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.

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.

SDCC panel on Jewish influences in comicdom

San Diego Jewish World writes about a panel at the SDCC discussing the Jewish influences in comics history:

Comic-Con attendees packed a panel room to learn about the often-overlooked role that Jewish creators have played in shaping the comic book industry.

Mark S. Zaid, Esq., an Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide advisor, comic book historian, author, and creator of GI’s Rabbi); Danny Fingeroth, former Marvel editor and writer, author of Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero; and Dr. Andrew Fogel, historian of popular culture and author of Superman’s Jaw presented an engaging PowerPoint lecture titled “The Jewish Experience in Comics: Characters and Creators.”

The presentation explored how the Jewish identities and experiences of many of comics’ most influential creators shaped the stories they told and the heroes they created. The panel traced the origins of iconic characters such as Superman, the Thing, and Magneto, examined the personal histories of Golden and Silver Age comic book creators, and discussed whether Jewish cultural identity was intentionally woven into their work.

It's worth wondering if modern audiences appreciate all this in an era where Islamic antisemitism sadly rose after October 7, 2023. Similarly, do modern film audiences even appreciate the Jewish role in building Hollywood? The article unfortunately also brings up an ideologue who's dampened the impact of his notable GN:

The speakers also addressed how publishers approached sensitive subjects such as the Holocaust and examined the lasting influence of Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Will Eisner’s groundbreaking graphic novels on Jewish storytelling in comics.

While Eisner's writings hold up well, Spiegelman's recent, repellent politics can have the effect of damaging whatever impact he expected Maus to have for years to come. That said, who knows if anybody at these convention panels appreciates that Eisner's last GN, The Plot, also did research on Islamic antisemitism?

One of the panel’s most fascinating discussions centered on Nazi Germany’s reaction to Superman. Fogel displayed a German Secret Service newspaper article attacking Superman’s Jewish creators. Germany eventually banned Superman, portraying him as a symbol of capitalist propaganda designed to brainwash American youth. The article specifically criticized Jerry Siegel’s Jewish identity, referenced his circumcision, accused him of using Yiddish rather than German, and labeled him an Untermensch (subhuman). The publication argued that Superman was not the true Übermensch (superman), claiming he violated the laws of science by defying gravity, lacked proper masculinity because of his circus-like costume, and represented irrationality rather than Aryan ideals.

It's interesting they bring up this specific history, because "Nazi" was an acronym for "National Socialists". Do the panelists know that, and did they specify? And what's their own take on capitalism in an era where it's been all but shunned? It's also interesting the Nazi propaganda they cited considers science fiction and fantasy storytelling anathema to their beliefs, indicating they also despised entertainment written for positive reasons.

At the end of the article:

This was one of the most informative and thought-provoking panels I attended at Comic-Con. My husband joined me for the presentation, and despite attending Comic-Con for nearly 20 years, he walked away having learned numerous new historical connections between Judaism and comic books. It was an eye-opening experience that offered a deeper appreciation for the people and stories behind some of the world’s most recognizable superheroes.

Unfortunately, I have a sad feeling that whatever objectivity the panel had ground to a screeching halt when it came to modern issues, and wouldn't be shocked if the panelists would not say even a word about Islamic antisemitism, and whether it should be subject of any kind of comics storytelling. That's why these panels aren't as informative as they could be, yet nobody will point that out.

Jack Kirby gets a street named after him

Much like Stan Lee received a street named in his memory a few years ago, JNS reports the late Jack Kirby has now received a street named after him, part of a project the law firm agent Roy Schwartz and the American Jewish Historical Society worked on getting approval for:

It is no small thing to get a street in Manhattan named after you, but the creator of such timeless superheroes as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, the Hulk and Iron Man received that honor on Monday, when the Lower East Side block where he was born was named “Jack Kirby Way.” [...]

“Widely recognized as the most prolific and arguably most important creator in the history of the comic book medium, Jack Kirby is also one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century,” according to a new exhibit on his life and work at Manhattan’s American Jewish Historical Society.

The exhibition, “The Jack Kirby Way: How a boy from the Lower East Side became the King of Comics,” is co-produced by the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. It will be on view through Nov. 30.

One of the artifacts on display in the show is the original “Captain America” comic books, issues 1 through 10. Joe Simon, who co-created the character and many more with Kirby, owned the issues on display.

The iconic first issue of “Captain America,” published in March 1941, shows the superhero punching Hitler in the face, before the United States entered the war. Many Americans had not yet come to support the idea that the Nazis needed to be vanquished.

Based on this report from Breitbart from last year, some could reasonably argue the same sadly holds true for today when it comes to the Islamic Iranian regime, in example. If Kirby and Joe Simon were alive today and created Cap in modern times, the sad but possible reality is that the Star Spangled Avenger wouldn't get the same kind of positive regard seen in the Golden Age any more than any other Marvel/DC heroes created since.

Its publication led to death threats to both men by the German-American Bund, Roy Schwartz, a board member of AJHS and the person who drove the effort to get the street co-named in Kirby’s honor, told JNS.

The police, when contacted by Kirby and Simon, refused to do anything to help, according to Schwartz.

Then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia contacted the comic book artists and promised them personally that they would be kept safe. LaGuardia’s mother, Irene Luzzatto-Coen, was a Sephardic Jew.

And on this, it's vital to note that even today, that's not always the case in NYC, where this stuff has become a particularly sad staple ever since Zohran Mamdani was elected the 1st Muslim mayor in the Big Apple, and what he's been doing now would be hurtful to Kirby. Do the organizers of the campaign to have Jack Kirby's birthplace named after him realize that, if they don't have any concerns over what came about even before October 7, 2023 and Mamdani's election, then this whole campaign's otherwise meaningless?

As a little boy growing up in Tel Aviv, Schwartz was obsessed with comics, including Kirby’s, he told JNS.

American relatives would mail him new releases, and he learned English by reading them.

Now employed by day as “a mild-mannered chief marketing agency for a large law firm,” as he told JNS, he is the author of “Was Superman Circumcised?” and other books and essays exploring Jewish aspects of comic book history.

Schwartz was the driving force behind the labyrinthine bureaucratic process by which city agencies approved a co-named New York City street.

“There was enough red tape to circle Galactus several times,” Schwartz told JNS.

Captain America was and remains his favorite superhero, Schwartz told JNS, a few feet away from the newly-renamed street sign.

But predictably, they won't get into how, less than a decade after Kirby's passing, Marvel under Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas spared no expense taking apart much of what made Cap work in the first place, lacing the series published under the Knights imprint with anti-American propaganda, something that's continued until even recently. Equally bad is how they repeatedly tried to "replace" Steve Rogers with PC tokens. So what good does it do for Schwartz to just make the statement without bringing up how sad it is that Cap, along with tons of other Marvel/DC properties, major and minor, were effectively destroyed for the sake of woke leftist propaganda? Why, what if Mamdani had anything to do with the red tape encountered? In that case, Schwartz would be wallowing in the exact cowardice that all but victimized Kirby in his time by not showing the courage to discuss anything.

Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, is a long-time, major Kirby fan.

“I love all of his work. It continues to blow me away, and he was so prolific,” he told JNS. “He is so Jewish, so if you take pride in the accomplishment of fellow Jews, then he’s someone you should know about.”

But does this guy appreciate where Marvel/DC went with Kirby's creations post-2000, including the New Gods? I seem to recall Jim Starlin wrote a miniseries called The Death of the New Gods 2 decades ago, and that wasn't exactly what Kirby got into the business to do. Such a story was a slap in the face to his legacy, just as much as what became of Cap, because if memory serves, Big Barda was meant as a tribute to Kirby's wife. I recently bought an archive of Kirby's work on the New Gods from the early 70s, and that's the kind of work that counts. I will not waste time and money on the post-2000 stories that did a terrible disservice to Kirby's efforts. Also, look who turned up as guests at the event:

Less elaborately dressed but honored with seats on the dais were Schwartz, Tom Brevoort, executive editor and senior vice president of publishing at Marvel Comics; Marvel artist and writer Jim Steranko; and former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz.

While Steranko's a decent visitor, that a leftist like Brevoort, who actively defended Marvel's deconstruction of Kirby and Lee's work, would attend is disgraceful and embarrassing. Even Levitz, who fulfilled quite a bit of the same when he was a leading executive at DC (and was an apologist for Planned Parenthood), isn't exactly somebody I'd consider welcome there. Yes, I do recall he was willing to sign a petition in defense of victims of October 7, 2023, but there's still no telling if he's fully reevaluated his past mistakes, and so far, he's never publicly said so. Worse, both Marvel and DC continue to employ people throughly unsuited for the jobs, and that certainly doesn't reflect well on Brevoort, considering he still works for Marvel.

