Talking Comics Podcast 07/09/14

I’m interested in the Rocket Raccoon series now. I’ve hated the way that Brian Bendis has been writing him (“Blam! Murdered you!” Jesus.), so it’ll be good to see someone else writing him.

Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning had a series called Annihilators, half of which was a massively fun Rocket and Groot story. It’s worth checking out.

Also worth checking out is the 2003 Thanos series, written by Jim Starlin and later by Keith Giffen. It’s all very good, but the Giffen half is particularly interesting as it introduced a lot of things that would be important in Annihilation and the rest of the Marvel cosmic stuff up to the modern Guardians, including the Kyln, the reintroduction of Star Lord and a bunch of other stuff.

Regarding the #FireRickRemender nonsense: Beginning with a false premise and demanding that Remender loose his job pretty much guaranteed that any chance a civil, rational discussion was dead on arrival. Of course, that was probably intended. The reason unreasoning anger is such a popular and prevalent response to things is that, at a neurochemical level, outrage feels really good. It makes your brain feel good to get pissed off about stuff.

The controversy, such as it is, probably won’t survive the week. No one will reassess their views based on a reexamination of the available evidence. There will be no consideration of the lessons learned. It’s nothing new. It may or may not be characteristic of the internet in general, but it certainly is of the Comics Internet. In some ways it reminds me of the kerfuffle (or was it a brouhaha?) from last year, when it was widely reported that Apple was not allowing Comixology to sell Saga #12 through its iOS App. People screamed about censorship, accused Apple (a company with a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign) of homophobia, and called for a boycott. When, scarcely 24 hours later, it came out that Comixology hadn’t actually submitted the issue to Apple, the collective response from the Comics Internet was to shuffle its feet a little, look at its shoes, and mumble, “Oh, uh, never mind.”

As far as the #firerickremender thing is concerned I feel like this.  If you don't like something, the loudest voice you have is your wallet.  Spend your money on what you like and skip what you don't.  It's deplorable that anyone would threaten rape via the internet.  It's easy to say wild stuff when you are not accountable.  You're right people love to have stuff to be mad at and are quick to jump at the first thing they hear and like (I think Steve said) they make the comments then they walk away and forget the whole thing.  How irresponsible people have become with their words.  I have had experiences on the internet where I was angered by what some anonymous someone said and I thought to myself "I bet they wouldn't say that to my face".  I really try to avoid conversations that are incendiary and try even harder not to care what random people say on the internet. 

To sum it up if you don't like a writer, speak with your wallet.  If enough people agree then he/she will be gone. 

On the upside.  I love Arrow and have from the beginning.  I could care less about the Atom as I have no prior history with the character but as I have loved everything else they have done I have no reason to think that I won't love the Atom too.

Also after the show I read the new Rocket Raccoon and after just catching up on Moon Knight and a couple other dark comics it was a breath of fresh air.  Someone on the show (maybe Bobby) said he was basically Han Solo and they were right.  I loved every panel.  Absolutely Fan-Frickin-Tastic!  I'm all in for this book. 

As always I loved the show.  You guys are so great!  I listen to the show after out morning meeting every Wednesday and it just makes my day.  I used to come to work like "It's only Wednesday"  *sigh* and now I'm all "Hump Daaaaay!!!!"

PhilyD,

You're absolutely right about voting with your wallet! I've already "fired" Rick Remender by not buying his Captain America!

Thanks for the kind words, and glad we can help with Wednesday! (Boy, that's tough to spell after two glasses of wine and no dinner yet!)

re: #fireRickRemender and the ensuing drama, I think you guys nailed it six ways to Sunday.

For me, there are at least a few takeaways, the most contemptible obviously being the rape threats and such (who does that? I mean, really?! Who would ever conceive of doing or saying such a thing? It's obviously not the first time this has happened, we just went through this whole bit a month or two ago, but it will never not be shocking and well-beyond deplorable, and your assertion that anyone who'd ever consider saying those sorts of things to another person in any situation whatsoever should seek psychiatric care is dead-on). Such behavior is beyond comprehension, no 'if's, 'and's, or 'but's.  I hope to live to see a day when the human race has decided, en masse, that such things are never acceptable or ok, for any reason, full-stop.

