The Four Color Media Monitor

It looks like, impressively enough, somebody's got common sense to recognize the harm DC editorial is doing to Superman by forcing the LGBT agenda into the franchise, as colorist Gabe Eltaeb is resigning over the woke atrocity forced upon Superman's recently created son. Fox News says:

A colorist involved in creating the Superman comic says he is quitting his position in response to the "wokeness" that has permeated the franchise.

"I’m finishing out my contract with DC. I’m tired of this s***, I’m tired of them ruining these characters; they don’t have a right to do this," Superman: Son of Kal-El colorist Gabe Eltaeb said during a recent podcast, according to Bounding Into Comics.

"What really pissed me off was saying truth, justice, and a better world," Eltaeb added. "F*** that it was Truth, Justice, and the American way," he said. "My Grandpa almost died in World War II; we don’t have a right to destroy shit that people died for to give us. It’s a bunch of f****** nonsense."

[...] For those unfamiliar with the current continuity of DC Comics, there are currently two heroes operating as Superman. One is Clark Kent, who originally debuted in comic books in 1938. The second is his and Lois Lane’s son, Jon Kent. Essentially, Jon spent some time as Superboy before his father recently convinced him to take on the title of Superman as well.

It makes no difference if there's 2 different characters. Not only are they normalizing homosexuality and playing it for cheap sensationalism here, it taints the franchise as a whole, and while I may not care for merchandise as much as the original comics, this whole embarrassment could discourage people from wearing t-shirts with the Superman logo upon them, buying Halloween costumes based on the famous outfit, or even plastic action figures for their children to play with. None of which means anything to repellant ideologues who so far have yet to speak to these press outlets and explain why they think this atrocity is inherently justified. And while we're on the issue, this debacle has quite a few apologists, tragically enough, and the latest one is none other than Graeme McMillan in the Hollywood Reporter:

Judging by the new Superman mission statement unveiled during this weekend’s DC FanDome, these days, it just might be a reference to the optimism inherent in the character. “Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow” replaces the old-school “Truth, Justice and the American Way” — a shift that has garnered all kinds of attention for the shift away from a nationalism that, for those with long memories, he officially abandoned a decade ago when he renounced his American citizenship.

Dropping the “American Way” makes sense, given the increasingly global markets that DC is operating within. It’s also entirely in keeping with promoting the company’s premiere superteam as Justice League even though it was created and published for close to four decades as “Justice League of America.” But what does a “Better Tomorrow” say about Superman as a concept and his current place inside DC and pop culture as a whole?

What the awful McMillan's saying is that Superman cannot be celebrated within the framework of USA-based culture. It would be offensive to say Hungarians, French, Mexicans and Danish can't celebrate with their cultural aspects, so why are Americans the only ones who can't do the same?

Beyond simply reflecting his aging audience, the repositioning of Superman as a parent changed what the larger Superman story is all about. What had previously been the ultimate immigrant assimilation story was altered significantly by introducing a generational element. It’s no longer enough to save the day; now there’s an unanswered question about whether or not Superman has done enough to make the world a better place for his children, and their children, and so on.

It's also no longer enough to tell a good story built on merit, in the twisted mindset of these charlatans. The only reason why the audience is "aging" is because the modern management's pathetically failed to market Superman and the rest of the DCU successfully, with the foremost mistakes being their vehement refusal to tell a story on merit, and instead base their writing on ideology, as we're seeing now. McMillan also perpetuates the "immigrant" distortion, when here, how could infant Kal-El have truly immigrated when he was rocketed to Earth to save his life from being consumed by Krypton's destruction?

That’s a reference intended to be taken literally; aged-up via comic book logic, Jon Kent took on the mantle of Superman for himself in the Superman: Son of Kal-El series, which launched this July. Jon is the Superman that came out as bisexual last week, just as it was announced that he’ll also protest for climate justice early next year. “More responsible and serious about social issues,” indeed.

Superman is far from being alone in terms of one superhero identity becoming a virtual franchise; Marvel has no less than three Spider-Men at this point, as well as two Wolverines and a multitude of Hulks. Elsewhere in Superman’s own DC Universe, there are two Wonder Women (and a number of Wonder Girls, as well), as well as three Flashes and literally thousands of Green Lanterns. Consider it the result of multiple forces, from a narrative need to extend the lifespans of core concepts to a marketing impulse to create multiple variations on an idea in order to appeal to the largest possible audiences available.

In other words, they underestimate everyone's intelligence, assuming LGBT practitioners, for example, will only read about a superhero who's homosexual or transsexual, and people of different skin color will only read stories starring the same. They refuse to convince the public why it's worth reading these stories based on entertainment value foremost, and while having a few different versions of the same superpower carriers can be fine in itself, political structures are what ruin everything. Who knows how much of that plagues GL Corp now? Once, there was a time when Green Lantern worked well with the setup of several thousand ring-bearers working within various different space sectors, but of recent, it's become more ideologically structured, with more focus on Earth-born Lanterns developed for diversity propaganda, particularly Geoff Johns' addition of Simon Baz, the Muslim adherent whose very origin nearly a decade ago was political. And Marvel's approach is just as bad, since all they've done is not only resort to identity politics, but watering down the original characters' impact by concocting multiple characters with the same powers built on said politics.

Even as the Clark Kent Superman continues his own never-ending battle in the ongoing Action Comics series (He’s departing Earth to fight injustice in space, leaving the planet to be looked after by his son), Jon gets to take over the familiar S shield and remake Superman in his own image…one that is more inclusive, and more politically active. It’s an arguably more difficult approach to creating a being a hero than simply fighting bad guys — one that sees truth and justice as things beyond simply what is legal — allowing a glimpse at the intent behind the new slogan.

The part about political activity says it all. This shameful reporter is nothing more than a shill for failure, and identity politics.