Kirby certainly is worthy of a street named after him. But not all the people involved are worthy of backing his legacy.

Video game producer donates classic back issues to the Smithsonian

I previously wrote about what I thought was a questionable article by one of the founders of Riot Games, producer of League of Legends. Now, it looks like there is something good he's done that should serve as vital example in this day and age, as the Smithsonian magazine's announced Brandon Beck donated some classic back issues to the museum's archives:

Before Superman and Captain America became global symbols of heroism, joined cinematic universes and inspired Halloween costumes, they were just ink on cheap newsprint—bold, bright and bursting with possibility. Now, the comic book debuts of two of the world’s most iconic superheroes have found a permanent home at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

In an extraordinary acquisition, gifted by Brandon Beck, co-founder of the video game developer Riot Games, the museum has added Action Comics No. 1 and Captain America Comics No. 1 to its collection. These comic books were the public’s introduction to characters whose influence today spans movies, television, toys and the imaginations of several generations.

This is what collectors doing it for the sake of the speculator market should really be doing: donating those brilliant treasures to museums, and thankfully, here we're seeing a far better example set. Predictably, however, this article can't evade certain political biases:

Superman first leapt onto the page in 1938’s Action Comics No. 1, widely considered the beginning of the superhero genre. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, Superman—a caped defender of humanity who came to Earth from the doomed planet Krypton—embodied Depression-era yearnings for justice. Nearly 90 years of storytelling were launched from that first issue.

Captain America arrived in December 1940, with the issue dated March 1941, as global conflict intensified. Created by writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, the star-spangled super soldier debuted with an unforgettable image: delivering a crushing right hook to Adolf Hitler’s jaw, before the United States officially entered World War II in December 1941. The cover was more than sensational art—it was a bold political statement. When a scrawny Brooklyn volunteer named Steve Rogers was transformed by science into a symbol of national resolve, comic books became a vehicle for wartime morale and democratic ideals.

In an era where such values as democracy and morale are being shredded, that's certainly saying something, isn't it? Interesting how they argue that Cap's Golden Age debut was a political statement, but today, when somebody wants to take on issues like Islamic terrorism, suddenly it's inappropriate, and not bold at all. And should it really be described as a political statement? Maybe that's running the gauntlet of hijacking somebody else's creation for their own propaganda goals, and not considering that issues like totalitarianism is a serious topic that transcends mere politics? As though they couldn't give more suggestions their own claim is political, a more recent form of propaganda comes up:

“We use objects from popular culture to reflect and learn about the past, and the comics provide incredible insight into the era from which they come, including the relationships between the books’ Jewish American creators and the beginning of the World War II era, fascination with technological and scientific advancements, and representations of sacrifice and heroism during challenging times,” says Jentsch.

Taken together, the comics reflect societal anxieties and aspirations alike—whether in Superman’s immigrant origins or in Captain America’s wartime ethos. “The pivotal creators of these comics—Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby—were all first-generation Jewish Americans, anxious to make their marks in a country that had welcomed their parents,” says Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics from 2002 to 2009 and writer of many comics, including Superman, via email. “As someone who had the pleasure of knowing them all, I can confidently say that this recognition of their work in the most significant comic book acquisition in decades, would have been a great affirmation of the groundbreaking genre that they created.”

Another article where they fall back on the angering cliche of describing the Man of Steel as an "immigrant" instead of an otherworldly refugee from a destroyed planet. Based on that, it's hard to believe the Smithsonian's really serious about respecting the goals of the Golden Age creators, let alone their ethnic heritage and backgrounds. Considering how disinterested leftist ideologues like the Smithsonian's are in learning and reflecting on the past, what's the use of their acquiring the classic oldies when they may not do justice for their history? And even now, Levitz may not be fully qualified to speak in their name, considering he sold out to Islamic propagandists nearly 2 decades ago, and even indicated he thought abortion was okay years later. As a result, Levitz for one isn't offering the best affirmation of the acquisition.

The timing is apt. In recent decades, superhero narratives have dominated box office returns and streaming platforms, generating expansive programming and reshaping Hollywood economics. Yet the origins of these billion-dollar franchises remain humble: Stapled pages sold for a dime at neighborhood newsstands. Today some of those rare pages are among the most valuable printed materials in existence. Four years ago, Captain America’s first adventure sold for more than $3 million at auction. Last year, a copy of Superman No. 1 was auctioned for more than $9 million. In January, a copy of Action Comics No. 1 sold privately for $15 million.

And it doesn't bother them that outside the donation of Beck's back issues to their archives, there's speculators out there who've sold these back issues round and round, yet never, not once, donated to museums, let alone bought themselves wall paintings of the same characters? What isn't discussed by extension is whether that suggests the speculators are actually ashamed of the products, their desire to own them notwithstanding.

That 2 of the most famous superheroes' premiere issues have been acquired by a museum is a positive example in itself, and Beck deserves credit for setting a good one. But beyond that, there's no telling if an institution that's been pretty left-leaning will do enough to convince they really support the messages Superman and Cap were built upon back in the day, or that they don't wish to exploit the material for the sake of leftist propaganda, as their description of Superman suggests. Do they even know Simon was conservative? Will they ever even put Simon's illustration of Cap smashing Osama bin Laden on display in their future exhibitions? If not, then this purchase amounts to little, and won't be respecting the visions of the original creators.

Jack Kirbys visions were allegedly an inspiration for Riot Games' League of Legends characters

A guest writer at the Washington Post, who co-created League of Legends and co-founded its studio, Riot Games, brought up the history of the late, great Jack Kirby, now on exhibit at the Smithsonian, apparently for telling everybody how his work inspired their video game creations, and making a case against artificial intelligence:

The man behind this image is Jack Kirby, a Jewish comic artist who emerged from New York’s Lower East Side in the 1930s to become one of America’s most prolific and imaginative creators.

Since Kirby died in 1994, the worlds he envisioned have continued to grow in popularity, accounting for many of the biggest box-office hits in the 21st century. Kirby pioneered the visual language of modern superheroes — from Captain America to the Incredible Hulk to Black Panther — and revolutionized world-building itself. Today, any creator designing characters or imagining universes is likely building in part on Kirby’s vision.

There's something rather hypocritical for a newspaper that's hostile to Israel, the land of Kirby's ancestry, to be bringing up his ethnic background if they don't genuinely respect it. Chances are they don't have respect for Iranian dissidents either. That aside, it's supremely silly how the writer claims Kirby's worlds have skyrocketed in popularity when sales today make clear it's anything but that, and the Eternals film was a box office dud. Based on this, I hesitate to think what could become if the New Gods and even the Demon, some of Kirby's creations for DC, were adapted to live action.

Yet, unlike George Lucas, Walt Disney or even Stan Lee (his longtime collaborator at Marvel), Kirby’s name remained largely unknown outside comic fandom. Few among the tens of millions who watched “Deadpool & Wolverine” in 2024 knew that the X-Men universe was co-conceived decades earlier by this young artist.

Kirby may be finally getting his due.

“Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity,” the first major exhibition of his work, just wrapped up its run at Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural Center. A documentary, “Kirbyvision,” is underway. New York City last summer named a Lower East Side street corner after its native son, and several of his comics have joined the permanent collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

His life story feels especially instructive now. As creative fields examine the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence, Kirby’s art exemplifies the unmatched power of human imagination.

That's the guy's reason for bringing him up? Because if he's not interested in researching and telling everybody how Marvel under Joe Quesada destroyed all of Captain America's potential beginning in 2002, along with what made other creations of Kirby's work, then what good does it do to make points about how AI is no substitute for human-illustrated art? I'm sorry, but this is all cheap stuff, that once again misses a chance to inform everyone what went wrong in the past quarter century.

At Riot Games, we originally built video games to deliver bombastic fantasies that embody specific archetypes or play experiences. Over time, we faced the challenge of retroactively weaving these diverse creations into a single, coherent world, worthy of storytelling.

