It was only one month ago that activist-writer Nick Spencer turned Red Skull into a Donald Trump stand-in. Objective readers wondered just how deep Marvel’s well of partisan hackery might go. Spider-Gwen Annual #1 by writer Jason Latour offers the clearest evidence yet that it is deeper than anyone can imagine.
Comic Book Resources reported Saturday:
In this week’s “Spider-Gwen Annual” #1, writer Jason Latour and “an awesome assemblage of artists” offer a tour of Earth-65 with a collection of short stories that includes She-Hulk as a pro wrestler, the origin of Koala Kommander, and an all-too brief showdown between Captain America and M.O.D.O.K. — wait, make that M.O.D.A.A.K. (Mental Organism Designed As America’s King).
Illustrated by Chris Visions and colored by Jim Campbell, the two-page sequence depicts M.O.D.A.A.K. as an orange-skinned, tiny-handed villain sitting in his floating chair, leading the forces of A.I.M. near the United States/Mexico border. There he declares, “If American will not act — M.O.D.A.A.K must!”
However, just as he begins to utter a familiar slogan (“Must make America–“), he’s cut off by a well-placed shield throw from Captain America. Crashing to the ground, M.O.D.A.A.K. leaves us with a parting threat (and a jab at Trump): “Crush you … in … my … powerful handsss …”
Regular readers of this blog know that I have no love for the billionaire’s campaign, which is why it pains me to have to defend the man. Although, truthfully, it’s not really about Mr. Trump. What this is about is Marvel Comics filling its ranks with pathetic partisan trolls whose bright idea for keeping the company afloat is to cultivate loyalty with the lowest common denominator.
Note to Jason Latour, Nick Spencer, Dan Slott, Tom Brevoort, and everyone else within Marvel who thinks dividing people is a great business model for long-term growth: The internet exists. When you create stuff like Trump-M.O.D.A.A.K., those stories end up in news feeds next to ‘White House reveals number of civilian deaths from drone strikes.’
CNN reported Friday:
President Barack Obama’s administration estimated Friday that between 64 and 116 civilians have died during the years 2009-2015 from U.S. drone strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the same time span, the administration said between 2,372 and 2,581 militants had been taken out by drones. …
Human rights groups, however, were unsatisfied by the government’s disclosed figures, which came in far lower than independent estimates of civilian causalities.
Selective moral outrage and Marvel-approved hypocrisy are easy to expose thanks to the internet. Whether one loves him or hates him, Donald Trump has never dropped bombs on 116 civilian heads.
President Obama decided long ago that he would rather splatter suspected terrorists into a blood-red mist than capture and interrogate them like George W. Bush, but yet it is Mr. Trump who gets the M.O.D.A.A.K treatment. Telling.
Readers get what is going on, which is in part why Spider-Gwen had estimated sales of a whopping (drumroll please) … 33,797 copies last month.
The moral of the story is this: There are many, many, many readers who are fed up with immature antics of writers like Nick Spencer and Jason Latour. We do not have an affinity for Donald Trump, but we also don’t want to see him turned into a de facto Red Skull or alternate-universe M.O.D.O.K. (Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing).
Superhero comic books were once used to unite readers of all ages and from all walks of life, but these days Marvel employees work to divide — and that is one reason why so many life-long customers no longer care and are walking away in droves.
- Nick Spencer calls Republicans ‘evil,’ Marvel, industry ‘journalists’ yawn as customers walk
- Joe Quesada, giant hypocrite, plays dumb when confronted on other comic industry hypocrites
