What Polygon says about MTG cards based on Marvel illustrations

Polygon wrote a fluff-coated article about several cards from a new Magic: The Gathering collaboration with Marvel, and they sugarcoated at least a few things involving history, past and present. First, what's said about Contest of Champions:

Nowadays, Marvel Comics launches a new big event every year that’s all about stacking as many characters together as possible and seeing what happens. Well, it all started here. Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions is Marvel Comics’ first-ever limited series. Published from June to August 1982, it was written by Mark Gruenwald and penciled by John Romita Jr. It introduced the concept of crossovers, events involving characters from different comic books, getting together to face a big crisis that usually has an impact on the entire Marvel continuity.

Mark Gruenwald was an ante-litteram visionary. (Just check out his Squadron Supreme run: it was one of the first politically charged big superhero comics, before that became a cool thing to do.) Contest of Champions planted the seed of what would become a standard practice for the House of Ideas, and while that series is less ambitious than Crisis on Infinite Earths, it predates DC Comics’ famous crossover event by three years.

So that's a good thing these comics were "politically charged"? And that crossovers crowded out creativity? Wow, the writer here certainly isn't approaching this from an objective viewpoint, despite any suggestions to the contrary. Contest of Champions may have been one of the first limited series they published (years later, these would be more likely to be described as miniseries), but that doesn't make it one of the best. Nor is it truly a good thing we had to see Marvel/DC destroyed creatively by only so many crossovers that came about since. What does the writer even mean by "less ambitious"? Does that mean it didn't go far enough as Crisis did by killing at least a few characters like Supergirl and 2nd Flash Barry Allen? If that's what he means, that's quite tasteless, and the worst part is that years later, Marvel did go the killing route in some way or other with a number of characters, and in cases like Scarlet Witch's, subjected her to a fate worse than death in Advengers: Disassembled. Also vital to note is that around the turn of the century, that's when keeping consistent with continuity and decent characterization began to deteriorate more than ever before in the mainstream, and it's had a disastrous effect on storytelling cohesion ever since. Now, here's something even more unworthy of a MTG card:

This is more a personal favorite than one of the all-time greats, perhaps, but it’s still a milestone in Iron Man continuity. Written by Warren Ellis with art by Adi Granov, “Extremis” is a six-issue story arc that ran in Iron Man between 2005 and 2006. It introduces the Extremis virus (also featured in the movie Iron Man 3), which upgrades Tony Stark with real superpowers, allowing him to connect to his armor and other machines through a neural interface. Extremis is perhaps the last interesting Iron Man story published (except for the magnificent miniseries Infamous Iron Man, where Doctor Doom takes the mantle of Iron Man). It transformed Tony Stark from “former alcoholic rich guy in a suit” into his modern image of a futurist, before that term was spoiled by creepy technocrats.

Seriously, I can't see what's so appealing about Ellis' writing that he has to have his story become the subject of a trading card. Also note how the columnist sugarcoats one of the modern stories where the hero's replaced by a villain in the armor, or costume. As though it weren't bad enough Spider-Man had to be mind-switched with Dr. Octopus. And doesn't giving Tony actual superpowers contradict and defeat how he was first created, as a guy whose power was the armor suits he built? That was the emphasis for many years, and coming when these "real" powers did, it was just too late to work out anyway. So why does this tale of all things need a MTG card? And then, there's Infinity Gauntlet:

Thanos and his infamous Snap in Avengers: Infinity War became the most iconic moment of the golden age of MCU movies. 27 years before Josh Brolin “blipped” half of the universe away, Jim Starlin wrote one of the most important sagas in Marvel history, bringing back the character he created two decades prior. The six-issue limited series The Infinity Gauntlet shows the outcome of Thanos’s quest to collect the Infinity Gems (shown in The Thanos Quest). The Mad Titan has obtained absolute power over creation, but will it be enough to please his cold mistress, Lady Death?

Before Hollywood success went to his head (and ruined his comic book characterizations), Thanos was one of the most fascinating Marvel characters, a villain fueled by philosophical musings and unrequited love more than lust for power or conquest. This is Starlin’s Thanos at his best, and the incredible art by George Pérez and Ron Lim brings to life an apocalyptic tale unfolding at the edge of the universe, where gods are brought to heel and a Mad Titan finally gets his wish.

I think even this crossover can be subject to some objective viewpoints. The Infinity minis may not have had as many crossover connections as others did, but IIRC, they still had some nonetheless, and that was simply appalling, because it was entirely unnecessary in order to make it a story worth reading. That said, interesting that here, the writer actually admits Thanos' characterization was ruined later on, though it'd be a lot better if somebody commenting on these topics gave more attention to heroes who underwent the same. And then, Secret Wars gets fluff-coated:

If Contest of Champions opened the door for crossovers, Secret Wars smashed those doors down. Conceived as a big marketing gambit that would tie in with a Mattel toy line and an RPG from TSR, this massive 1984-1985 event spanned over 12 issues of the main limited series and more than two dozen crossover issues of ongoing series. Written by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, with art by Mike Zeck, Bob Layton, and John Beatty, the series sees a host of heroes and villains transported to a mysterious planet dubbed Battleworld by an omnipotent entity known as the Beyonder, and forced into an all-out battle for survival.

