Marvel fires Chuck Wendig to salve alt-reich

[Lonestar]

Exactly what the title says, SW author Chuck Wendig has been fired from Marvel because the Alt-reich got pissy about him including gay folks in previous SW books he wrote.

From his Twitter feed

And his blog which makes his Twitter thread easier to follow.

[The Romulan Republic]

Sigh... Marvel did this? Now I may have to boycott Infinity War Part II (I won't boycott Captain Marvel, because I'm sure the Alt. Reich would want that movie to fail).

[tezunegari]

Didn't they fire him because he was an asshole towards fans and in general on twitter?

[Elheru Aran]

Rommie, you can watch the movies with a minimum of a guilty conscience; the movie division is a long way away from the comics side of Marvel.

As to what happened: there's always two sides to each story. Has Marvel made any announcement about what happened?

[Q99]

Yea, this is a separate division entirely.

Didn't they fire him because he was an asshole towards fans and in general on twitter?

Not really, he was more an asshole towards comicsgate, who're nasty scum known for harassing comics people (and by 'people' I mean 'mostly, though not exclusively, women and other minorities').

Among the people who told CG off or passed around messages of telling them off include: Kurt Busiek, Gail Simone, Neil Gaiman, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jeff Lemire, Larry Hama, Tini Howard, Mark Waid, Magdalene Visaggio, Tom Taylor, Nicola Scott, Fabian Nicieza, Michael Lark, Ramon Villalobos, Greg Pak, Jody Houser, Kelly Thompson, Tim Seeley, Margaret Stohl, Benjamin Percy, Tom King, Frank Cho, Erik Larsen (co-founder of Image and writer of Savage Dragon, who is proudly happy that he got included on their enemies' list), Jordan D. White (current X-men line editor), former marvel EiCs Axel Alonso and Joe Quesada, and while not a creator herself, Marsha Cooke the widow of Darywn Cooke who CG tried to claim.


This is not a complete list, mind you. This is 'marvel firing Wendig for being too harsh on people who are complete harassing assholes the wiiiide majority of the industry hates.'

There's, like, 3-4 industry people on CG's side, one of who had their distribution deal with Antarctic Press (a company who'll sell Trump comics [hero, villain, whatever], they really don't care about people's political affiliation) pulled for harassing comic stores, and another who just had their Indiegogo campaign pulled for violating terms of services.

So yea, comicsgaters will claim it's him being assholes to fans, but it's an incredibly loose definition of 'fans.'

[Q99]

Also, Marvel fairly recently fired Chelsea Cain, who CG hated for having Mockingbird wear a 'Feminist Agenda' T-shirt and she had to put up with a loooot of harassment. And by 'fired' I mean she'd been working on a Vision book for over a year and had four issues in the can before they suddenly cancelled the book one month before launch. It's a 'if you're too mean to harassers you've gone too far,' thing, and it's BS.

Now there's still a lot of good people at Marvel, they have a good number of diverse writers and creators who the editorial seems to support, but there does seem to be bad influence at the top, likely Ike Perlmutter, who's notably conservative and sounds like a fair sized asshole. He had his influence on the movie end reduced some time back (He, ah, was behind the Inhumans push. Largely to spite Fox for them having X-men movie rights), but still has a lot of sway on the board of directors and such due to his large share of ownership.

[Mange]

I think Wendig is an awful writer and I couldn't get through his Aftermath-trilogy, not because of gay characters, but because of his jarring writing style and constant references to Earth mythology and animals that took me out of the story. I won't miss him.

[eMeM]

Have any of you read his tweets?

The man is completely unhinged, with vocabulary of a 12 year old, and vomits tweets with the sustained fire rate putting CIWS to shame. Regardless of politics, having someone who behaves like that on social media and signs it with his own name associated with your brand is the last thing any sane company would want.

But of course he was fired because of evil mysogonist homophobic racist conspiracy xD

[Ralin]

Have any of you read his tweets?

The man is completely unhinged, with vocabulary of a 12 year old, and vomits tweets with the sustained fire rate putting CIWS to shame.

Couldn't have told you off the top of my head who he was before this, but I'm not seeing anything in those tweets I disagree with or would object to an employee saying on their own time.

Seems more than a little tone-deaf on your part to think "He sounds REALLY angry and aggressive and uses lots of bad words for Republicans, so it's good and right that he was fired!" would be a convincing argument here of all places.

[eMeM]

Couldn't have told you off the top of my head who he was before this, but I'm not seeing anything in those tweets I disagree with or would object to an employee saying on their own time.
Seems more than a little tone-deaf on your part to think "He sounds REALLY angry and aggressive and uses lots of bad words for Republicans, so it's good and right that he was fired!" would be a convincing argument here of all places.

Good I wasn't making that argument then, huh.
Republicans or not doesn't have anything to do with this. Acting on social media like you would on 4chan will get you fired, I don't know why this is shocking.

[Ralin]

Republicans or not doesn't have anything to do with this.

It has a great deal to do with it. The fact that he is spitting vitriol against a party of evil motherfuckers like the GOP is very relevant to the context which makes it a good and proper thing to do.

