NS: Chuck Wendig Gets Axed From Marvel

[cygnia]

I initially became aware of this from the Absolute Write forums.

In Which I Am Fired From Marvel

"And then we announced SHADOW OF VADER juuuuust last weekend, and people were excited, and I thought everything was good. I was not made aware of any issues, and my online self has always been my online self, so.
Except, yeah, no. Today I got the call. I’m fired. Because of the negativity and vulgarity that my tweets bring. Seriously, that’s what Mark, the editor said. It was too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part.
Basically, because I was not civil.
Which, of course, is their decision to make. I’m not their boss. (And, turns out, they’re not the boss of me, either. Har har.) (I joke because otherwise, I cry.)
My understanding over this call was that this was a Marvel decision, not an LFL decision, but I can’t really confirm that. The editor said he had made the call. He seemed genuinely upset at my tweets and profanity, so maybe that’s accurate. And again, that’s his right to do so. If they honestly feel that my presence will damage the book, I don’t want that. I want the book to shine, and artists like Juanan Ramirez and Greg Smallwood to do their amazing thing. Artists like that are gods in my mind, so I’m happy to not distract from their literal magic.
But it does set a troubling precedent. One we’ve seen already – James Gunn, Jessica White, and so on – of folks fired because they riled up the wasp’s nest of asterisk-gate. And it seems odd to be mad that I’m mad about politics when – well, look around. Climate change, kids in cages, sexual harassers at the topmost tiers of power, and so on. A call for civility as the PA GOP candidate threatens Tom Wolf with a golf cleat stomping. I dunno, man."

Comments

[zachbeacon]

Were the pre-orders low? If so, that's more an argument that the entire direct market is broken .... Which it is.

[laughing_tree]

I don't know, but I can't remember any time an entire mini-series was cancelled (not just shortened) for low pre-sales. And there have been some with *very* low sales.

Anyway, Marvel claims the reason is that it clashes with other plans they had for the character. It's not completely impossible, but given the Wendig situation and Cain's own political outspokenness, I have to at least wonder if that's just cover.

[zachbeacon]

Could be. I honestly didn't know she was working on anything for Marvel again until the sideshow over Vision's cancellation started and I rarely look at solicitations anymore.

I know DC axed a lot of projects around the time Flashpoint came out (which just shows you that the Nu52 was a rush job) but the last Marvel project I know of that just vanished was that female Blade comic (did we ever find out what happened there?).

[laughing_tree]

Just to clarify, I don't mean cancelling a nascent project, which happens all the time as plans change. I mean cancelling one so far along (already solicited, three issues already in the can).

[zachbeacon]

There are tons* of examples of that happening but I can't think of any that got the ax before a single issue came out.

*I honestly never thought we'd see an end to Hickman's SHIELD even though he'd said for years that Marvel had the scripts.

[laughing_tree]

I don't think we're talking about the same kind of thing. Yeah, books get shortened. But they're still going to publish what's already in the can. Aborting even the stuff that's ready to go *after it's already solicited* is passing strange.

[zachbeacon]

I guess I don't quite get your criteria. Devils Due killed their superhero line before most of the minis wrapped up but the final comics had ads for future issues. These were some fairly big names like Marv Wolfman, Joe Casey and Chuck Dixon*. I still don't know what caused it but it soured me on the company.

*Obviously his own politics are a major point of discussion NOW but early 2000s Dixon is very different to me than 2018 Dixon.

[laughing_tree]

Yeah, to be fair, I wasn't really considering publishing patterns outside the Big Two. You're right that there's all sorts of dropped stuff when you get further into the industry margins.

But it is really strange for *Marvel* to abort a series they've solicited, much less already have several issues in the can of.

[kore]

She had Maneaters coming out, maybe they didn't want her associated with Marvel because of it? (I liked it a lot.)

[katefan]

The Wendig situation happened well after the Vision book got canceled so I don't see how there is a connection. As for why the book was canceled I think perhaps there were several factors at play (And I freely admit there is peppered there lots of speculation).

1) Bendis was gone and from what I understand he was instrumental in Cain getting hired. Without her sponsor being present and him actually now working across the street for the rival company perhaps the editors weren't feeling so charitable towards Cain. It's not fair I know but people don't always get treated fairly.

2) Cain has only written a special and one series and that got canceled with issue 3, so her professional stock in the company is pretty low. For example, if G Willow Wilson was in a similar situation she would probably be treated differently because of the success of Ms Marvel. That's just an example.

3) We don't know Cain's conduct behind the scenes. After the book's cancellation she did go off on Marvel; she was pretty upset. What if she proved to be difficult to work with? The series did seem to take a long time to produce so perhaps Marvel felt her conduct was unprofessional. After all her other book being printed by Image came out and Marvel's editors might have been thinking she should have been prioritizing Vision rather than Maneaters.

[laughing_tree]

"The Wendig situation happened well after the Vision book got canceled so I don't see how there is a connection."

The Wendig stuff illustrates a certain attitude towards outspokenness. Cain could be quite outspoken.

Nobody's saying there's a connections in a cause-and-effect sense.

[zachbeacon]

The "sponsor" thing is just pretty standard office politics. I don't think Samm Barnes or Fiona Avery have done any work for Marvel since JMS left.

The reverse is also true. Tamora Pierce had a long career as a novelist before writing White Tiger 12 years ago. Then she was critical of Mark Millar's treatment of the Sue Storm Richards character in Civil War and somehow the Marvel boys club decided that was a personal attack on Millar so she got blacklisted.

We've even seen editorials dislike of past creators leak into the pages. Shooter certainly wasn't subtle about his hate for Gerber in Secret Wars II and that - just to bring it back on topic - seemed very political.