In one of the most iconic moments in the series, the villain Molecule Man drops an entire mountain range (yup) on the heroes’ heads. The good guys barely survive in a wedge dug by Iron Man and Hulk, but the Green Goliath is carrying the entire weight of the mountains on his shoulders. To buy enough time to build a contraption to escape, Reed Richards insults Hulk since getting angrier makes him even stronger. Who else could have come up with this plan if not Marvel’s number one a-hole? It’s a pretty amazing moment and still one of Hulk’s greatest feats of strength.

That still doesn't justify the way Secret Wars was produced, as something where almost every Marvel title had to reference this story according to editorial mandate. Granted, unlike Crisis on Infinite Earths, it wasn't written for the sake of killing off any characters the editors considerd expendable, as DC did with Silver Age Supergirl. But it still has responsibility to shoulder for leading later to the disaster we see in the mainstream today, one that nobody writing these puff pieces has any intention of arguing against. And then, what does the writer say about one of Stan Lee's last creations:

Speaking of artists who loved to push the envelope, John Byrne’s run on Sensational She-Hulk in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s marked one of the few truly avant-garde moments in Marvel Comics history. Byrne took a minor character in the House of Ideas’ roster and turned it into a fourth-wall-breaking sensation. Towering over the series’ covers with a dominating, ultra-sexualized physicality, Jen Walters was threatening readers to rip up their X-Men collection if they didn’t buy her book, and openly mocking comics’ narrative tropes.

There’s no point in denying that the sexist tinges of Jen’s representation in the series were targeted at an audience of hormone-fueled, adolescent boys, but Byrne was still able to turn a relatively obscure character into one of the few culturally relevant women in Marvel Comics, at least for a while. It’s very cool that Magic’s homage to that historic run shows She-Hulk literally breaking the fourth wall.

Fascinating how the writer seems to be speaking with a forked tongue in regards to sexuality, though Byrne did have very questionable moments in his resume, including the time when he wrote a Superman story where Big Barda fell under the mind control of an alien from Apokalips named Sleez, who also brought Supes to heel, and then took them to a snuff filmmaker so he could film them engaging in sex?!? And you thought this kind of stuff was just relegated to fanfiction! That said, I think what the writer's telling about how Byrne handled Jen Walters is hypocritical, and certainly exploits it for the sake of pushing sex-negative visions simultaneously. At least the She-Hulk series Byrne launched during 1989-94 is more worthy of a MTG card than some of the above examples.

Anyway, this would've been a lot more charming news if it hadn't been for some of the more modern choices made like an Ellis story, and if it hadn't been for the realization the MTG franchise was subject to wokeification in the past decade. Who knows if they've reversed course since then? If not, that also dampens the interest.

Without merit, USA comics won't have "everlasting" appeal

The North State Journal (Raleigh, NC) wrote about why American comics are so great:

Pick one up. Be seduced by its glossy cover. Gaze upon the impossibly muscular body clad in a skin-tight suit. Our hero or heroine will surely be soaring, shouting, blasting a villain into next week.

They are ridiculous. They are addictively great. Comic books, of the superhero variety, are 100% American.

Compare the thin comic book to Europe’s graphic novels, and they come off looking flimsy, infantile. Compare the American comic to Japanese Manga and they appear innocent in their fixation with heroism; they hark back to a departed American age.

Once a nickel, a dime, a quarter, now the price of a latte, they are objects of American consumer capitalism. The comic is literature in junk-food version.

Well it used to be, but that doesn't mean it was always perfect even back in the Golden Age. And if you consider how, by the turn of the century, they were on their way to putting far more forced emphasis on leftist ideologies, that's why it doesn't make much sense now to say they're objects of capitalism. The American age in question has sadly departed, and they're not fixed on heroism like they were before.

Yet what truly makes them American objects is what plays out in their 32 pages month after month, decade upon decade.

When the Fantastic Four took their fateful space journey in 1961 and “cosmic rays” transformed the quartet into unwilling superheroes, comics entered a weird realm where the all-powerful were also the unwilling, decidedly modern victims of science and circumstance.

Spider-Man, the Hulk, Wolverine (the list goes on) were given supernatural abilities that made them outcasts, obliging them to be flawed messiahs.

They were, by some quirk of the American character, bound to Peter Parker’s moral imperative: “With great power comes great responsibility.” They are versions of an American Sisyphus, bound to saving us over and over again.

What could be more American — that might, when lashed to a sense of justice, eventually, makes right? So honorable, so naïve.