Acting on social media like you would on 4chan will get you fired, I don't know why this is shocking.

Vague references to 4chan aside, nothing he said was inappropriate, untrue or warranted firing. And I'll invite you to prove otherwise with something other than your mouth noises. Because people should not be fired for using bad words or not being polite enough when they condemn fucking fascists.

[eMeM]

Lesson learned, no point discussing anything with fanatics.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Fanatics? Really?
Oh dear Ebem, you false Equivenacy is wonderful.
#1 IF this person was as you say "acting like a 12yo" do you honestly feel that is grounds for dismissal?
Because I can show you a great many people in power who DO act like 12 year olds.
One of them is currently the President of the United States.

#2 What any one person does on their own time is their own business. If this person had said this at work, or using a work email, or from a comic book in some way, Then the company is free to fire him for whatever reason they see fit.

These rants are not a reason, and currently there is no direct evidence that this IS what directly led to his firing.

[eMeM]

#2 What any one person does on their own time is their own business. If this person had said this at work, or using a work email, or from a comic book in some way, Then the company is free to fire him for whatever reason they see fit.

Is it the first time you hear about someone being fired for being an idiot on social media? In this case it's even worse - his name is associated with the brand, him acting like a child who just discovered swearing is directly hurting the brand, so he gets fired.

These rants are not a reason, and currently there is no direct evidence that this IS what directly led to his firing..

No direct evidence, except the person in question lierally stating this IS the reason before going all-in on more ranting and conspiracy theories.

[FaxModem1]

Honest question, don't companies fire people for
presenting a 'bad image' for their company, regardless of who is at fault, all the time? And in the entertainment industry, isn't there some agreements they sign to ensure compliance regarding this?

I doubt it's justified, but companies will silence, fire or other similar manuevers if an employee does something that they don't like, even if it was off-the-clock, if there's even a whiff of scandal?

I can imagine that's the reason, just to make sure that they aren't connected in any way to anything 'controversial'. Because Disney is a 'family company'.

[Q99]

It's kinda interesting how many people react to something like that as if it was the Worst. Thing. Ever.

Unhinged? Really? He's swearing and he's angry, but that's about it. I think we all know that 'swearing and angry' aren't your standards for 'unhinged.'

Honest question, don't companies fire people for
presenting a 'bad image' for their company, regardless of who is at fault, all the time? And in the entertainment industry, isn't there some agreements they sign to ensure compliance regarding this?

I doubt it's justified, but companies will silence, fire or other similar manuevers if an employee does something that they don't like, even if it was off-the-clock, if there's even a whiff of scandal?

I can imagine that's the reason, just to make sure that they aren't connected in any way to anything 'controversial'. Because Disney is a 'family company'.

Disney *Brand* is. Disney as a company with stuff under different branding? Less-so. Touchstone is a label where they put out movies with sex and violence.

[Elheru Aran]

Honest question, don't companies fire people for
presenting a 'bad image' for their company, regardless of who is at fault, all the time? And in the entertainment industry, isn't there some agreements they sign to ensure compliance regarding this?

I doubt it's justified, but companies will silence, fire or other similar manuevers if an employee does something that they don't like, even if it was off-the-clock, if there's even a whiff of scandal?

I can imagine that's the reason, just to make sure that they aren't connected in any way to anything 'controversial'. Because Disney is a 'family company'.

The debate about how much a company can do to employees regarding activities off the clock is an old one. Generally it comes down to at-will employment, which most (if not all) of the US has-- a company can let their employee go at pretty much any time, with or without a stated reason, unless there is a legal contract forbidding such. And of of course if your position with the company is a particularly public one, such as a celebrity (Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty comes to mind), airing your views in public can get you into trouble.

That said, I do think there needs to be SOME form of legal protection for people engaging in freedom of speech outside of their jobs. This cuts both ways, of course-- people have lost their jobs for being identified as neo-Nazis, and it's not as though baseless dumping on the political right is any more morally high-handed than baseless dumping on the left. But at the same time, if their activities outside work are not relevant to the job and do not affect their performance, it shouldn't affect how their employer treats them, IMO.

As for Disney, it's a *big* company. They've got fingers in a lot of pies, some rather less family friendly than others. I doubt they said much of anything to Marvel about Chuck Wendig because they mostly let Marvel do its own thing as long as they get a cut, owning the company and all.

[eMeM]

It's kinda interesting how many people react to something like that as if it was the Worst. Thing. Ever.

Unhinged? Really? He's swearing and he's angry, but that's about it. I think we all know that 'swearing and angry' aren't your standards for 'unhinged.'

If it was a single outburst? Very inapropriate and embarrassing, but shit happens. Maybe he was drunk or something. But what I posted was just one of countless examples from his twitter of this exact behaviour. If you think it's normal for an adult person to every day log in on a twitter account signed by their name and in front of hundreds of thousands of people scream profanities, insults, and occasionally tell people to kill themselves, I'm glad I don't live where you do.

[Ralin]

If you think it's normal for an adult person to every day log in on a twitter account signed by their name and in front of hundreds of thousands of people scream profanities, insults, and occasionally tell people to kill themselves, I'm glad I don't live where you do.