It’s no small task to make a sad mummy, a star-forging dragon and a pyromantic schoolgirl feel as though they belong in the same universe. Comics have long solved a similar puzzle, uniting a Norse god, a billionaire inventor and even a talking raccoon and sentient tree into a believable ensemble. In that sense, our process drew from Kirby’s legacy: build boldly, then discover the connective tissue, the humanity and purpose that binds characters into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Kirby and his collaborators pushed us to treat narrative not as an accessory but as a responsibility, convincing us that the rudimentary characters in our early game could inhabit a universe rich enough to connect people across cultures and generations while asking timeless human questions.

Oh, another discussion of responsibility, without harkening back to where none was on display in the early 2000s, all shortly after September 11, 2001, when Quesada - and Bill Jemas - not only put Captain America in the Marvel Knights imprint, they even put him in a Blame America scenario. That was unacceptable, went against what Kirby stood for, and now, a quarter century later, all some technologist wants to talk about is how Kirby served as inspiration for video game designs. Sure, it can be great to draw inspiration from Kirby's visions, but if they really respect him, they wouldn't ignore just how bad use of Kirby's creations back in the comics became after the turn of the century until now. IIRC, the Knights imprint wasn't as monumentally successful as some apologists might make it out to be, recalling Cap's run under that imprint lasted possibly less than 2 years, and then the imprint label was dropped, but the damage had been done, and now it's gotten to the point where race-swapping propaganda has all but forced Steve Rogers out of the role. And that story where Cap was written saying "hail Hydra" is another repulsive moment in terrible comics history now soiling Kirby's creation.

Creative people are told AI will replace them. But AI has no lived experience. It can mimic and remix the raw material of human creativity, drawing on patterns it did not originate. That’s why its work, however dazzling, reflects the archive it was trained on rather than a life it has lived. It cannot create from personal memory, conviction or emotional truth, the forces that Kirby transformed into art. In the AI age, his legacy reminds us that while technology may assist the creative process, the most enduring universes are born not of algorithms alone but of human imagination, alive with the sparks that only come when people create together.

Yes, but this doesn't excuse how abysmal artistic merit's become in over 2 decades, and there's decidedly no excuses for a computer game producer obscuring that either. And if human imagination's going to be corrupted, can you expect AI to improve upon that?

I also looked at the reader comments, and for example, we have:

It’s hard to read any article about Jack Kirby that doesn’t reference how ill-treated and under-appreciated he was. He was constantly shuffling from company to company, most of which exploited his talent and failed to enable him fully. What we got was spectacular, but there was so much more that just wasn’t supported.

Yet none of that is as troubling as how Marvel took his and Joe Simon's creation, Capt. America, and exploited Steve Rogers for the sake of apologia for Islamic terrorism and Blame America propaganda. Speaking of Simon, he later reportedly drew a picture of Cap socking Osama bin Laden, and that's all buried today, 15 years after his own passing. Why, even Simon's hardly known outside comic circles by today's standards. Maybe even Will Eisner's in the same situation. Yet none of that matters to the Riot Games manager? For shame.

Another comment made a good point, but simultaneously risked contradicting it:

I watched a video essay recently talking about how Japanese Manga has surpassed American comics in most ways, because American comics are mostly locked in and unchanging. Spiderman can go on new adventures, his villains can come and go or rotate, but his story can never end. Popular characters can be killed off, but will be brought back, reducing any impact on the readers.

It had some good points, even if it ignored that popular and long running Manga titles do the same things at times, but they do tend to be the vision of the creator and last only as long as they are willing to work on them.

One of the strengths of American comics, I think, is that a new writer/artist can take an existing character and re-imagine them. The X-Men weren't as popular as they would become until Chris Claremont's epic run with them, for example.

Kirby is a titan and probably more impactful than Stan was.

Just what definition of "reimagining" would that be? Because there's only so many politicized "reimaginings" going on today at the expense of classic creations, whether it's race/sex-swapping or forcing LGBT and Islamic propaganda down the readers' throats, and the aforementioned Iceman stands out as a X-Men cast member who was a big victim of such propaganda. As for the point that manga can also emphasize resurrections, a point that should be made is that the problem with mainstream USA comics either killing off characters or resurrecting them is that they're not doing it organically or altruistically, but for the sake of publicity, and even worse is when a character who's on the good side is forcibly turned into a monster, as seen with 2 women in both Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembled, Jean Loring and Scarlet Witch. Must I point out the latter is a Kirby creation? One more reason why the alarmingly forced approach to her in WandaVision and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is sickening. So we have all these situations that cropped up since the 90s where heroic characters are killed/villified in contempt of the original visions, while only villains are allowed to be resurrected, or worse, somehow become heroes instead. That may not be so common now, but the damaging impact of such tactics is still proving hard to shake off.

All that aside, this does make a vital point that, if mangakas can write about resurrections, then it's not inherently wrong for USA comics to do the same, provided the goodies and their civilian co-stars are allowed the same privileges as villains could disturbingly get.

Here's one more reader comment:

I wrote about how Hitler did not start the hate against you know how but this is 2,000 years old but the media like WAPO want to pretend that Hitler started all this giving cover to religion to continue to preach their hate & WAPO censored it - let's see if this revised version makes it in

I assume this alludes to Islamic antisemitism, and it's already old news neither Marvel nor DC want to seriously tackle the issue, recalling how the former even went so far as to preach for the sake of the Religion of Peace with a race-swapped Ms. Marvel who's a Muslim, and the latter did the same with a Muslim Green Lantern, in a storyline that was also built on making "infidels" look bad. And all this at the expense of the Jewish community that created the comics now exploited for the sake of woke propaganda. Well if the Wash. Post censored any statement on that, go figure, they're still as repellent in their leftist politics as before.

With that told, much as I'd like to credit some video game producers for drawing inspiration from famous artists, their failure to defend classic creations from abuse spoils everything. Nor do they make a case for artistic merit, and why it's bad to resort to publicity stunts as Marvel/DC have been doing for quite some time. If how modern comics are written/illustrated doesn't matter, it's pointless to claim they're fans of Kirby, one of the best artists who brought about what they claim to be inspired by.

2 more crossovers coming from Marvel this year

Marvel simply refuses to cease with the endless flood of company wide crossovers, and IGN in turn refuses to take any kind of objective view of how negatively this affects their now sorely lacking creativity:

Marvel Comics took to the Comics Pro retailer convention to shine a spotlight on two of its biggest 2026 storylines, Avengers: Armageddon and Queen in Black. Both of these crossover events will help to define the ongoing direction of the Marvel Universe in the latter half of 2026.

First up, Avengers: Armageddon is a new limited series from Captain America writer Chip Zdarsky and artists Frank Alpizar and Delio Diaz. Aramageddon is being compared to 2004's Avengers: Disassembled in terms of being a major watershed moment for the Avengers franchise that will completely transform Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Armageddon builds on the fallout of One World Under Doom and ongoing story threads in Captain America and Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon. As the world continues to reel from Doctor Doom's brief reign, Red Hulk decides to claim the kingdom of Latveria for himself. That sparks a global conflict that draws in the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Wolverine.

...Meanwhile, Queen in Black is an event spinning out of the pages of Al Ewing's Venom series. [...]

Yup, a crossover based on the writings of one of the wokest writers of the past decade. And two crossovers is simply 2 too many. That this is being compared to one of the worst productions of Brian Bendis - one that degraded the Scarlet Witch - is telling. No matter how this turns out, it's not worth wasting money upon, and its being developed as a crossover at this point is a most serious problem, because of how as time went by, crossovers served to destroy creative autonomy and stand-alone storytelling. This is one of the main reasons Marvel and DC will never recover from the damage crossovers have resulted in long term, so long as they continue to stick with them so casually.

Some coverage of a Cleveland specialty store that's out of touch with the real picture

The Land did some coverage of a comics store in the Cleveland area, and the way they describe all this is sadly not looking at the modern picture of where mainstream comicdom sunk down to:

Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop feels less like a retail space and more like a place where stories are handed down. Some people come in looking for something specific, some people come in just to browse, but everyone leaves with something. A kid walks around looking at a Spider-Man book, a longtime customer flips through new releases on a table in the center of the store, each one of them there for the same reason. They’re a part of a community.

This is part of why comic books endure. They survive because we share stories with each other. It is a part of how we got to where we are culturally. Comic book heroes are America’s mythology. Much like England has its Arthurian myths and Greece has its Hercules, we have Superman, and places like Carol & John’s are the reason why our heroes have endured for generations.

But do we have these creations appearing in modern stories that are readable anymore? Sadly, quality's gone down so badly, with Superman's downfall in story merit just the beginning. Yes, comics as a medium can survive in some form or other, but what about IPs owned by conglomerates? Why doesn't that matter?