Well now even the phrase from Spidey's 1962 premiere has been throughly trashed for the sake of pointless directions, not the least being the erasure of the Spider-marriage. When the paper, possibly a college-type one, won't get into any of those issues, something is decidedly and terribly wrong. There's no justice to be found in modern comics when they force in so much leftist ideologies at the expense of coherency.

To this day, though the tone is darker, Marvel and DC, the two mammoths of comics, continue to reimagine the American character.

Once side attractions in a world of leading white men, Gwen Stacy, Jean Grey and Susan Storm have in recent years emerged as leaders to reinvigorate the Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four sagas. Absolute Wonder Woman has broken ground with beautiful art. Miles Morales is Spidey for a new generation.

And when they make such ambiguous statements about these leading ladies, something is wrong here too. Note the absurdity of bringing up what I assume is Spider-Gwen, some kind of otherworldly take on the 616 universe Gwen, without even making anything clear, or asking if it really does favors for the Spidey franchise. Also, not all art is good today, what with the woke damage of the past decade still being felt, and the Titans' title in the DCU is one that's suffered as a result. And they don't have a problem with the darker tone? That's practically what brought down comicdom in the long run. Also, do they have a problem with white men? One can only wonder if the writer's saying he considers Peter Parker expendable.

Yet the central fissures remain.

Bruce Wayne can’t connect with anyone other than his butler; he is the lonely individual in an atomized America. Steve Rogers bears the burden of representing the “Greatest Generation” from World War II. He is a Captain America forever out of place, even in his own land.

And could there be a more iconic tech magnate toying with humanity’s fate than Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor and his delusions of grandeur? If only our world had a bespectacled Clark Kent keeping an eye on things. Just in case.

Umm, even this is flawed if they'd consider there were stories where Bruce had affairs with ladies like Vicky Vale, Silver St. Cloud and even Catwoman. Where do they get off using that kind of laughable lecture anyway? The writer's also oblivious to how there were several stories over the years where Marvel tried to replace and harm the reputation of Capt. America for the sake of publicity stunts, and it goes without saying that today's dialogue for a lot of the regular cast doesn't feel like that of the older comics anymore.

So what's the point of this article? Practically nothing, since like a lot of other such modern articles, it won't explore what went wrong over past decades, nor will it take an objective view of Marvel/DC in their modern form. Once again, comicdom's getting nowhere fast as a result of all these phonies writing about what's hardly coverage of history.

The speculator joke continues in the UK

The BBC announced more old pamphlets are being sold on auction over in Britain:

Two Marvel comic books have sold for a total of £11,440 at an auction house in Surrey.

A copy of the first edition of The Incredible Hulk, featuring the first appearance of the superhero, sold for £7,800 after going on auction at Ewbank's in Woking on Wednesday.

Another 1974 edition of the comic which features the first appearance of X-Men superhero Wolverine, also sold for £3,640.

The auction's big ticket item, a first edition of Amazing Spider-Man which featured the character's first appearance, failed to sell having been listed for between £10,000 and £15,000.

Well that's certainly amazing some buyers gave pause based on 5-digit sums, but this still isn't good there's consumers in Europe who're making a farce out of the medium by perpetuating the speculator nonsense that's been a sad staple in the USA for a long time. Why won't even they stop to consider this is only depriving many museums of history projects that would be better off stored under their auspices? And why won't the history community itself speak out about how the speculator market is doing more harm than good? It's totally depressing nobody cares.

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.

What a Catholic commentator has to say about Marvel/DC history while discussing Voyage Comics' contributions to the medium

A writer at the Catholic World Report discusses Voyage Comics, the publisher specializing in religiously-themed stories, and along the way, has what to say about past Marvel/DC publications with allusions to leftist ideology. Some of which are admittedly quite interesting to ponder, including a certain aforementioned tale from 1986 that led to a disturbing form of editorial mandate the following decade or so:

Back in the late 80s and into the 90s, even as an unphilosophical teenager and avid consumer of comic books, I was well aware of flaws in the fantasy worlds of Marvel and DC.

I can, for instance, recall seeing through the thinly veiled propaganda of an “X-Men” graphic novel entitled God’s Country, the villain of which was a small-minded religious bigot who refused to tolerate super-powered mutants. One storyline of The Legion of Super-Heroes depicted a xenophobic dictator taking over the Earth, resulting in a terrible regime whereby hapless space aliens were persecuted.

Quite aside from the obvious virtue-signaling, I was also put off by the superficial and trite conflation of issues such as trans-humanism and extra-terrestrial life with the “gay rights” movement. Do slogans like Coexist! and Can’t we all get along? really represent the only response to the presence among us of alien beings endowed with godlike powers?

In any event, an issue of The Incredible Hulk would finally cut to the chase by featuring S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury bragging about his organization’s acceptance of homosexuals.