The second is the extremely dubious and to-me utterly ridiculous origin of the whole thing to begin with; ie. the blogger who started the hashtag and her assertion that there was a crime depicted. As you correctly said, Jet mentions her 23rd birthday right there on the page, which i've absolutely no doubt was 100% intentional by Remender/editorial, and meant to clear up any and all potential confusion about the nature of what was going to happen next. Honestly, it makes me wonder as to how literate these people are that misconstrued what was going on as rape of any sort, let alone Sam raping Jet (if anything, under the most ludicrously-broad definition of the term, if there as any rape going on there, it would be a date-rape or roofie scenario wherein Sam was the victim, not Jet, but LET ME MAKE IT PERFECTLY, OVER-THE-TOP CLEAR that that, too, would be a pretty absurd interpretation of the events, and, honestly, as Dean Trippe was verbally attacked for pointing out the other day, that the term "rape" is being thrown around at all over this thing is or-at-least-ought-to-be a vile insult to any person who has been a victim of any sort of sexual assault). It bothers me immensely that anyone could read those few panels/pages and come away with the idea that there was anything going on there *other* than two adults sharing a few drinks, sleeping with each other as adults so often do in that situation, and then waking up a bit groggy the next morning with that ol' "What the fuck happened last night?" situation, and then realizing there'd been a drunken hookup.

Too, the originator of the hashtag and the controversy did nothing to quell her initial sin with her total non-apology a few days later (link), which also bugs me to no end.  Read it, then read the comments at the bottom.  The blog itself is absolutely infuriating (non-apologies in general tend to piss me off, and this is definitely no exception), and reeks of after-the-fact revisionism, but then some of my faith in humanity and reason is restored in the comments section, as the most upvoted and reasonable stuff (at least at the time that I read it yesterday) was in the "i'm calling you out on your bullshit non-apology" camp, for the most part (the reference I made a second ago to Dean Trippe getting flack can be seen in here, somewhere in the middle).  I like The Mary Sue, I read almost everything they post (which, honestly, isn't always of good quality, but whatevs), and I was mollified to some degree that the majority of the followers/commenters from even that site, with that particular fanbase, were largely unimpressed by the hashtag originator's malarkey.

And she makes it clear in her "apology" that the whole thing stems from her long-running issues with Remender in general, including his treatment of several characters spanning years of writing several different books.  Which, to me, whether she's being revisionist or not, makes it even worse!  It's like you guys said, why the hell is she reading a book (or multiple books, apparently) that she hates to begin with!  And then to try and transform a personal dissatisfaction with a writer into a full-on hate campaign centered around getting the dude fired . . fuck me, that's lunacy!  And totally out of bounds.  And not civilized behavior, at all.  You don't like the book?  Don't read the book.  Is that really too difficult a concept?  Of all the books that come out every Wednesday, i'm only bound to enjoy a small, limited percentage of them.  AND THAT'S OK.  That's how it works.  I deal.  I find the ones I like, and I get those (at least so far as I can afford them), and the rest I don't fucking worry about.  I've been vocal recently about how much I dislike Bendis on Guardians, but it would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER occur to me to publicly throw a litany of vicious and very serious accusations at him and try and get him fired from the book on false (or any other sort of) pretenses.  To me, he's a painfully mediocre writer, but that's a thing that happens in comics, and in film, and in newsprint, and all the fuck over the internet, and in novels, and everywhere else that writing is a thing.  How entitled and ego-maniacal would a person have to be to make the leap from "I can't stand how this person writes" to "BECAUSE I can't stand how this person writes, I should falsely accuse him of racism, and of trivializing sexual assault in an attempt to get him fired and have his career ruined," 'cause that's quite a leap.  Just . . ugh.  Boo, on her.  Booooooo.  And further boo's for the people who have picked up on her hashtag nonsense and help spread it and supported her.

The rest?  Well certainly the tendency of the internet in viral mode is "shout now, consider tomorrow (or never at all)", but we already knew that, didn't we.  People rally around controversy, no matter how hollow it is, doubly so on the webz.

One of the few things that i've been glad to see from all this is the response from the other industry pros backing Remender up (for which they, too, have been unfairly roasted); I thought that was fantastic, and my estimation of each of them got a little bump.  Otherwise, i'm going to try my best to forget every, any, and all aspects of this whole thing ever happened.  It's just been ugly, on top of ugly, on top of ugly, and it's already gotten way too much attention from all corners.