Hey Marvel, it’s not you, it’s your progressive agenda

Several months ago Bleeding Cool reported that Marvel Comics will shift its books away from politics and back to storytelling, action, and adventure. As I noted in my previous post about the change, Marvel’s sales took a hit in recent years. Their numbers are not low enough to result in bankruptcy, however, they are low enough to cause concern. The reason is that most of the books with low numbers are their newer titles. Many of these books feature so-called “diverse” characters. Despite Marvel’s active promotion of the books, the titles simply do not sell.

One person at Marvel has an explanation for this. ICv2 interview Marvel VP of Sales David Gabriel. Gabriel responded to several questions about the impact of the “diversity” initiative at Marvel:

Part of it, but I think also it seemed like tastes changed, because stuff you had been doing in the past wasn’t working the same way. Did you perceive that or are we misreading that?

No, I think so. I don’t know if those customers with the tastes that had been around for three years really supporting nearly anything that we would try, anything that we would attempt, any of the new characters we brought up, either they weren’t shopping in that time period, or maybe like you said their tastes have changed.

There was definitely a sort of nose-turning at the things that we had been doing successfully for the past three years, no longer viable. We saw that, and that’s what we had to react to. Yes, it’s all of that.

It is not a matter of people’s tastes changing. If it were, one would expect a greater audience, not the ever shrinking audience that the industry has seen in the past two decades. The problem here was that Marvel attempted to appeal to people who do not buy their product and are more interested in identity politics. The books that Gabriel claims were a success all saw dwindling numbers within a year of their release. Gabriel names several characters — Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl — so let us look at the debut and current sales of their books:

Marvel Comics abandons its feminist agenda

Marvel Comics decided to abandon their pandering to the progressives and feminists. I have noted several times that for all the political bootlicking Marvel engaged in, it did not result in strong sales. While one can argue that the films and TV shows provide greater revenue streams for Marvel and Disney, the comics still need to make money to justify their publication.

Marvel’s sales have not fallen so low that the publisher would close its publishing branch, but they have not been that good. The Star Wars books sell better than many formly popular superhero titles. This is primarily due to Marvel scrapping or demoting the original heroes.

Marvel did this to bring in new readers. Yet rather than try to win over those who love the films and shows, Marvel decided to appeal to the far left. They introduced identity politics into their comics, and took to alienating their core fan base. These are the same fans who stuck with Marvel after the horrendous Spider-Man clone saga storyline, the company filing for bankruptcy, and the insanity of repeatedly relaunching titles for the sake of quick #1 money grabs.

Comic book fans are among the most loyal fans. Few things run them off of their favorite books. For some reason, Marvel decided to do three of the most likely things to cost them fans: remove their favorite characters, tarnish the histories of those characters, and insult the fans who complained. The latter proved most insidious because the insults accused fans of racism, sexism, homophobia, and bizarrely resorted to stereotypes about comic book fans.

The power of a false accusation

When I was a child, my grandfather told me a story about a boy.

The boy went to visit relatives. While he was with his cousins, he noticed a woman. The boy whistled at the woman. The woman took offense and told some of her male relatives about it. Those men sought the boy, found him, and tortured him to death. His body was so mutilated that it was difficult to identify him. The boy’s mother had an open casket for his funeral so that people could see what the men had done to her 14-year-old son. The men were found, charged, and taken to trial, but were acquitted. They later admitted that they had killed the boy.

The boy’s name was Emmett Till.

I asked my grandfather why they killed the boy for whistling at the woman. He told me it was because the boy was black and the woman was white. I was about five or six when he told me about Emmett Till. I found it baffling. I could not understand what being black or white had to do with the whistling. My grandfather tried to explain the racial dynamics, but I still could not understand why it mattered.

However, I did understand one thing: the woman probably lied.

Perhaps it was the way my grandfather told me story or perhaps it was just the nature of what he described. As he explained the racial dynamics of the 1950s, the more I thought the woman lied. It turns out that my childhood assumption was true.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Candy

How many memes does it take to get to the center of hypocrisy?

Apparently it only takes one.  Donald Trump Jr. revealed just how hypocritical the left can be. Trump Jr. tweeted: “If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”

The internet lost its collective mind. One look at the news feed reveals how instantaneously people drew together for a dogpile. The general consensus is that the analogy is bigoted, racist, and completely illogical.

That is accurate.

When feminism intersects with reality

Lena Dunham stumbled onto a basic truth about the public: people do not like when you lie about other people.

It is a curious thing as the same people who will object to a blatant lie in one instance will accept the most ridiculous rumors and claims in another instance. Where people tend to draw the line is when the accusation is so wildly out of a person’s character. Case in point, Dunham decided to accuse New York Giant wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. of misogyny and sexual rejection because he ignored her at an event. As Dunham explained to her friend Amy Schumer:

You and I were literally sitting across from each other at the Met Ball, and it was so surreal to get to do that.

I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, “That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.” It wasn’t mean — he just seemed confused.

The vibe was very much like, “Do I want to fuck it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cell phone.” It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, “This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.”

To be fair, Dunham went to the Met Ball dressed in a tuxedo and big glasses. Chances are that Beckham Jr. neither knew who Dunham was or cared, and simply continued on with whatever he was doing.

A message to social justice warriors

Leave it to Sargon of Akkad to remind us of this brilliant piece of advice from the film Team America:

The Curious Case of Trigglypuff

A few days ago I checked my Twitter account and happened upon a curious hashtag: #trigglypuff.

My first response was what is a trigglypuff? A quick Google search provided the answer:

This was but a moment from the spectacle at University of Massachusetts Amherst.