To be sure, even in the mainstream comic book industry, there have been exceptions that veer from the reservation of liberal ideology. I still have an old issue of Batman, wherein the hero tracks down an insane criminal who would solve the homelessness problem … by killing off all the homeless. Unfortunately, some of the most interesting comics that part ways with leftist ideology are excessively dark. For example, Frank Miller’s iconic The Dark Knight Returns is laced with gratuitous obscenity and over-the-top violence, making it impossible to recommend this otherwise fascinating account of an indomitable, haunted man resuming his obligation to protect his home city from chaos.

Interesting the guy does have a problem with Miller's resort to jarring violence in the story, though I hardly consider DKR a title worth the time, if only because of what it led to years later, though of course I realize it's not Miller and his story who're literally and/or solely to blame, but rather, any editors and publishers who came within even miles of forcing successive writers to adopt a path where Bruce Wayne would be portrayed as a nasty control freak, almost entirely lacking a sense of humor or any kind of happiness amid the darkness. That direction also led to the horrific mistreatment of Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, because if memory serves, there were storylines where it was implied superhero missions are unsuited for younger protagonists, and all this in a world that was otherwise meant to be surreal. IIRC, even in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans title, this shoddy path was alluded to at one point.

I think the columnist goofed with the title of the X-Men GN, which I believe is actually "God Loves, Man Kills", originally published around 1982, and was the 5th in the Marvel Graphic Novel series that lasted until about 1993, comprising at least 75 stories. And since that came up, one can only wonder if Chris Claremont would've written up a villain who was a Muslim adherent? IIRC, when Claremont later wrote an unsuccessful 2nd volume of Gen13 that came after September 11, 2001, he added a character who was a Muslim to the cast, indicating Claremont was an early example of a writer who went woke in comicdom. And where exactly in the Hulk was Nick Fury boasting about welcoming LGBT agents into S.H.I.E.L.D? Perhaps in the 1990s, when it was more likely such propaganda would turn up, and the late Peter David was known to be a supporter of such ideologies. It is a shame he had to make such a big deal about it, even if at the time, most writers like him originally did it more subtly, unlike the very disturbingly contrived and forced way it's been handled since. Although, lest we forget, the disgraced Gerard Jones was one shoddy writer of his sort from the times who did it, as mentioned, in a very contrived and forced manner, at the expense of a more talented writer (Roy Thomas)'s creation from Infinity Inc. And that was definitely wrong. For all we know, what Jones did may have precipitated the alarming trend among leftist writers of changing a heterosexual character to homosexual, and it eventually led to the damage even X-Men's cast underwent. And even before all that, there was a time when William Messner-Loebs changed the Pied Piper from the Flash to gay in 1990. Just because this was a reformed crook who underwent an alteration of personality, does that make it inherently acceptable? Of course not.

Happily, Voyage Comics avoids political correctness on the one hand and runaway sex and violence on the other, instead opting to celebrate heroes both more down-to-earth and more wholesome than what we typically find in Marvel and DC. Also, intriguingly, heroes are placed not in the immediate “now” but are situated within historical fiction; the “Lionette” and “Phantom Phoenix” titles are set in America in the period between the World Wars.

...A sick popular culture very much needs a Catholic presence, and one way to maintain such a presence is by imprinting artifacts of that popular culture with a Catholic vision. Certainly, our history and culture are replete with real-life heroism, protagonists, and images, which warrant our children’s attention more than do Spider-Man or Green Lantern.

On this, I would disagree just in how he implies Spidey and GL in and of themselves aren't worth our children's time. There was once a time they were relevant, and when most writers/editors didn't force extreme political beliefs into the stories under the confidence that, because these were corporate-owned, they could get away with it. But that began to collapse over time, with GL an early victim of PC post-1988, and Spidey the next victim years later in the early 2000s, when J. Michael Straczynski got his mitts on the writing assignment. I think back to that time and feel disgust at all the apologists who defended and justified JMS' writing, at least until the whole Sins Past debacle came around, and only then may they finally have conceded it wasn't worth the paper wasted to print it. Today, it's definitely aged poorly.

So it's great to have religious stories to tell from that specific perspective of what figures can be considered heroic. Even so, I don't think the columnist should be telling all this at the expense of the hard work figures like Stan Lee did in his time. That kind of bias never helps.

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.

Artist Sal Buscema dies at 89

Fox5 of San Diego reports the veteran artist Sal Buscema, younger brother of the late John Buscema, has died at 89 years of age:

Comic book fans are mourning a legendary artist who made his mark on major franchises belonging to Marvel Comics, DC Comics and others after his passing over the weekend.

Sal Buscema, a pencil artist known for his designs on “The Incredible Hulk” and “The Spectacular Spider-Man,” died at the age of 89.

Buscema was a well-known figure during the “Silver Age” of comics (1960s) and through the 1970s, giving shape to recognizable characters like the Hulk and Spider-Man.