For Dudas, the story stretches back even further, to a great-grandfather who used comic books as a bridge into a new country.

“My great-grandfather was a Polish immigrant,” he said. “He could speak English, but he couldn’t read or write it. So he would learn from the context by reading comic books.”

When his great-grandfather died, the comics were left to the kid who cared. Dudas was 6 or 7 years old and studied them closely. By the time he was 12, he was working in a comic shop. Then, later, he and his mother opened their own.

“Between my great-grandfather and my daughters, it’s five generations of comic books in the city of Cleveland,” Dudas said. “I could talk to my great-grandfather about Superman, and I could talk to my daughter about Superman.” It’s a bridge that ties them.

That inherited understanding is what turns stories into cultural touchstones. Spider-Man and Captain America aren’t just characters. They’re mirrors. These stories persist because their morality transcends eras and they answer the same questions for every generation. Questions about responsibility, sacrifice and how tough it can be to be a righteous person when it is so easy to give in and quit.

That, alas, is what modern leftists writers did, in a way. This part completely obscures the disaster Cap's stories became in 2002, after the regular series was cancelled and a Marvel Knights series replaced it, which turned out to be apologia for Islamic terrorism. It was so stunningly vile, and quickly degenerated into even more aimless propaganda that seemed more about blaming America than actually solving problems like barbarism in modernity. IIRC, that series was easily the shortest lived of the Knights imprint, being jettisoned after 2 years, but the damage that began there was sadly never fixed, and successive editors/writers/artists never tried to avoid the kind of pettiness that first brought down Cap as an icon, seeing how later, there'd be stories where Steve Rogers was repeatedly replaced by other characters, some of whom were diversity-pandering tokens, and the worst moment was when Cap was made to say "hail Hydra". And Joe Quesada never apologized for what he enabled.

I think it's impressive the store owner's great-grandfather learned reading from comics, but the way this article airbrushes the bigger picture concerning the moral collapse of mainstream comicdom is very appalling.

I asked John whether comics had always shaped who he was, or if it was something that he discovered about himself later in life.

“I’m a better man for it,” he said. “My morality was developed around it.”

But was that decades ago? Because not many people seem to have grown attached to the creations since, and morality isn't developed based on the newer stories post-2000, based on the defeatist politics and ideologies they fell victim to since.

On Free Comic Book Day, thousands of people pass through the doors, and tens of thousands of comics are given away. The store provides free vendor space for local artists, hosts cosplay groups, and runs charity events that have helped generate more than 200,000 meals for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Free Comic Book Day is scheduled for May 2 this year.

On a Saturday, standing in the middle of the shop, that story becomes easy to read. Comic books endure because we need heroes. Not perfect ones, but flawed ones who try the way we try. We pass these stories down because they help us explain who we are and who we want to be.

“I believe in the hobby,” Dudas said. “I believe this hobby makes you a better person.”

I'm afraid the hobby alone doesn't do that. It depends on if you understand any of the messages clearly, show the guts to tackle challenging issues, which wasn't what the Knights volume of Cap did, seeing how it followed a leftist Blame-America narrative. Why, even reading literature alone doesn't make one a better person, if said literature happens to be built on negativity. It's a shame we seem to have here folks too full of themselves to show the courage to admit that, like Hollywood movie production, even comicdom's fallen victim to political correctness that won't be fixed by painting a superficial picture of the hobby that doesn't acknowledge what's gone wrong over the years. Also, have they considered what a disturbing emphasis on villainy turned up in the past 2 decades, sometimes at the heroes' expense? That kind of approach is also what brought down Cap, and makes it hard to believe Marvel's staff at the time respected heroism. Comicdom may continue to survive, but if store owners aren't willing to raise all the relevant issues, all because they may worry publishers won't do business with them, then they've failed again to solve anything.

"Comics accurate" costumes don't guarantee a movie will be successful

Or that they're based on the traditional designs of decades past. The Inquirer wrote about the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday film, which appears to add the X-Men to the Marvel film machine:

When I read comic books, I prefer issues drawn and written by proven artists with an excellent track record. I approach the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with the same level of scrutiny. Let’s be honest: after some recent experimental phases, we’ve all been longing for that “all-time great story” feeling to return. On January 6, 2026, Marvel Studios didn’t just release a trailer; they delivered a seismic shift with the third teaser for ‘Avengers: Doomsday.’ This teaser alone blows out of the water every other teaser that came before it. This hits hard!

Once I saw this specific teaser, I felt goosebumps because I knew when things were about to change for the better. And if only they had done this long ago, but who are we to bring that point up or even complain? What matters is that finally, and I will be using that adverb a few more times throughout my newest pop culture piece because it is about damn time, they showcase what a true (Jim Lee era) X-Man looks like (the classic blue and yellow costume) and embrace their comic book origins from that specific timeline (early ’90s) in Marvel Comics. It is a sight to behold no matter how fleeting it was for me to see it.

If the earlier teasers featuring the returns of Chris Evans as “Captain America” and Chris Hemsworth as “Thor” were just the appetizers, this X-Men-centric reveal is the main course we’ve been craving since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019. Finally, they are pulling the trigger, incorporating the best of the X-Men into the fold, and are giving what the longtime fans have been clamoring for, which is to have the X-Men as part of the MCU, because, let us all be honest here with the situation, to have no mutants in the MCU is as dumb as a box of rocks. It is silly, illogical, and senseless because the X-Men are one of the biggest reasons why Marvel Comics became the titans they are in the comic book industry, and why adapting comic book characters from Marvel Comics to the big screen became a thing in the first place.

Umm, even Spider-Man is one of the reasons why Marvel once became a titan...but the columnist is oblivious to how they fell since the turn of the century, dragging their creations into increasingly pointless directions that only served as political statements with no entertainment value involved. He's also oblivious to how Lee watered down his art style in the past decade for the sake of woke points. And the part about the blue and yellow outfits is confusing, because wasn't that the original outfits the first 5 X-Men had in the Silver Age? Within a few years, the artists were drawing them distinctive outfits instead, so I'm not sure what the columnist is lecturing us about here.

And I for one am not clamoring for the X-Men to be incorporated into the Marvel movieverse proper after all the wokeness that ensued in the past several years. Unfortunately, they're awfully late, and the X-Men's addition alone does not a talented movie make. Whether the costumes are verbatim to what was seen in comics in any era is moot. And, how isn't it silly and illogical to force political correctness upon the films that only proves divisive, as the 4th Thor movie did?

Some would-be entertainment writers sure know how to obscure the crucial issues of merit. This puff piece from the Inquirer is no different.

Captain America would only have children if writers wished, and created them plausibly

A writer at ComicBook asks whether Steve Rogers has children, as though he were real:

Captain America is one of the older superheroes in Marvel Comics, both in his time in comics and his actual age. Making his debut in the pre-Marvel comic Captain America Comics #1 in 1940, Cap was a World War II hero, fighting to take down Nazis and keep America free. After he stopped the Red Skull in WWII, he ended up crashing into icy waters, where he was frozen in a block of ice and left in suspended animation until he was found and revived in the age of heroes, where he joined the Avengers. Because he has been around for so long, and he has dated more than his fair share of women, it seems like he might have some kids in Marvel Comics.

Oh for heaven's sake. That depends whether and if writers so decide to establish something, and while there may not have been sons and daughters created for Steve up to the turn of the century, there was, as the article notes, an issue of What If? where such an idea was explored. But because these are not real people we're discussing here, that's why, if and however a fictional character has children established in-story, it's up to the assigned writers and editors to think up a story where this could take place.

And as of now, Marvel/DC have no writers or editors with the talent needed to make such a fictional setup work. Why, J. Michael Straczynski's Sins Past storyline in Spider-Man was but an example of how such ideas could turn into utter disaster. So there's really no point wondering whether a fictional character could have children, nor is it worth making suggestions for the publishers when they have no respect for the classic characters they're building a story around. One of the other stories cited in the puff piece about Cap is one referencing the repellent Hail Hydra event, and any story building on that is not making the introduction of a son for Steve Rogers plausible or tasteful at all.

