Well it’s a move and a bit of rhetoric that should surprise absolutely no one.
I’m not. Not in the least.
Seems, The Whisper Network is now on the ropes and they want us all to “Come together, right now” and probably over them.
After reading this article, all I could do was roll my eyes. Let’s recap some recent history.
The Whisper Network had people like Kelly Sue DeConnick and Gail Simone, just to name a couple, promoting self-insert, gender identity politics into most mainstream comics for a long time now.
Comic fans and shops were telling them to knock it off, no one was interested. They failed to listen. This spread into video games, movies, etc until the rhetoric issued of “If you don’t like my politics, don’t buy my book” and “This movie isn’t made for straight, white males” so on and so forth were, key point here, actually heeded.
Sales tanked and comic shops that survived the lockdowns were now failing all over the place even now.
They went on to blame the fans because, why would they not? They ejected people with the most mild of criticisms, went on doxing campaigns and made attempts to ruin people. Where have we heard that before?
This went on and the entire time, they were warned. People pivoted from angling to work for Marvel, D.C. or Image to producing their own work via Kickstarter (which they called e-begging…save your laughter here, folks) or just by producing something for pre-order as is the case with The Rippaverse who doesn’t do Kickstarters, making million-dollar campaigns that made their success possible. Rippaverse and many other people who did Kickstarters were doing what The Industry said they’d never be able to do; make enjoyable comics.
Meanwhile, those that banked on The Whisper Network lost and lost big and so did anyone that backed them.
Now suddenly, like the bullies they are when they were inevitably opposed and opposed hard by those they did bully, they’re crying uncle.
That being said, I have doubts. Just as early as this morning, I still see evidence of doubling down on the constant pandering and self-inserts in comics and movies and the constant defense of it.
I recently took a friend of mine to a comic book shop to peruse Batman comics as that’s what he’s taken an interest in. My advice to him was to pick up a few that looked good, use Hoopla as a means of “try before you buy” and to experiment, read what he likes, discard what he doesn’t and leave it at that. I was picking up titles he’d never heard of but I did let him know about these networks and how they’ve infiltrated comics as well as everything else. Hopefully he’s had time to read them and really get a grasp on what he liked and didn’t.
In any case, the comics industry has, for the past several years had plenty of what Cable would call “Dire Warnings From The Future” and failed to heed them. Now those claiming they want us all to come together to fix the comics industry will have to initiate the rebuilding of bridges they’ve torched to outright nuked from orbit. Some of those bridges will never be repaired as writers like Chuck Dixon and many others who are independent will see more success than they would if they went back. Some will not want to join at all from an industry that made it clear they weren’t welcome.
Marvel, D.C., Image and others have much in the way of work to do to regain the lost trust they have from readers. No one wants to read stories of Superman’s son sexting his boyfriend, Bobby Drake is hardly Iceman anymore, Robin being gay is going to have to go and, people like Tim Sheridan will have to admit they were wrong and that they’ve all been the baddies all along.
The first step to defeating your problem is admitting you have a problem and that problem was never us.
Update 3/1/24: Remember when I said that these people can call for unity and kumbaya all they want but it won’t work and they’re not to be trusted? Well, let me show you why they’re not to be trusted.
Here we go again. This is the same thing they did with that forgotten and forgettable Charlie’s Angels reboot from…when again? Nevermind, the point is, this is being written, released and you, the fan, are being told it’s not for you. Inevitably when this fails because of their insistence on self-insertion (No means no, Whisper Network) then it will be because the fans were a bunch of “-ists” and “-phobes” and all the buzzwords you have seen over the past several years. In other news, Water Still Found To Be Wet. Remember when I said the doubling down continues, this is but one example.
In X-Men ‘97, the character Morph is going to be non-binary (yawn) and the voice actor is an Alphabet Mafia Activist.
In the X-Men titles as of late, it was revealed Mystique is Nightcrawler’s father, rather than the mother (big surprise.)
Is it any wonder I haven’t picked up a new X-Title in years but would rather read the back issues from, the actual 90s?
I think it’s safe to say that we do forgive the Whisper Network in the way that, we do not condone what they do and continue doing, we’ve just moved past it and their shoddy work.
I just don’t think anyone is stupid enough to trust them again, though, and the blame for that rests solely in their own vicinity.