He followed in the footsteps of his older brother, John Buscema, who was also an industry leader with significant runs on “The Avengers” and “The Silver Surfer.”

Some could say that, much like his brother, Sal was the kind of talent who sadly got disrespected by later managements of Marvel/DC, given what a shoddy mess they became at the turn of the century, one that destroyed stuff the Buscemas worked hard to develop in their time. And that's obviously a shame. Sal was as good a creator as John was decades before.

For now, let's appreciate Sal as much as John for the wonderful contributions they both made during the Silver/Bronze Ages, and what'll really be great is if there's any modern artists out there who're willing to emulate their styles for more positive projects than what Marvel/DC are turning out today.

Marvel abandons FCBD for a rival event

Popverse says Marvel, possibly trying to virtue-signal, will not be participating in this year's FCBD event, assuming it goes ahead, and instead, they're working with Penguin/Random House on a separate project:

Marvel Comics is saying "Free Comic Book Day no more!" Instead, the House of Ideas is teaming up with Penguin Random House to put on a new event, curiously scheduled for the first Saturday in May (May 2, 2026), called Comics Giveaway Day.

And what are the 4 items they boast about for the occasion like? Let's check one as an example:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1000/QUEEN IN BLACK #1 CGD 2026 - written by Joe Kelly, Al Ewing, and Phillip Kennedy Johnson, with art by John Romita Jr., Iban Coello, and Nic Klein, with a cover by Dike Ruan - The road to AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1000 takes a big turn here as fate bears down on Peter Parker! The Queen in Black has been coronated, and Mary Jane Watson as Venom is not ready for her! The Eldest has taken control of the Hulk, and what happens next will make every past Hulk battle look like a skirmish!

This is just what we need, isn't it? Prolonging the shoddy premise of Mary Jane shoved into the Venom role, in a comic with leftist Ewing as a co-writer, and while Romita Jr. may have once been a talented artist, he's really brought his skills down to sad levels in the past 2 decades, wasting them on projects completely unsuited for his talents, if he still has any. His work with J. Michael Straczynski on Spider-Man, it goes without saying, was easily the worst of what he's drawn since the turn of the century, based on how it all turned out to be for the sake of a storyline emphasizing the blabberings of a figure called Ezekiel, which in the end lead nowhere but One More/Brand New Day.

Now, Romita's taken an assignment drawing a special that perpetuates a terrible disfavor to even his legendary dad's hard work on Spidey from 1966, when Mary Jane was first introduced visually as much as in script reference. And this is what's being offered for the sake of a new variation on FCBD? It's very sad there's bound to be plenty of people who'll fall for this, and what if they decide to shell out 5-plus dollars for more stultifying storytelling in the regular Spidey series as a result? Let's hope that won't be the case. But for now, it's regrettable how Spidey, as much as any other Marvel hero and series, has been exploited for such useless tripe when the real deal ended long ago as a result of so much artistic mismanagement.

Some fishy and troubling panels from the portfolio of the disgraced artist Justiniano

In past years, I'd taken a look at the shoddy resumes of terrible writers like Gerard Jones and Neil Gaiman, who were both accused of sexual misconduct, but until now, I don't think I'd ever looked at the works of artists who were accused/prosecuted/convicted of similar offenses. So now, I thought it could come in useful to take a look at a number of panels from the portfolio of the disgraced artist Justiniano (whose real name is said to be Josue Rivera), the earliest comics contributor I know of to be arrested and convicted for possession of child porn, which was almost 15 years ago.

To be sure, figuring out the mindset of a corrupt artist can be trickier than that of a corrupt writer, since the artist's job is primarily to realize the visions of the writer for a comic, but of course there are plenty of artists who're as much part of the creative process in developing a story as there are writers, and can be just as responsible for certain ingredients going into the script, maybe even more. So I guess that's what I wanted to investigate here, and while some of the fishy going-ons in these samples could be more the responsibility of the writers, the artist still could be just as responsible for anything terrible that occurs in them. Justiniano, from what I know, originally began his undeserved career in 1995, and most interesting is that while he was in the business for 15 years, much of his pretentious resume was largely guest roles; almost none of his portfolio contains any regular runs, save for maybe 2 miniseries, which are decidedly some of the worst stuff I've ever seen, having reevaluated whatever artwork he did within that time. One can also wonder if the abusive mindset Justiniano went by that got him jailed for at least a few years explains why he signed almost his entire resume under a pseudonym. He began with at least 2 stories for Marvel, and much of the rest of his career in mainstream was for DC. So, let's take a look for starters at a panel he drew for Incredible Hulk #434, which had been written for over a decade by the late Peter David:

Now, I know David was, sadly, quite a leftist himself, and this looks rather oddly like an early insult to Donald Trump, but for all we know, even Justiniano could've been just as negative towards conservatives back in the day. Next is a fishy item from What If's 2nd volume, issue 69:

So there's an odd comment made about who designed the costumes in this tale, as though Justiniano was trying an absurd defense for how uninspired they really are, and a precursor to something else that came along a few years later, which is coming up next. But first, from Young Justice 80-page Giant, written by the aforementioned David:

Viewed in the context of Justiniano's offenses, one could say the irony here is that somebody may have to watch in horror at how Justiniano turned out to be somebody abusive to children. Something which, if realists want to prevent it, should not be just a distant memory, nor any of Justiniano's other insults to the intellect when he was working in mainstream comicdom. And then, look at how the dialect speaks of "evil preying upon the weak", and somebody having "no imagination". Because that can just as easily sum up what a scumbag like Justiniano was doing, and what he was like too. Now, for a 4-part miniseries spotlighting Beast Boy from the Titans, which was co-written by Geoff Johns and Ben Raab, and decidedly did no favors in the long run for Flamebird/Bette Kane. For example:

The story is weak, and decidedly so is the whole cliche of a woman who turns out to be a villainess being drawn as sexy, not to mention how the sexual harrasment scene in the story turned out to be a setup. Based on Justiniano's behavior, or viewed in that context, that's why it could be argued what he did here was almost like a bizarre denial that sexual misconduct exists, making it look like, not only do all women lie about being victims of sexual misconduct, but that such lies are routine, and this was about 4 years before the offensive Identity Crisis miniseries was published.

And here, what's annoying is how Flamebird's made to look stupid, as though she couldn't figure out the police won't take checks by masked superdoers if they don't have the actual identity and credentials of the signer. In other words, the writers and artist made Bette look like a bimbo, and certainly worse than "ditzy". Also, regarding the costume design, did I mention it looks like she's wearing trousers in this story? When George Perez designed her post-Crisis outfit in the late 80s, it had bare leg style. I guess this was Justiniano's way of virtue-signaling, by toning down how hot Bette could be under better creators. (Update: there do also appear to be some early art samples from the times where Bette does appear to be drawn with trousers, but the poorly designed outfit by Justiniano seen below still stands as a shoddy example of virtue-signaling.) And then:

So first, Nightwing puts her down, and her way of proving she's up to the task of being a "serious" crimefighter is to design a more modest outfit - with decidedly unappealing shades of color, I might add - and she even has shorter hair in this redesign. This too, if to focus on the artist, reeks of another example of tasteless virtue-signaling. Obviously, even the writers have to shoulder blame for what I think is a most shoddy costume design, but again, if the artist has fault here, then this is quite possibly another example of how Justiniano sought to conceal what a scumbag he really was, an early example of wokeness, and for the time, it's amazing he still drew Bette as busty, because today, without a doubt, the disgraceful people now minding the store at DC would make sure even that was destroyed. Back at the time, I may not have particularly minded the costume design when I first saw it, but today, I think it's one of the most horrible I've ever seen, and an insult to the original creators of Bat-Girl/Flamebird. Next is another atrocious scene, along with one more panel:

Gee, that's all we need, a shoddy excuse to see Beast Boy hitting a woman, in a comic illustrated by a man who was arrested/convicted for child porn possession, right? As for that panel where Bette is helping unpack accessories and furniture, perhaps based on Justiniano's rancid behavior that got him jailed and destroyed his career, it could be argued he had no business drawing the alleged cousin of Gar staring at her rear, though even that's watered down, along with her hair. Also, the whole idea of Madame Rouge having a daughter who's as shape-shifting as she was is contrived, as the scene where Gar socks her is disgusting. I don't think the daughter character was ever seen again, but regardless of that, this was an early example of how DC was losing direction when Geoff Johns became a writer for them. Here's also a letter page from the miniseries:

What makes Justiniano's artwork here a "revelation"? His art for the time was otherwise uninspired and overrated. And neither Johns nor Raab did a good writing job here. The miniseries may have been reprinted as part of the subsequent Teen Titans series Johns also wrote, but today I'd recommend it not be reprinted for a long time so as not to finance Justiniano's wallet, and besides, IMO, nobody would be missing anything; it's just so tiresome.

Now, since the Titans are one of the items to which Justiniano had art credits, here's at least 3 panels from issues 3-4 of the 1999-2003 series for starters, which was initially written by Devin Grayson, and the 1st annual, which was again written by Johns and Raab:

Now, as you'll notice here, Starfire's wearing a less revealing outfit. How fascinating, viewed in the context of Justiniano's offenses, that one of the most beloved cast members of the Titans is being drawn with an outfit that conceals her legs and arms, if anything. It's certainly enough to wonder why Wonder Woman sometimes seems like the only DC superheroine whose hot outfit anybody in or out of the company is willing to respect and defend. This is also what some tend to call a form of virtue-signaling, and obviously, an attempt by the artist to hide behind "morality" while concealing his dark side. Oddly enough, when Johns and Mike McKone penned their shoddy take on Teen Titans in 2003, they actually had Starfire wearing the classic outfit, but by the following decade, DC were forcing designs similar to what Justiniano drew here onto her and the stories. Perhaps we have Scott Lobdell, another creator with a questionable record of his own, to partially blame for that.