More about the back issues on the speculator market

The UK Times wrote more about the topic of the speculator market, and the old back issues that're held hostage to the cyclical sales mindset. And in the following about Spider-Man, they say:

More than 60 years on, the world is still marvelling – not just at Spider-Man’s awesome might but at his impressive market value. In 2021 a copy of the same magazine sold in the US for $3.6 million (£2.7 million). It cost 12 cents when it was bought in some suburban drugstore 62 years ago. At the time, that was the highest price paid for a comic book, but since then the record has been smashed on several occasions – a solid indication of the rising global market in collectable comics. Last year, a copy of Action Comics from June 1938, which introduced the Superman character to the world, sold for $6 million at auction. And just this week, a copy of the first comic dedicated entirely to Superman, dating to 1939, astonished the collectibles market when it went for $9.12 million.

I'm afraid it's just at the market value, considering what a joke sales of monthly pamphlets have become. Does anyone truly marvel at how Joe Quesada destroyed the Spider-marriage? And the damage to Spidey didn't stop there. How can anybody consider it a celebration when artistic value's been massively damaged and left unrepaired? Also note how none of these press sources today ever delve into sad moments like those from the past 2 decades, nor anything else that brought down comicdom, and you see how the inflicted damage will continue apace.

Superman’s debut belongs to what collectors and dealers call the golden age of comic books – the pre-war or wartime era when other patriotic, all-American characters such as Wonder Woman and Captain America arrived on the scene and spent their early years fighting Nazi stormtroopers and the Imperial Japanese Army. Spider-Man is a product of the so-called silver age of the 1950s and 1960s, when new-minted superheroes were allowed to be more flawed and personally conflicted, and when they deployed their powers primarily as crimefighters. Batman, though he first appeared before the Second World War, found his métier in the 1950s when he became a kind of masked special constable, constantly at the beck and call of the Gotham City Police Department.

Is that a joke? "Allowed"? Back then, while there were problems with censorship, which tragically made a comeback in the past decade, personality flaws weren't something anybody in the business knowingly objected to. That was something that was up to the writers/artists to decide if they wanted to emphasize. During the Golden Age, most stories were at least half the length of what followed during the 50s/60s, and Action Comics, in example, was more an anthology of several entries, some lasting longer than others, like Superman's. And in those early years, it's not like anybody was immediately interested in emphasizing what became more common in the Silver Age. At that time, working on the kind of publication deadlines that they did, the primary objective was entertainment value, and they succeeded well with that. They make it sound, again, like comics characters are real people instead of fictional figures, and as I've said before, I find that galling. I think that part about Batman being an unofficial "employee" of the GCPD is also exaggerated, because there were times when he'd be seen investigating crimes without their immediate request back in the day too.

It is likely that prices for silver-age comics have been boosted in part by the popularity of the Marvel movie franchises, according to Jamie George, Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s specialist in collectable comics, trading cards and video games. “It’s difficult to point to a causal link, but there are definitely people who buy comics speculating that when a movie hits, that comic’s going to go up in value,” he says. “The Iron Man movies were great, so were The Avengers, and prices for those books seem to have risen. When an Eternals movie was first rumoured to be coming out, I saw many collectors buying issue one of the comic book – from July 1976 – because they figured they would be able to sell it at a profit.”

Obviously, the movies had some influence on encouraging speculators. But the alleged value went down once the movies' popularity subsided. And it wouldn't be surprising any value the Eternals back issue were assumed to have didn't work out well following the film's failure. Most annoying about this otherwise fluff-coated item is what got one of the interviewees to try reading:

Many comic enthusiasts are men who bought and read the comics as teenagers. “Jonathan Ross is one of the biggest collectors in the UK,” Pace says, adding that Nicolas Cage and Eminem own collections in the US. As middle-aged men, all three are the core demographic. The urge to collect comics is at least partly a nostalgic form of escapism. But Pace also stresses the visual impact of the best comics. “The first book I ever picked up was Batman, The Killing Joke, which was published in 1988,” he says. “I never read as a kid, couldn’t stand it, but that comic had an iconic cover depicting the Joker with a camera held to his face. I just loved the artwork, so read the comic constantly.”

Once again, a very sad situation where somebody was hooked on the medium not just because it was a Batman book, but also because one of the most notorious supervillains in comicdom was on the cover. Of course, if it had been a Superman comic with Lex Luthor emphasized, that too could be dismaying. Same with supervillainesses like Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, and there are Marvel supervillains where a similar point could be made that villain worship is troubling. That the interviewee would imply a comic like the Killing Joke is literally the "best" is ludicrous at worst, ditto that the reader apparently only got into the hobby because of something like the Joker, and what the comic in question emphasized. It's not difficult to guess he never cared for Stan Lee's creations at Marvel, if at all, unless maybe Bullseye in Daredevil is what he considered delightful. Amazingly, the article does reference a certain issue from the 50s, though in a context that ignores the present, and says:

Still others concentrate on what are known as pre-code comic books. In 1954 a psychologist named Fredric Wertham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent in which he argued that comic books were causing a storm of juvenile delinquency. The criticisms in the book spooked some comic publishers who, to reassure advertisers, agreed to adhere to a code of conduct. The code stated, among other things, that “good shall triumph over evil and the criminal shall be punished for his misdeeds” – hence all the depictions of rueful gangsters being bagged up by Batman and Spider-Man. It also said that “females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities” – a bid to censor what were known in the trade, somewhat lasciviously, as headlight covers. Those comics are now, of course, eminently collectable.

Interesting they bring this up, because the past decade had serious problems with mainstream publishers censoring female imagery, making it sexless. Does it concern anyone involved that such a horrid mentality made a comeback of recent, and is still affecting mainstream comicdom in some way or other? If not, there's no point complaining about the past if they don't have a problem with it in the present. And near the end:

But is it art? Should comic books be seen as a sophisticated design genre on a par with other mass-produced ephemera such as, say, interwar adverts for ski resorts, the futurist posters of the Russian Revolution or the postage stamps that have long been Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s stock-in-trade?

If anybody truly recognized comics as art within the context of entertainment and education value, they wouldn't be reducing it all to a joke of speculation market sales. Nor would they be ignoring modern issues with censorship, destruction of established characters and franchises, and above all, how writing and art in mainstream today is otherwise very bad, and held hostage to the worst editorial mandates, including company wide crossovers. There's also no discussion of how, less than a decade after Jack Kirby's passing, Marvel under Quesada and Bill Jemas spared no expense in humiliating one of the finest icons for patriotism and crimefighting adventures, Capt. America. No one's held accountable for how the Marvel Knights imprint turned the Star-Spangled Avenger into an apologist for anti-American propaganda, and today, it's become farcical how Marvel's editors/writers repeatedly make efforts to replace Steve Rogers under the cowl with diversity tokens, including Falcon and Dani Moonstar. Nor does anybody ask how that alone even so much as amounts to a talented story. So why do these papers even waste time talking about speculator market value? The modern pamphlets definitely won't see the big sums of their Golden Age predecessors so easily, that's for sure.

Captain America kicked to the curb for sake of Dani Moonstar

This may be a storyline set in an alternate future, but according to this Superhero Hype/Yahoo article, another leftist political metaphor has been turned out by Marvel:

Thus far, the Marvel Comics event Age of Revelation has been largely focused on the X-Men. However, with the United States partially conquered by Mutant separatists, one natural question is what happened to Captain America in this future. The answer lies in a new miniseries, which reveals one Mutant hero has taken up Steve Rogers‘ shield and the task of leading The Avengers.

Written by Jason Loo, with art by Sergio Davila, X-Vengers #1 centers around a new team in the Age of Revelation. As the name suggests, it is made up of former Avengers and X-Men. However, the team line-up is not the only thing that has changed.

All of the Avengers turned X-Vengers were mutated by the X-Virus, which bestows superpowers on those who survive the initial infection. Hawkeye, for instance, grew four extra arms, while Black Widow became a woman made of living water. Steve Rogers, sadly, died in the aftermath of the X-Virus release. However, before he died, he passed on his shield and title to a hero he saw as a worthy successor.

Who is the new Captain America leading the future Avengers?

A flashback reveals that Steve Rogers gave the title of Captain America to former X-Men member Dani Moonstar, aka Mirage. Apparently Moonstar was the only hero present when he made his last stand. Despite this, nobody among the Avengers doubted her word when she said Steve Rogers gave her his shield.

Unfortunately, some Americans were less accepting of Moonstar’s taking the mantle than the former Avengers. However, following an altercation at a memorial for the victims of the X-Virus, the rest of the team are quick to assure her that she is doing Steve Rogers proud. Not only in leading the team in battle but also in giving inspirational speeches whenever one is needed.

