The Four Color Media Monitor

Seems DC must be desperate to find a way to boost sales on the rock bottom Heroes in Crisis through publicity stunts, since it's already tanking in sales. So, they apparently leaked an allegedly unfinished draft of the 7th issue's coverscan, all to raise controversy over a villainess:

A leaked, unfinalized cover for DC Comics’ Heroes in Crisis #7 by artist Clay Mann sparked controversy on social media Friday as upset fans used the hashtag #SavePoisonIvy to voice their criticisms of the art.

Gee, how come they didn't ever raise campaigns like that after what Identity Crisis did to Sue Dibny and Jean Loring? Or Wally West and Roy Harper in this current abomination? Why does an established villainess seem to matter more than the goodies do? This is extremely irritating. Do I get the feeling these are the kind of feminists who made heckles over Games of Thrones for its anti-women violence, but didn't give a damn over the violence against men, no matter how graphic it was? Without a doubt, DC must practically be overjoyed to draw the attention of this kind of social justice crowd, because now, they produced a coverscan with darker shadings, supposedly to downplay sexualization of Poison Ivy, though it's really little different in the end. And on that note:

The image in question shows Batman villain Poison Ivy dead and bloody on the floor, a victim of the mystery murderer responsible for the mass superhero killing that incited the Heroes in Crisis story. While some fans are voicing their outrage that Poison Ivy is dead and are using the hashtag to ask creative team Mann and writer Tom King to spare her life, others are more upset with the sexual depiction of Poison Ivy’s dead body.

Thinking about this, I get the feeling that's all they want to see - sexualization around every corner not unlike Fredric Wertham's approach. Mainly because, while the notion of sexualizing a murder/torture victim is tasteless from an artistic viewpoint, I'm sure the same yammering idiots would throw stupid fits even in situations where a heroine is sexualized in a tasteful manner. So this is just more virtue-signaling in a way I find horrendous.

IGN spoke to a DC employee with knowledge of the situation, who said the art in question was an unfinished cover that was never given final editorial approval and was not intended to be made public. How the art leaked is currently being investigated by DC. A new version of that same art drawn by Mann was recolored to change the tone of the image to be more reflective of the contents of the comic and will be used to solicit Heroes in Crisis #7 to retailers in next week’s retailer catalog, although it’s marked as “Not Final Art,” meaning the final cover for that issue may wind up being completely different. You can view both versions of the art below.

Suuuuurrrrre it was just "leaked". As offensive to the intellect as Heroes in Crisis has turned out to be within just the premiere alone, the cover art with the "brighter lighting" makes for a better drawing effort, relatively speaking. I seriously doubt DC's investigating anything at all, and the artists are likely being paid a nice bundle for their stupid little stunt. Presumably to get opponents of censorship to overlook the artistic failure and throw away 4 hard-earned dollars for something worthless. Fascinatingly enough, a tweeter is quoted with the following:

Twitter user @steponmepeggy directed a complaint at King, saying, “depicting a queer, non-monogamous, feminist in a disgusting position like THIS is borderline necrophilia. Ivy is constantly treated like sex doll by many artists/writers anyway, and portraying even her DEATH like this is revolting.”

So...is that the reason for this very unaltruistic reaction on Twitter? Most intriguing indeed. Besides, I get the feeling they'll go a route Joe Quesada advocated early in his career as Marvel's EIC - keeping villains alive as opposed to any heroes they terminated with extreme prejudice, because villains are somehow more valuable than heroes, and allegedly irreplaceable. Some of the comments appear to have since been deleted within a short time, which only enforces my theories this was all a big joke of a controversy, and very one-sided.

Besides, it wouldn't surprise me at all if King were as social justice-supporting as, say, Greg Rucka was when he was dismantling Wonder Woman. He's certainly one of the most divisive writers currently working for DC, and wasting money on his overrated books would be a huge mistake. Personally, I'm wondering why King's work on Omega Men was reprinted in trades, but not the original series from the mid-80s, which grew out of a Green Lantern story by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton, and the late Roger Slifer was the first writer to helm the 1983-86 series. IMO, Lobo, who debuted in that book, was surely far better written then, in contrast to what came a decade after. The way they put such a heavy emphasis on many of these newer, less talented and less respectful writers is ludicrous.

So anyway, let's not let DiDio and company deceive us with this current trick, which doesn't change the fact this miniseries is already one of the most alienating stunts since Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis.

Update: Bounding Into Comics also seems to agree that this was a planned stunt just to create new buzz for a sinking ship. All the more reason to avoid this atrocity.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, violence