Marvel Comics has fired one of their most vocal writers, Chuck Wendig. The author recently took to Twitter to share that the company had let him go due to his online presence. This is a trend which we’ve become increasingly familiar with after ABC fired Roseanne Barr and Disney got rid of James Gunn. In both of these instances it was due to tweets from those being let go, and now it seems to be the case once again. We haven’t heard from Marvel at this time but Wendig shares that it is the responses to his tweets and not what he himself has said or shared online.
According to Wendig, this all started to happen in 2015 after his novel ‘Star Wars: Aftermath‘ was released and included an openly gay character named Sinjir Rath Velus. There aren’t many gay characters in “Star Wars” canon, and this ended up being responsible for tons of negative reviews online with negativity about it continually rising online.
Lucasfilm initially stressed that they loved his work and this harassment didn’t paint him in a bad light, but his Marvel Editor Mark Paniccia told him that “the negativity and vulgarity” caused by his Tweets was too much for them to accept. This has the publishing removing him from the planned ‘Star Wars: Shadow of Vader’ #4 and #5 as well as an upcoming unannounced “Star Wars” project.
Here are a few key points in what he shared about the situation, from the announcement:
So, here’s a thing that has happened – I just got fired from Marvel. Taken off issues 4 and 5 of SHADOW OF VADER, and taken off an as-yet-unannounced SW book.
This might be a long thread, so apologies in advance.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
To how it started:
To rewind a little bit, when SW: AFTERMATH came out, I assume most know but maybe you don’t, I put some ahh, elements in there (LGBT characters) that were not received well by a certain subset of fandom.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
That resulted in both a negative review campaign, found across various FB groups and other Worst Places on the Internet, that began mounting the very minute the book dropped online.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
As to LucasFilm’s response to the artist:
And privately, I was told by folks inside LFL that there was no worry here, that they valued that I spoke out both speaking up for myself and for STAR WARS, which has always honestly been a progressive brand and company.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
And it made me very proud to work for them, too, not just because — holy hell, basking in the glow of STAR WARS, but because the people were great, and they totally got it.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
His concern when it comes to other writers is that:
Be more concerned for people with less power and more marginalized voices — who even BEFORE big projects at the bottom of huge funnels of harassment. Be good to each other. I’m gonna go hug my kid and eat a sandwich.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 12, 2018
He isn’t alone, and many other famous names have come to defend him including Stephen King’s son, a well-respected author in his own right, Joe Hill:
Hey, @marvel, @WaltDisneyCo, you wanna work with creators who have vision & imagination, better accept they may also express themselves politically (or impolitically!!). When the trolls persuade you to fire a @JamesGunn or @ChuckWendig, they lose, you lose & your audience loses.
— Joe Hill (@joe_hill) October 12, 2018
You can see more comments from quite a few familiar names below!
I am very sorry to hear what happened to @ChuckWendig.
— GAIL SIMONE (@GailSimone) October 13, 2018
Hey, @ChuckWendig! You’re delightful, a great writer, and I hope today is better than yesterday. This whole thing puts me in mind of the second thing Obi-Wan says to Vader during their fight in ANH – which you, obviously, will know without looking it up.
— Charles Soule (@CharlesSoule) October 13, 2018
Wonderful writer & human @ChuckWendig got fired by Marvel this week for tweeting about politics.
If you think that’s b.s., buy one of his books. I know you’ll enjoy them. https://t.co/WYbePj0Uzg
— David Slack (@slack2thefuture) October 14, 2018
That doubtless won’t salve the anger many will feel about Chuck’s situation. Let’s just aim to draw a distinction, until more is known, between a great talent being UnHired, and any overt corporate antipathy towards LGBT. I don’t think Chuck is accusing anyone of the latter.
— Simon “People Who Chew Noisily” Spurrier (@sispurrier) October 12, 2018
Hey, @ChuckWendig! You’re delightful, a great writer, and I hope today is better than yesterday. This whole thing puts me in mind of the second thing Obi-Wan says to Vader during their fight in ANH – which you, obviously, will know without looking it up.
— Charles Soule (@CharlesSoule) October 13, 2018
While it was indeed Marvel’s call to make, it was a bad call. This was not how you respond to a harassment campaign. https://t.co/soIfY3NfTu
— The Igle of Doctor Moreau (@JAMALIGLE) October 12, 2018
Well, unless Chuck totally screwed up deadlines (doubtful) or refused to take editorial direction (also doubtful) this is a very disheartening move by @Marvel https://t.co/xKcTHDSKO7
— Gerry Conway (@gerryconway) October 12, 2018
There is a flip side though. Marvel is a widely recognized public company. They have a brand to uphold. There are many instances where Wendig was quite vocal about his dislike for Trump and the current administration and in a way that is rather combative. This isn’t out of the norm for Wendig, but with today’s climate it might not be the case for everyone. Publically, a dislike of how things are is to be expected by at least half of the country, but there are also many instances when it crosses the line of what could be considered acceptable, especially for a very public employee of a multi-billion dollar company.
Unless Marvel makes a statement on why it fired Chuck Wendig we won’t know if it was from negative feedback or his own tweets going against a policy that they have in place for social media use. It should be noted that this is something which quite a few companies do have these days.
I’m not going to say that Marvel was in the right here for what they did, but they aren’t necessarily in the wrong either, depending on their reasoning. Personally, if it was for the latter reason, I wish they had taken the time to speak with Wendig ahead of time and work something out with the author whose reading I can’t get enough of. I don’t approve of how they did what they did but can understand it in this light. From what I’ve read from Wendig’s writings, I’m not sure if he would have toned it down a little if asked but at least this wouldn’t have come out of the blue.
If it was for the former reason than this is completely unacceptable and just about any creative writer out there has to wonder what their future with the publishing company could be unless they have absolutely no social media or public presence. The negative outcry from one of your characters who are gay shouldn’t be a reason to get fired from a company.
In either instance, I don’t believe that the author should have been fired as he was. That being said, if a social media policy did exist there should have been at least a few conversations before the studio let the author go as this isn’t new online behavior which just cropped up. There were plenty of times for it to have been addressed previously. If it weren’t, that would seemingly imply acceptance of Wendig’s actions and make the firing that much more out of line.
Are you annoyed with Marvel for letting Chuck Wendig go or do you believe that they were merely looking at the bottom line? Did the publishing company fire him for the responses to his tweets or did they feel what he was posting was putting a negative spin on their brand? Share your thoughts in the comments below, True Believers!
Sources: CBR, Entertainment Weekly