Previously, when Steve was marginalized as part of woke diversity pandering, it was for the sake of putting a black man in the Cap costume, despite Sam Wilson have flight powers and going by the codename Falcon. Now, after it became clear that wasn't working, so they concoct a story where a woman takes up Cap's mantle. This despite how even Moonstar's powers are hardly a good fit for how Kirby and Simon created Cap for in the Golden Age, which was an acrobatic fighter, but hardly somebody with more elaborate superpowers like Dani's or Falcon's. And then, they make "some" Americans look like they're hostile to the whole idea of a women or an Indian descendant taking up the role, and the writers continue to obscure pressing issues in real life that could make far better metaphors than this.

ComicBook also sugarcoated the story, and exploited it for the sake of making the USA look totally evil in how it approached Indian inhabitants:

Over the years, we’ve gotten numerous Captain Americas, but there’s something about Dani Moonstar that just feels right in the role. To begin with, she’s Cheyenne, which makes her more American than basically anyone else who has used the shield. The United States’ history with the various Native tribes is monstrous, despite them just wanting to live their lives the way they always had. Giving a Native the shield is something very special, and Dani is the perfect person for it.

This of course ignores that even Indian citizens of the past didn't have a clean record when it came to issues like slavery, and what proof do they have that the USA was inherently evil towards the Indian inhabitants? Wasn't the Dakota War of 1862 a disturbing moment begun by Indian tribes like the Sioux? Sure, there were other tribes like the Apache who may have been decent, if not perfect, but none were saints any more than the white descendants of Europe who populated north America.

Dani has always been a great hero, but has never really been allowed to grow to the level she should be at. This is a common problem with the New Mutants. Nearly every member of that team has basically stayed static for years, despite the best of them being some of the coolest mutants around. Dani was always positioned as the best member of the team, and could have easily become the next Cyclops. However, she always seems to be an afterthought, which is why it’s so great that X-Vengers shows that Cap believed in her. Dani has always deserved better, and hopefully this will be the first step that will lead her to stardom.

Well I'm sorry, but all this doesn't make for a talented story, and the political structure this one's built upon only ruins everything. Even if this story's an alternate reality setting, that doesn't excuse the political biases, and Marvel's continued obsession with far-left propagandizing isn't salvaging their comics franchises at all. Dani Moonstar may deserve better, but so too does Steve Rogers, and even Sam Wilson. If they're not willing to craft a story that doesn't rely on the cheapest of modern political cliches, that's but one reason why this story also rings very hollow.

Los Angeles comicon produces an AI-generated take on Stan Lee

Almost 7 years after Marvel's most famous writer/editor/publisher passed on, the Los Angeles Times reports the local comicon's developed an AI program with Stan Lee's image that's supposed to be able to answer any questions asked of it regarding entertainment:

Artificial intelligence and its invasiveness in our everyday lives might be endlessly discussed among academics, government officials and social media provocateurs, but Los Angeles Comic Con has injected a dose of gamma radiation and showmanship into that debate.

Stan Lee has entered the chat.

L.A. Comic Con is introducing its Stan Lee Experience, a 1,500-square-foot booth in Aisle 200 that features an AI-powered holographic image of the late comic book legend that interacts with attendees. Curious fans can ask questions of “Stan Lee” and probe dozens of years’ worth of comic book and comic book-related data that’s been fed into the AI, which has been drawn from footage, conversations and even Stan Lee’s Soapbox — where Lee would expand on happenings of the day or riff on comic book goings-on in the back pages of Marvel comics from 1967 through 1980.

[...] The hologram, at least the one on the show floor, is not really a hologram. With a box built by Proto Inc., the company that also launched an interactive mirror from “The Conjuring,” and Hyperreal, a company whose chief executive Remington Scott helped bring Gollum and Smeagol to life for Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” movies and creates realistic avatars, it is an interactive Stan Lee image that processes questions and formulates responses.

“Hologram is a technology that’s different than this. This is more of an avatar presence, or a telepresence, if you will. Unlike ChatGPT, this is not a web crawler. This is a large language model which has got guardrails on it,” says George Johnson, a member of the Hyperreal technical team.

“It’s specifically Stan’s words. Red carpet interviews, everything he wrote, like Stan’s Soapbox, but with guardrails. Meaning, if you ask him sports questions or politics questions, he’s not going to answer those. But the Stan Lee Universe is feeding us more and more stuff that we can add to the model.”

Even if they're avoiding injection of divisive politics into the program, that doesn't make this a legitimate project in every way. Considering how Stan was exploited by almost every cynical profiteer possible in the last years of his life, and they're still doing it in some ways long after, that's why this is little more than another attempt to milk Lee's legacy dry in ways that don't help it long after he's gone. Mainly because:

The Stan Lee Experience costs $15 plus service fees with tickets available for purchase via the L.A. Comic Con website. The pop culture gathering runs through Sunday at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Well, this is telling. We're supposed to pay for a conversation with an image that's based on Lee, but not the real thing? Sorry, but that's still exploiting his image for money, and little else. Whatever he thought of life, love and comicdom in his time that historians know about, it should be written about in history books, not injected so ridiculously into a machine that's not the real deal. And where were these folks when Lee's whole enterprise was being taken apart by awful successors like Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas for starters? I'm sorry, but this is no improvement.

Here's what Ars Technica has to say about the reactions, and the lack of free use for the program, which could be more costly than what the LA Times says:

Late last week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story about an "AI Stan Lee hologram" that would be appearing at the LA Comic Con this weekend. Nearly seven years after the famous Marvel Comics creator’s death at the age of 95, fans will be able to pay $15 to $20 this weekend to chat with a life-sized, AI-powered avatar of Lee in an enclosed booth at the show.

The instant response from many fans and media outlets to the idea was not kind, to say the least. A writer for TheGamer called the very idea "demonic" and said we need to "kill it with fire before it’s too late." The AV Club urged its readers not to pay to see "the anguished digital ghost of a beloved comic book creator, repurposed as a trap for chumps!" Reactions on a popular Reddit thread ranged from calling it "incredibly disrespectful" and "in bad taste" to "ghoulish" and "so fucked up," with very little that was more receptive to the concept.

While some of the news sites cited aren't particularly appealing, the sentiment regarding Lee in itself is valid. Again, this is all stuff that should be reserved for history books and documentaries, not some superfluous technology that's just exploitation. And does the program actually avoid politics?

While a moderator at the convention will be on hand to repeat fan questions into a microphone (to avoid ambient crowd noise from the showfloor), DeMoulin said there won’t be any human filtering on what fans are allowed to ask the Lee avatar in the 15- to 20-minute group Q&A sessions. Instead, DeMoulin said the team has set up a system of "content governors" so that, for instance, "if you ask Stan what he thought of the last presidential election he's gonna say 'That's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the Marvel universe.'"

For topics that are Marvel-related, though, the AI avatar won’t shy away from controversy, DeMoulin said. If you ask the avatar about Jack Kirby, for instance, DeMoulin said it will address the "honest disagreements about characters or storylines, which are gonna happen in any creative enterprise," while also saying that "‘I have nothing but respect for him,’ which is I think largely what Stan would have said if he was asked that question."

[...] Throughout our talk, DeMoulin repeatedly stressed that their AI hologram wasn’t intended to serve as a replacement for the living version of Lee. "We want to make sure that people understand that we are not trying to bring Stan back from the dead," he said. "We're not trying to say that this is Stan, and we're not trying to put words in his mouth, and this avatar is not gonna start doing commercials to advertise other people's products."

But what if they do put words in his mouth? Of course, I do recall Stan was a product of his time who wouldn't criticize Marvel management under any circumstances, so I realize the program likely wouldn't offer any objective views of successive writers/artists/editors who since brought down Marvel to the bottom. (Though it's a real shame Lee wouldn't defend Frank Miller's Holy Terror GN years ago, and told the MSM just what they'd want to hear. That Miller's since capitulated doesn't change all that.) But, what if you asked the program if it believes a sex-positive viewpoint is better than a negative one? Would it all be set up to side with negativity? Would it even side with Joe Quesada on the issue of Mary Jane Watson and also Captain America? Seriously, it wouldn't be shocking if it were a biased program.