And since we're talking about politics invading escapist entertainment, it gets worse - as reported by the Indian Express, it looks like a new cartoon based on the Injustice game features Superman wrecking havoc upon Kashmir, which is angering residents of India:

The new DC animated film Injustice has landed itself in controversy after it allegedly called Kashmir ‘disputed’. The film is an adaptation of the video-game series of the same name that also spawned comic books.

[...] The clip, that went viral on social media, had the iconic superhero making short work of an aircraft, with a voice-over saying he along with Wonder Woman destroyed “every piece of military equipment”, and declared Kashmir an “arms-free” zone.

The clip does not make it clear if he destroyed the military hardware of every country or just India as the clip did not mention any country. The video also showed the superhero forcing representatives of Israel and Palestine to agree on a peace deal.

Well gee, this is getting more sickening by the minute. Israeli realists could say this is where Warner Brothers has truly dealt a smack in the face to Siegel/Shuster, and also William Marston and H.G. Peter. India Today says:

The video, after being uploaded, has been viewed over 1.3 lakh times. Netizens were just not happy with the depiction of Kashmir and called it out for being blatantly wrong.

“How about Superman, Wonder Woman & DC doing something about Afghanistan,” a user said.

Another user commented, “Superman had a huge fan base in India, now be ready to lose it”.

They're correct. Afghanistan's in ruins due to Joe Biden's disastrous retreat, with Americans still stuck behind enemy lines, and WB's putting out something like this? And as noted by Republic World:

One user on Twitter claimed, "Indian Air Force F/A-18D "Hornets", armed with AIM-9L "Sidewinder" InfraRed (IR) Close Combat Missiles (CCMs) is being destroyed by renowned Justice League icon Superman over Kashmir." It is to be noted that India does not fly US-made F-18 Hornets and Super Hornets, so there is less than an iota of realism in the DC film. Meanwhile, several netizens expressed that DC's portrayal of Kashmir as a disputed region is completely false, given Kashmir as well as PoK being Indian territories, the latter being forcibly occupied by Pakistan.

As per reports, Injustice was scheduled to release worldwide on October 19, 2021, however, it was leaked online earlier this month. After the new clip of the movie started circulating on the web, social media users started pointing out how DC is in-effect contributing to Pakistani propaganda of portraying Kashmir as a disputed region and wrongly depicting the Indian military as an occupying force.

If there really are planes resembling F-18 Hornets in this cartoon, one can only wonder if that's a stealth assault on the USA by extension. Considering how far Warner Brothers/AT&T, as the owner of the brand, leans to the left these days, it's hardly a shock from a western perspective they could churn out propaganda as hurtful to India as it is to Israel, by taking a morally equivalent approach to the subject, and obscuring the PLO was and still is a jihadist organization that should never have been allowed to take control of the regions it did within Israel. Now, they also seem to be taking a stance that could be siding with Pakistan, a country overrun with jihadism, despite Kashmir being part of India for a long time. What makes this disturbing is because Pakistan takes the side of the Taliban, and so, to make it look like the animators are siding with a country whose ideological perspective is evil only makes the cartoon's Injustice title look all the more fitting for the wrong reasons. Worst, it compounds what's gone wrong with a whole entertainment industry vehemently refusing to tackle serious issues like the Islamic terrorism that led to Sept. 11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center 20 years ago.

Adventures in Poor Taste, of all places, actually gave the cartoon a negative review, and said:

Sadly, this adaptation gets collapsed under its own ambition. Like a superhero crossover event, it juggles too many characters and doesn’t quite how to use everyone, let alone find an emotional angle. [...]

Considering the dark and tragic events that occur throughout the movie, moments like the death of Lois Lane don’t hit as hard as it should, because the movie is rushing to establish many other things. There’s even a whole subplot where Green Arrow is protecting Harley Quinn, which doesn’t go anywhere, other than to show how comically crazy she always is.

This is definitely a case where the filmmakers are just reveling in the massive treasure that is the DC universe, albeit a dark parallel one, without much resonance, not even on an animation standpoint. With an animation style that evokes the recent animated Mortal Kombat movies, Injustice is one of exploding gory violence, but blood is shed and unfortunately falls into a recurring pitfall that has plagued a number of DC animated flicks.

Knowing full well this is adapting a source material that outs a more mature spin on these colorful characters, there is something off in the way the movie tries to earn its R-rating, in which these heroes are swearing and getting bloodied for the sake of being edgy. There is some fan-service such as certain super-moves that you can achieve in the games, but the action here seems so uninspired, despite the plethora of superpowers going on.

Why must Lois' death in this tale hit hard at all? More specifically, why must she perish? Why no point made that this is sick? And to think, that only so many recent cartoon adaptations are relying on gore galore, surely in a way that makes some of the most bloody Japanese cartoons look tame by comparison. If anything, the studio's attempt to ape the Japanese is exactly why it all fails, mainly because they don't provide anything honest in terms of real life issues, and thus, nothing to think about, save for indoctrination. I don't think DC/Marvel should be solely for children, but when story creators make such famous franchises unsuitable even for adults, and assume grownups literally beg for bloodletting and raw dialogue, that's how you know everything's gone horribly topsy-turvy.

So in addition to the Superman brand being soiled with forced ideology, there's also the animated films based on the brand being soiled by hurtful politics, and effectively driving away many of the Man of Steel's foreign fans as well. Worst part is the realization that WB/DC ideologues tragically don't care if they destroy peoples' perceptions along with sales altogether. Gabe Eltaeb did the right thing to quit his job there.

Labels: animation, bad editors, dc comics, Europe and Asia, golden calf of death, islam and jihad, Justice League of America, licensed products, misogyny and racism, politics, Superman, violence, Wonder Woman