Imagine you are a Marvel editor on Steve Rogers: Captain America, which comes out Wednesday. You’re hoping the book sells well despite the new costume looking like something from Marvel’s NFL Superpro in the 1990s. Everything is ready to go, and then you glance at the writer’s Twitter feed and realize that he constantly advertises his own hatred towards [insert large group of potential customers here] and calls them “evil” instead of promoting the book. What would you do?
The answer — at least when it comes to having 20/20 hate-vision for Republicans — is nothing.
Yes, that’s right, Captain America writer Nick Spencer can tell the world he has an Orwellian “2 Minutes Hate”-thing for Republicans and there are apparently zero repercussions.
It is glaringly obvious that readers who are independent voters are even turned off by his rhetoric, and yet Marvel and so-called industry journalists do nothing. They sit back and watch as sales suffer because writers like Mr. Spencer tell potential customers they are evil — merely for disagreeing on public policy.
Take this in: The man who writes Captain America — a hero who should transcend petty politics — is a partisan hack of the highest order. He speaks of the “myth” of the “good Republican” because … they might disagree with liberal family members on complex issues.
Mr. Spencer says conservatives turn “so evil” when discussing cultural issues. Let us now take a moment to examine the refugee crisis in Europe, for example.
CNN reported Jan 6:
Germany has been shocked by the apparently coordinated crime wave, in which Cologne police received more than 100 criminal complaints from women who said they had been sexually assaulted or robbed by gangs of men of Arab or North African appearance in the city center during New Year’s Eve festivities. Cologne police would not elaborate Wednesday on the total number of crimes reported, as the figure continued to rise.
Police have said that about a quarter of the complaints related to sexual assaults, including a rape, and that they believed the assaults were probably intended to distract the victims, allowing attackers to steal mobile phones and other devices.
Say you’re a young man who reads Mr. Spencer’s Twitter feed. You’re not particularly political, but you know that your brother is a conservative guy. You ask your brother about the refugee crisis and the conversation goes as follows:
Comic Kid: What do you think of the refugee crisis in Germany?
Conservative Brother: Did you hear about the waves of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve?
Comic Kid: Yeah. What’s up with that?
Conservative Brother: Germany took in 1.1 million refugees from the Middle East and North Africa in 2015. They flooded cities with Muslims, and it’s going to have a huge cultural impact in the years to come. Many of these individuals have no respect for western values. They came from countries where women could be beaten for leaving the house without a related male escort, they could be executed in “honor killings,” etc.
Comic Kid: Hmmm.
Conservative Brother: There was one city, Sumte, which had a population of just over 100 people. They were ordered to take in 1,000 refugees. The German government culturally upended the city of Sumte with one stroke of the pen.
Comic Kid: It’s kind of hard to argue with that.
In the mind of Nick Spencer, pointing out irrefutable facts that make his preferred public policies less desirable is “evil.” Instead of simply acknowledging that reasonable people can disagree, he takes to Twitter to tell anyone who will listen that their conservative family members are “evil.” Mr. Spencer is a sick man.
If Marvel has any responsible editors left within the building, then someone will rein in Mr. Spencer’s behavior. We all know that if he said people need to “stop believing in the myth of the good Muslim” then he would be fired, but perhaps there is someone with a shred of integrity who will address the situation.
Congratulations, Marvel Comics. Your Captain America writer spends his time on social media telling about half your potential customers that they are “evil.” Good luck with that business model.