If there's any creator I found commenting on the LA comicon's project, it's Jim Zub:

This is not a celebration of the man or his work, it's souless and ghoulish in a way that's hard to comprehend. https://t.co/BPw3TVzzk2

— Jim Zub 🎲 (@JimZub) September 29, 2025

While I do think it's ill-advised to exploit Lee's image for something like this, the alleged refrain from politics notwithstanding, it could also be argued only so many Marvel stories since the early 2000s are soulless and ghoulish too. And Zub did little to improve upon that when he worked for them, because of course, he was working under the horrible mandates set up by Axel Alonso, who was EIC around the time Zub wrote Thunderbolts, and even under C.B. Cebulski, it wasn't much better. If Zub were assigned to Spider-Man, could we be surprised if he followed said mandates restricting use of Mary Jane Watson either?

All that aside, this whole issue of Lee being turned into an AI image that requires money to interact with is only perpetuates a very sad picture of how Lee was taken advantage of in the last years of his life by people who had no respect for him or his creations, and nobody should have to pay for something that could possibly turn up for use on home computers later anyway.

College writer thinks comics movies feel like comics again

A writer at The Vidette of Illinois State University claims live action comics movies feel like comics again, and while the article's little better than most of these college publications, it does have some eyebrow raising parts:

Other films deserve to be part of that discussion, such as “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Captain America: Civil War.” While many of these films are of high quality, many don’t feel the same as reading a comic book. That probably sounds confusing at first glance, but let me explain.

Yes, these films have superheroes and feature events that are very unrealistic, but they do not make me feel immersed in the world very much. They just feel like regular movies that are carried by sheer star power, with the names of popular characters attached to them. They feel like they are just playing it safe for the general audience.

Don’t get me wrong, the general audience does matter because they contribute the most to the box office success of these movies. However, I want studios to allow directors to take creative liberties and make something as wacky or wild as the comics we love to read.

After all, these films are adapting stories where people who can fly are battling aliens, not exactly the most realistic. As a result, why would you not want to go bonkers with those types of ideas?

Well isn't that a surprise. Somebody admits live action's not the same as illustration and animation, and even I got that feeling at times watching what I did in the past, including the late Christopher Reeve's Superman films (though let me note that only the first 2 are good, and the other 2, along with the 1984 Supergirl film, were sadly botched). But perhaps more surprising is that the writer actually wants creative liberties taken with the movies. Depending how you view that part of the whole discussion, creative freedom, to say nothing of liberties, was all but taken away in the past several years for the sake of PC narratives. For Marvel, this mainly began with the Captain Marvel movie, which was based almost entirely on how Marvel mandated Carol Danvers be written since 2012, and was made even worse by forcing Islamic propaganda into a series starring a contrived successor to the role of Ms. Marvel. It's amazing any attempts to adapt such concepts to live action have largely been failures so far, and even one of the video games featuring the Muslim Ms. Marvel didn't fare so well. That shows the audience is not interested in lecture-laced propaganda.

It's also surprising the writer's okay with unrealistic ingredients, which should make clear that, if it's okay for Japan to do surreal stuff, then it's okay for even Marvel to do the same, and indeed, despite much of the absurd, lecturing propaganda of recent, they did in past decades. All that matters is whether it actually does a disfavor to certain issues and events in real life.

But with that said, here's where the article begins to turn into a farce:

The most recent examples of this are James Gunn’s “Superman” and Matt Shakman’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

Watching both of these films felt so fresh as comic books were unraveling on screen in terms of action, dialogue and even how colorful the world was. A common critique that I have seen is that these films move quickly in terms of progressing the story.

While that is true, I do enjoy that these films embraced how wacky they inherently are. That element makes them stand out amongst the many comic book films that have been releasing lately.

Well sorry to say, but if the Superman movie for starters was supposed to be surreal, it ruined everything with its appalling political metaphor for real life, and the FF movie ruined everything with both the actor playing Mr. Fantastic and the sex-swap for the Silver Surfer, changed from Norrin Radd to Shalla-Bal. On the latter, let's be clear. If Shalla-Bal matters, it's entirely possible to write up a prominent role for her in a film like this without doing it at Norrin Radd's expense. Instead, the filmmakers discarded Stan Lee's actual creation for the sake of PC pandering that hasn't improved the fortunes of these latest live action adaptations.

Science-fantasy can certainly be a great way to explore all sorts of wacky ideas, but when you let real life seep in without taking an informed and rational approach, everything's ruined. If the studios making these films still intend to go ahead with sequels to Superman, for example, despite the mediocre box office results, that will be almost amusing, in a way, because it shows they don't want to admit they made mistakes. But it certainly won't guarantee what's to come will be any better than before from an artistic perspective.

Even in Britain, there's specialty auctions

The BBC reports there's an auctioneering company that's selling tons of old pamphlets on the speculator market, just like in the USA:

Hundreds of 1960s comic books are set to be auctioned later this month, with an estimated total value of up to £7,000.

The line-up is made up mostly of Marvel comics and is due to go under the hammer in Lichfield, Staffordshire, on 29 September.

Superheroes featured include Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer, X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, Daredevil and Thor.

There are more than 50 lots - with highlights including the Fantastic Four #48, #49 and #50, which feature the first appearances of the Silver Surfer and Galactus, valued at between £400 and £600.

And they're going to be sold to the highest bidder and locked away in vaults till they're sold round and round again, huh? Unfortunately, even in the UK, that's likely to end up being the case, when here, they have a chance to donate them to a local arts museum instead, and everyone can see these famous old treasures of the 20th century for themselves. This continues to do a disfavor for Stan Lee's resume, and it's tiring decades ago how auctions keep making headlines like these, when the buyers have no interest in purchasing these so they can build up a history display for museums.

Comic Book Club lionizes the worst of J. Michael Straczynski's writings

Comic Book Club Live wrote a puff piece about the politics in the writings of J. Michael Stracyznski, claiming his stories warned about the rise of authoritarianism for over 3 decades, including his takes on Spider-Man and Captain America:

For more than 30 years, across the mediums of comics, film, and television, writer J. Michael Straczynski has layered a warning into his writing: it can happen here. It can happen to us.

In that case, do you think Joe Biden was a poor influence at the time he was president? Guess not. Only politicians like Donald Trump matter to such leftists.

Babylon 5 was a case study in information warfare and institutional capture. The cautions in his 9/11 issue of Amazing Spider-Man go unheeded as he examines creeping surveillance, militarization, and securitization. Most recently, his Captain America run for Marvel directly confronts the parallels between the rise of American fascism in the 1930s and today.

Speaking of Babylon 5, one can wonder how JMS feels now about naming an alien race in the TV show after Neil Gaiman (they were called the "Gaim"), now that the disgraced comics writer and novelist has been accused of sexual abuse? That aside, what's told about the TV show is why I'm glad I didn't watch much of it years ago. Someday, a lot of his writings for comics, TV and film are quite likely going to be viewed as a lot of overrated mishmash that only extols the "values" of leftists. As for "institutional capture", couldn't that describe the far-left takeover of Hollywood? Why doesn't that count? Now, here's the part about Spidey's embarrassingly bad 9-11 issue, which interrupted the regular story all for the sake of the poor message conveyed:

At the time of its release, the 9/11 issue of Amazing Spider-Man perhaps most accurately captured the sense of righteous anger and jingoistic resolve that swept across the nation in the wake of the attacks.

Umm, if you're going to imply much of the USA's population was "jingoistic" rather than gaining a sense of patriotism and vigilance, doesn't that conflict with the part about "righteous anger"? But then, the story did serve as a subtle form of blaming America, so what's the surprise? The columnist continues to blatantly bring up precisely what's wrong with the whole vision:

The 9/11 issue’s warning? As JMS writes in its pages, “That the burdens of distant people are the responsibility of all men and women of conscience, or their burdens will one day become our tragedy.” He instead pleads with the reader to “Draft a covenant with your conscience, that we will create a world in which such things need not occur. A world which will not require apologies to children, but also a world whose roads are not paved with the husks of their inalienable rights.” The Marvel Universe, and our own, would fail to heed that warning.

Through Marvel’s Civil War era (the 2006 event series and related spinoffs), Straczynski would shine a light on the creeping militarization of those who had been our protectors and servants. Peter Parker’s unmasking and entry into government service, along with his subsequent rebellion against Tony Stark and the pro-registration forces, allowed Straczynski to demonstrate how civic approval, “transparency,” and their coercive allure are all brought into play by authoritarian regimes as a way of legitimizing their tighter control.