Now here, we see a guy making a lewd-looking pass at whom I think is the "Joker's Daughter", and next comes a very questionable moment where sexual abuse is brought up, and there's 2 reasons why that part's been damaged: one is Justiniano's being the artist, but there's also Grayson's own embarrassingly bad subsequent story in Nightwing where she depicted a crook named Tarantula sexually assaulting the former Teen Wonder, although to Mrs. Grayson's credit, she did later apologize, unlike Brad Meltzer, who to date has never apologized for minimizing the subject in Identity Crisis. Next, from the Titans annual:

There's 2 reasons why this would-be "joke" tanks - one is because of the artist, and the second is because it also evokes an Islamic belief that it's okay to have sex with goats. Let's also recall Johns later came up with a Muslim character in Green Lantern, all written for the sake of making a political statement, so perhaps it's not too surprising he, along with Raab, would come up with a "joke" involving animals that doesn't hold up well when one considers what goes on in the Islamic world.

I don't like what reeks of an allusion to video games like Mortal Kombat either, and the way the Japanese guy is written calling Flamebird "stupid American" is decidedly also annoying. Also notice how the flat-tire sex jokes continue here. (Also, the way the name of the team uses logo-style letters in the word balloon was laughable long ago.) That aside, note how Justiniano's shoddy, poorly colored redesign of Bette's costume is also on display here, and funny how Flash and Arsenal are written insulting both the costume and her "new attitude", which in the following panels includes bleeped profanity:

Wow, so in order to depict her as more "serious", she has to be portrayed as more profane too? More of what the world needs, naturally. Johns, Raab and Justiniano's take on Flamebird is decidedly one of the worst. Now, here's some panels from 2 issues of the Flash's 2nd volume that were illustrated by Justiniano, 190 and 219. First:

Now, if we were to comment on Justiniano's behavior through this stuff, one could say he didn't listen to victims of sexual abuse when he hoarded child pornography that later got discovered after he accidentally gave a computer memory plug to a staffer at a funeral home. Also, if to comment on the premise of the Trickster himself becoming an FBI agent, even by the surreal standards of a fictional world like the DCU, that's still asking readers to buy a lot, based on all the criminal activities James Jesse performed in earlier stories. And the way the Pied Piper, Hartley Rathaway, is depicted calling upon rats as a backup is honestly disgusting. It should be noted this story alludes to the homosexual status William Messner-Loebs bestowed upon the Piper back in 1990, and one can only wonder if Justiniano took the job guest-penciling this issue as another way to virtue-signal from a leftist perspective. Now from issue 219:

In addition to crude and overrated the artwork looks here, a sign of how Justiniano's art was becoming more mediocre over time, we see for example the disgusting sight of how the Cheetah appears to have murdered a man for the sake of blood as a sacrifice ritual, and then, if we put in again in the context of Justiniano himself, that's awfully rich to depict somebody claiming he's not a villain, when the artist must've thought the same in his own insane way at the time, his criminal offense notwithstanding. Also note how this issue alludes to the repellent Identity Crisis and Dr. Light made out to sound like he's the victim, not Sue Dibny. And then:

How can the artist have committed a serious crime and thought he wasn't crazy? His brain clearly didn't grow with the rest of himself either. Not to mention that again, his artwork looks increasingly galling here too, as is the next panel:

Which again alludes disgustingly to Identity Crisis, and the way some heroines are dragged into the mess in the dialogue is also atrocious. So too is the following:

A few pages prior, Johns' shoddy caricature of the Reverse-Flash told Cheetah he was only seeking to make the Flash a "better hero", but here, this is the result of his causing a police car to explode, murdering 2 officers inside. And then:

An elderly woman is murdered by the Cheetah, making for another atrocious example of how death-violence was becoming much too emphasized at the time. This story was wrapped up in an issue of Wonder Woman it crossed over with. But even there, it was embarrassingly bad, and this story hints at how Justiniano was lending his "talents" to increasingly dark storytelling. On which note, here's another something horrific, a page from Day of Vengeance, which was closely tied to the Infinite Crisis crossover, and written by none other than Bill Willingham:

This is decidedly the only page I'll be posting here, because the way it forced Jean Loring into such a repulsive position - turning her into a much more twisted female version of Eclipso, was unbearably sick. I remember an Ohio newspaper writer saying it looked like one end of a conversation in which a woman is being sexually harassed. This is another example of the kind of increasingly dark and vile stories Justiniano was contributing to, and he must've really enjoyed what he was doing, based on how negative the scripts were to women. As for Willingham, this is exactly why, to date, I couldn't bring myself to buy Fables, because his willingness to write such repellent stories that contradict whatever positive messaging he allegedly had to offer in the Fables series. As a right-winger, one could say he gave the standing a bad name, and in an industry now dominated by leftists, he has to shoulder some blame for perpetuating some of the tactics they uphold, like insulting fanbases. How does Willingham feel about having worked with an artist who turned out to be a pervert? Who knows? All I know is that any continued refusal of his to apologize for participating in Dan DiDio's repellent conduct 2 decades ago speaks volumes. If there's something that shouldn't be reprinted based on the artist's offenses in real life, this would have to be it. Now, here's at least 2 panels from Justiniano's work on a volume of the Creeper back then:

Somehow, this reeks of more liberal propaganda, and honestly sounds stupid regardless. Yet that could explain why the disgraceful Justiniano took this art task.

And when this scene more noticeably makes it sound like the Creeper is some sort of a right-wing villain controlling a left-winger, that's got to be telling too. All that aside, it's disgusting. Now, here's some panels from a miniseries Justiniano drew called - are you ready for this? - Reign in Hell, and it was written by Keith Giffen:

Another disgusting example of where Justiniano was going in terms of art assignments, and the part about the lead "not getting married" decidedly speaks volumes too; notice how the girl's made to look like she's an idiot and the guy with the hat implies women are all jerks or worse. In context of Justiniano's offenses, that could be giving another vital clue what was wrong with him. Now, here's some panels from one of the last projects he worked on, some series DC published based on Will Eisner's Spirit, in a sad example of how a mainstream company that's no longer qualified to handle a famous artist's creations got their mitts on them...and has now tainted them with the art of a bad man:

There's something troubling about the above panels for starters when it involves "bratty" kids causing an annoyance with their sobbing.

And then, what's this? Some attempt to make it sound like the villain called Octopus is trying to brainwash the lady into something perverse? When an artist as awful as Justiniano turned out to be draws something like this, something is terribly wrong.

Oh, and is this some kind of subtle insult to Ellen Dolan, made worse by conveying it through the mouth of another woman? It certainly serves as an example of how profanity was really becoming used in ridiculous, heavy handed ways by this time.

"Through with female bodies"? Again, we have something that, viewed in context of the scoundrel artist, winds up being fishy.

And what's this, an attempt to disguise the artist's twisted mindset by having a woman be the one to do something potentially scummy? Well, it's certainly fishy and irritating viewed in that context. I know there were a number of Golden Age stories where Dennis Colt took on villainesses, but here, it all takes on a whole new meaning under Justiniano.

Now here, this is a rare example for its time where Islamic terrorism is alluded to, but they make it look like even Indians pull such monstrosities, for example, and that's offensive. Also disturbing is the realization the Octopus here could be a metaphor for the USA, which would make it another leftist example of claiming westerners sell and fund their own destruction.

Now it's not like the French are saints, but the way this story makes them out to look bad, as in the case of the lady crook, or just plain stupid, as in the case of the male detective, has gotten old and rotten 10 million years ago. And again, when somebody like Justiniano is the artist, what's seen here takes on a whole new meaning. Not to mention that by today's standards, considering what France has been victimized by today, that's another reason this story hasn't aged well.

Here's another something that's been massively damaged viewed in light of Justiniano's crimes. Also note how the broadcast is on "Pox News", apparently their idea of a stealth insult to Fox broadcasting, and the following character in the next panels reeks of a potential metaphor for conservative-run companies:

It wouldn't surprise me if the bigwig Dennis Colt is confronting were a metaphor for figures like Rupert Murdoch. Otherwise, chances DC would actually publish this drivel misusing Eisner's creation are minimal. And then, look how they bring up Andy Warhol's point about 15 minutes of fame. That's what Justiniano brought himself in the end when he was arrested for illegally storing child porn.

Anyway, it's been about 15 years since Justiniano's worthless career collapsed, and while I realize the above panels may not all entirely reflect his political outlook alone, since the writers obviously are the primary source of such viewpoints, it's still possible they could offer what to think about when it comes to Justiniano's twisted viewpoints, and could explain why he took the assignments in his shoddy career that was built almost entirely upon guest penciling, and became increasingly mediocre or worse by the time he was arrested. What he did to Flamebird - and especially to Jean Loring - is decidedly inexcusable. I find it embarrassingly bad that any artists on Deviant Art would draw illustrations of Bette Kane wearing the outfit Justiniano concocted, which pales horribly next to the design Perez drew for her in the late 80s, and hope there's artists out there who're willing to draw something dedicated more to Perez's designs. It'd also be highly appreciated if there's any artists willing to draw illustrations of Jean Loring dedicated to her image as a good girl too. Thank goodness what I've seen of Starfire on Deviant Art has more that's dedicated to Perez's costume designs for her from 45 years ago.

And let's hope we never see Justiniano trying to reenter the art profession again. He really was a bad influence, and his use of a pseudonym has to be quite telling too.