keep that in mind when this $4 billion company is asking for our money as they sell our own morals and heroes back to us, while they find themselves incapable of doing the right thing under pressure from literal professional internet bullies.