While George W. Bush did not do everything properly in response to 9-11, the unfortunate problem with Spidey's forced 9-11 issue is that it scapegoated the USA, as the quoted lines from the story indicate, and no serious blame was made regarding Islam's role in the terrorist attack. This, sadly, is a problem many leftists ever since have had, and even Chris Claremont followed an appeasement route, recalling he'd put a Muslim protagonist into the 2002 volume of Gen13, which was all undone by time travel effects when the series ended, interestingly enough. But that still doesn't excuse how for a quarter century now, we've been lectured by leftists over what to think and believe. And if the writer really thinks nobody heeded warnings about creeping totalitarianism, then how come leftists like him aren't either? And then, as if it couldn't get more insulting to the intellect:

Before leaving Amazing Spider-Man soon after the “One More Day” storyline, Straczynski pulled Peter Parker back to his roots. He removed him from the big world-spanning stories like Civil War and returned him to street-level stories. Peter took a role as a teacher and mentor, tackling problems that mattered to everyday people. He attempted to have the character illustrate that a great power’s primary responsibility is to the people.

Sadly, like his earlier warnings in the book, this appeal would go unheeded. We would not tend to the problems of the everyday person in our society over the next twenty years. So, when Straczynski returned to Marvel with Captain America, it was to address a nation facing a much more pressing threat.

So taking apart Spidey's marriage to Mary Jane Watson was okay, if that's what it took to make all the shoddy, ambiguous political statements we've been lectured with ever since, in addition to the constant dangling of carrots? No wonder Marvel's artistic value collapsed. And then, when coming around to Capt. America:

JMS returned to the character of Steve Rogers in 2023, in the space betwen two Trump administrations. He had seen firsthand how the MAGA movement had played on the economic insecurities and deeply-rooted racial animus in the country in their pursuit of power. [...]

Across all the media where he’s been warning us for the past 30 years about the creeping rise of fascism in America, Straczynski has shown us how authoritarian regimes reshape the truth, how they bend our protectors into our imprisoners, and how they use our economic stressors to capture us for their own purposes. He also tells us over and over where to find the solution: in the streets. With our neighbors. Teaching, learning, and listening.

No. Lecturing one-sidedly, and singling out western conservatism as the sole problem. The Islamic form of "conservatism" in their minds is the only kind that's legitimate. Of course, if "reshaping" the truth is a concern, then for JMS, does that include the palestine fabrication? Unfortunately, all that matters to these leftists is whether western conservatives do what they claim. JMS' only concerns are right-wing influence, and I doubt he's ever seriously regretted his role in destroying the Spider-marriage, let alone Spidey's own series itself. It's interesting how these propagandists don't seem troubled that JMS also slighted the dignity of some lady cast members in the MCU, which includes Sif from Thor's series, and no doubt, he also slighted the dignity of Lois Lane when he was writing Superman for DC. Some of those later writing roles post-Spidey didn't last as long, and it's just as well. JMS was never a good omen for comicdom any more than film and TV, but that's mainly because he's too much of a far-left ideologue for his writings to work well.

And again, if it matters, I'm not excusing what JMS did with Mary Jane and even Gwen Stacy 2 decades ago. Those awful stories that grew out of Sins Past were just some of the worst things he ever did, and claiming editorial interference played a part is no excuse either. If Straczynski wanted to, he could've quit the job immediately, but he remained at least until 2007 and One More Day, and the rest is some of the worst history to ever soil Marvel's publications.

Singapore teenager obsessed with Galactus

In another example of too much villain worship running amok, the Straits Times interviewed a local teen who's collected Marvel comics featuring one of the biggest aliens in the MCU, who first appeared in Fantastic Four back in the mid-60s:

When First Steps opens in Singapore cinemas on July 24, local teenager Lael Lee will be going to watch it not for Marvel Comics’ “First Family”, but for his favourite character, Galactus.

Says the 14-year-old: “From what I’ve seen in the trailers, there’s a lot going on in the film. I don’t think Galactus will play a significant part. But the actor they’ve cast seems cool, so hopefully they do Galactus justice.”

Just as many classic superheroes have secret identities, so too does Lael.

By day, he is a soft-spoken Secondary 3 student at Assumption English School. By evening – or whenever he is done with his schoolwork – he is a mega fan of Galactus, and might have amassed the world’s largest collection of comics which include the character.

Lael has already accumulated 854 of these, and says the second-biggest collection he is aware of numbers around 200. He has his eyes set on another 20 or so Galactus-covered comics to make for a richer and more complete set.

Lael’s father Ernest Lee – a human resources (HR) professional and erstwhile comics fan in his 40s – is the boy’s partner and sidekick in this quest.

“My dad is very supportive of the hobby, mainly because he was a comics collector too. So he funds a portion of the comics I buy,” says Lael, who has inherited Mr Lee’s collection of around 150 comics from the 1990s and posts his finds on his Galactus-centric Instagram account @galactus_hunter96.

But do they think being a fan of villainous characters is a healthy example? I'd like to think it's great if the guy reads comics, but putting aside that his idea of how to demonstrate fandom through collecting back issues is flawed from a modern perspective, it's honestly sad if a supervillain is the reason the guy collects these back issues to begin with. I wouldn't be shocked if some of those 800-plus pamphlets are also comprised of post-2000 stories, way past the time any Marvel tales of these sorts could be considered tasteful and worthy of one's time. And then, in a suggestion this has nothing to do with reading value:

As many young people do when they develop a new fixation, Lael began to rack up merchandise related to his burgeoning interest: figurines, statues and signed artwork.

He says: “Seeing my Galactus comics collection grow gives me a lot of energy. I don’t read the paper comics, though. I treat them like art, like they are an investment. I don’t want the monetary value to be affected.”

He purchased each comic for anywhere between $5 and $150, with the exception of a limited-edition cover that cost about $200, and estimates he has spent more than $16,000 in total. But Lael and his father suspect that some individual comics might be worth more than the price they paid, especially those that are rare, signed or in mint condition.

All of Lael’s 854 Galactus comics are stored in plastic sleeves with acid-free backing boards in his condominium bedroom, which is kept cool and as free of humidity as possible via the air-conditioning system and a dehumidifier. No one else in his family of four is allowed to touch the books, except maybe Mr Lee.

“Just like many teens, Lael is at an age where he is finding himself and his interests. As parents, it is important that we encourage and support them in doing so,” Mr Lee says.

But again, why encourage them to obsess over villainous figures? It's not even clear from this puff piece if the young collector actually buys paperback/hardcover comics, and head-shakingly dismaying he would spend so much money over comics spotlighting villains. News like this only ends up making me even more dispirited about the movie adaptations, and suggests the guy may only be interested in the speculator market, which isn't getting the art form anywhere.

The paper also brought up how studios have kept producing FF adaptations, and claims the Marvel movieverse's future depends on the success of this new film:

Ever since the old Avengers dissolved following the departures of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) and the previous Captain America (Evans) in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios has lacked an elite superhero team to match their audience-pulling power.

But not for lack of trying. The last X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix (2019), tanked, as did two ensemble movies, Eternals (2021) and The Marvels (2023), sinking any chance of them acting as the new anchors for the MCU.

Marvel desperately needs a top-ranked fighting force, but not any old force. It must carry the MCU story deep into space, where the new cosmic threats live. Since Thanos the genocidal Titan was erased in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU’s roster of epic villains has been blank.

Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) was tested as the most evil person in the multiverse in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023), but that fizzled due to lack of audience interest and the American actor’s conviction for assault that led the studio to sever ties with him.

Marvel has been eager to introduce new Thanos-level cosmic horrors, such as Galactus, the devourer of worlds. The new threats must enter the story organically, so what better way to do that than with an interstellar encounter with the space-faring crew of Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) in First Steps?

[...] This new reboot is going all out to avoid the foibles of its predecessors. The main characters are older. The cast is made up of actors with proven track records. The movie opens with them wielding their powers, rather than going through another origin story. And from the trailer, the setting will be retro-futuristic, with neither the campiness of the 2005 and 2007 films, nor the bleakness of the 2015 story.

The producers haven't done a good enough job, unfortunately, seeing how its main star made politically charged rants prior to the release of the movie that have the potential to be divisive. It's becoming harder and harder these days to overlook actors who do such things. As a result, the part about organic writing is hard to credit.

And again, if villains like Galactus were the only reason anybody cared about these films, then what's the use of seeing them? It's the heroes who should matter most, and even that's being dampened when the performers make divisive statements that make it more difficult to overlook their presence on the screen. The comics are what should really matter, but only the older ones, not the newer ones, beholden as they are to the bad influence of political correctness.