You just described the president of the United States.

[eMeM]

If you think it's normal for an adult person to every day log in on a twitter account signed by their name and in front of hundreds of thousands of people scream profanities, insults, and occasionally tell people to kill themselves, I'm glad I don't live where you do.

You just described the president of the United States.

I never thought I would write something like this, but here we go: Donald Trump's tweets look mature and considerate by comparison.

But if people say "you callous fucknecks, you prolapsed assholes (...)", "eat a boot covered in shit", "foul human-shaped stacks of cat-shit parasite", or "throw yourselves into a wood chipper" and so on in every other of his 260000 tweets is just a man being angry and that's a totally normal thing, or more, it's the right thing to do, maybe it's not a concidence that someone like Trump is the president. I'm glad we have different sensitivities here.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fanatics? Really?
Oh dear Ebem, you false Equivenacy is wonderful.
#1 IF this person was as you say "acting like a 12yo" do you honestly feel that is grounds for dismissal?
Because I can show you a great many people in power who DO act like 12 year olds.
One of them is currently the President of the United States.

THIS. So much this.

If the Right wanted "civility", they should have fucking shown some for the last ten years. "Civility" in our public discourse went out the window when they called Obama a secret Muslim, when a Congressman stood up and shouted "You lie" at him during his State of the Union address, when Trump led crowds in chants of "Lock her up" about his Presidential opponent, when he mocked the disabled on national television, when he mocked a sexual assault victim on national television while his Brownshirt mob cheered and laughed. And now, when liberals and progressives show some anger (nothing physical, just words), the Right calls us "violent" and "fanatics", and you just know where those words are heading. The same place they've always gone- branding anyone who dissents as an enemy of the state.

Now, I'm not saying that we should all be like Trump. But Wendig wasn't mocking innocent victims. He was attacking people who are actively working to bring about a less equal, less free, less just society. There's no point in trying to be civil when civility is dead and simply having a dissenting view is becoming increasingly unsafe. So fuck civility. Take their bile and ram it right back down their throats.

#2 What any one person does on their own time is their own business. If this person had said this at work, or using a work email, or from a comic book in some way, Then the company is free to fire him for whatever reason they see fit.

These rants are not a reason, and currently there is no direct evidence that this IS what directly led to his firing.

Legally, I'm pretty sure the company can fire him for saying shit like this. The First Amendment only protects you from government censorship- a private company can set pretty much whatever rules they please for their employees, as I understand it.

Morally...

Sure, I can understand a company not wanting to be associated with that sort of language (and Marvel is owned by Disney, which still values their pretence of being a "family friendly" company). But we're kind of at a "pick your side" moment in history. You don't get to be politically neutral in the face of rising fascism. There are those who speak out... and there are collaborators. When you fire a guy for no apparent reason other than offending the Alt. Reich, or saying mean things to them, it sends a message.

[The Romulan Republic]

Anyway, its pointless trying to appease the Alt. Reich, just as it was pointless trying to appease the Third Reich. They will never be sated. Even if they won, even if they managed to create a global Fourth Reich and killed or enslaved or otherwise subjugated every woman, brown person, gay person, etc, they'd just find some new scapegoat to vilify. Ultimately they'd turn on each other and eat themselves, because that's what they are. They are driven by fear and hate of the Other that will never be satisfied.

No matter how much gold and how many virgins you sacrifice to appease the dragon, it will always want more.

And they will always hate Star Wars as long as it has non-white male leads.

[Batman]

Hell they hate Star Wars when it has white FEMALE leads.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hell they hate Star Wars when it has white FEMALE leads.

Yup. If the protagonist is anything other than a white man, they'll do their best to undermine the film and troll and trash the reputations of anyone associated with it as well. Not just Star Wars either- wasn't their a (obviously failed) attempt to organize a campaign against Black Panther? I'm sure Captain Marvel will get the same treatment as well.

And that's relatively mild compared to what can happen. At least one theatre playing Fury Road got shot up, IIRC.

[Q99]

It's kinda interesting how many people react to something like that as if it was the Worst. Thing. Ever.

Unhinged? Really? He's swearing and he's angry, but that's about it. I think we all know that 'swearing and angry' aren't your standards for 'unhinged.'

If it was a single outburst? Very inapropriate and embarrassing, but shit happens. Maybe he was drunk or something. But what I posted was just one of countless examples from his twitter of this exact behaviour. If you think it's normal for an adult person to every day log in on a twitter account signed by their name and in front of hundreds of thousands of people scream profanities, insults, and occasionally tell people to kill themselves, I'm glad I don't live where you do.

Telling people to kill themselves? That's quite an accusation, one not backed up. Interesting how none of the articles mention that.

And 'every day.' Also you previously went with like a 12 year old and 'unhinged,' not just chronically angry.... about real stuff, mind you. And while getting that stuff and worse directed at him...

The exaggeration you're engaging in ain't exactly helping your case, nor is the ignoring of context.

Why, you even sound a bit.... unhinged, one might say? Eh?