The Four Color Media Monitor

At Marvel's panel discussion at the Emerald City Comicon, Joe Quesada droned away boringly with his usual weak excuses for wiping out the Spider-marriage, among other tired details. But what caught my eye was this discussion that came a little later in their meeting, about the Captain America vs conservative movement case:

The next person to approach the microphone introduced himself as a U.S. soldier who had served two tours in Iraq. The crowd and panelists applauded as he looked to Quesada and asked the following: “I’m here and I’ve brought issue #602 of ‘Captain America.’ As a military serviceman, I’ve signed away my freedom of speech. And I kind of rely on those who have it to use it responsibly. What do you think the responsibility of comic books is when it comes to touchy political subjects, and…this is a great issue. Why did you apologize for it?”

The audience clapped again, and Quesada nodded his head, as he was familiar with the “Tea Bag” controversy from the issue. He then asked the soldier if he had read Quesada’s response to the criticism the issue received. Marvel’s EIC explained, “What I said was that we made a mistake in identifying a group as an actual existing group in America…and that’s really the truth. It’s a complete accident what we did. And if we had used an ACORN or a Moveon.org sign, people from the other side of the spectrum would’ve been offended and it would’ve been just as wrong. So, in that sense, I did apologize, because we made a mistake – we screwed up. And that’s the truth.

“But then…the person who made these claims and said we had nefarious motives behind this claimed that we were calling him a racist and all these sorts of things, and that’s where I really drew the line. I said I think you’ve gone way too far. And I didn’t hear him apologize for those claims, because there’s nothing in that book that says that.

“The truth of the matter is we didn’t mean to single out any particular group. But the thing that upset me was that when the media ran with it, it was like ‘EIC of Marvel Apologizes” but they didn’t read the remainder of the apology.”

Ed Brubaker (the writer of the issue in question) added, “I grew up on military bases, and the first place I bought ‘Captain America’ was at the PX in Gitmo. I grew up in the ‘70s reading ‘Captain America’ comics, where Captain America and the Falcon were always talking about race relations – I don't know if we could do that today with the way the media works. For me, I just try to write the characters the way that I perceive them. I just wanted to show that the mood in the country has shifted this way. That's all I wanted to say.”

Brubaker then signed the soldier’s issue of “Captain America” and shook his hand.

I wonder if that soldier was really some kind of a "plant" in the audience who was helping them to bolster their wretched lefty stances? Whoever he is, I'm quite disappointed that he lent his voice to Marvel's moonbattery. And what's this about signing away his free speech? Doesn't look that way to me; he asked them quite a question. Quesada similarly disappoints with how he fudges everything up: it wasn't the tea-bag picket sign that was the problem: it was how the book was implying that conservatives are one-dimensional racists, and nothing more than "angry white folk", and I don't think that back in the day, Falcon ever came down that hard on white society.

Quesada's main problem is that he won't clearly admit his leftism, and that's what drove them to publish this time-wasting turkey. And as we see, he's even turned to attacking/inciting against the unnamed persons whom he claims are making phony accusations against them.

Brubaker can say what he wants, but really, he's writing the characters as he wants them to be: ultra-leftists. Perception isn't exactly the matter here. His defense that he spent time on army bases doesn't impress me either; there are plenty of people who could live on a military facility and still have negative opinions about them.

All in all, I'd say this is why the comicons are dropping in quality, as the company heads attending become more dishonest and alienating.

Labels: bad editors, Captain America, conventions, dreadful writers, marvel comics, politics