Anti-Gay Writer To Pen Superman

[JOE SOAP]

Well let me put it this way, I've never bought a Superman comic in my life, but if DC & Rebellion decide to do a crossover pitting homophobe Supes against our Gay Dredd, I'll be the first in line.

[Hawkmumbler]

Well let me put it this way, I've never bought a Superman comic in my life, but if DC & Rebellion decide to do a crossover pitting homophobe Supes against our Gay Dredd, I'll be the first in line.

SOLD! Every single copy!
"Gay's into the fist of Dredd OOOOHHH!"
"FREAK!"

The individual I tend to look to when seperating the art from the artist if Klaous Kinski. The man was a freaking legend of an actor, a giant who starred in many of my favourate films. The it was revealed he had sexualy abused his 6 year old daughter on a regulare basis. 'A little play thing on a silk cushion' I think she was described as. No one like's to see there idels be desicrated, and his actions don't affect how I view him as an actor, but how I view him as a human. Kinski the human was a vile, twisted bastard who I would gladly kick in the gonads, Kinski the actor is a man I would shake the hand and provide praise of the highest level. It's a moral dilema that may or may not have an answer.

[Jim_Campbell]

The distance by which multiple posters are missing point here is quite scary. The point is that Card is a hate-mongering bigot whose views have no place in a civilised society and in the full knowledge of that fact DC Comics gave him a job writing one of their two flagship properties.

This is far less about Card and his despicable beliefs than it is about DC and the message hiring him sends.

Jim

[Professor Bear]

The can't wait bit was pure sarcasm.

Pff.  I do know your opinions on superhero books by now, Matt, I was merely taking the opportunity to throw more gas on the fire of ridicule, which I think is the only sensible response to this issue as if you get angry at Card or DC you will more or less guarantee the likes of Rush Limbaugh rushing to tell their audience to buy the issue and show support for a fellow "family values Christian Republican American Patriot" or whatever.  They say even bad publicity is good publicity and where the fringe Christian right are concerned that is certainly true - just look at the Westboro mob.

We should not get angry, we should redirect our energies and finances elsewhere.  Instead of buying DC books, buy Al Ewing's Avengers Assemble issue(s) - doesn't matter if you hate Marvel and/or the Avengers, do something positive for a good egg instead of helping promote a hatemonger.

[Hawkmumbler]

This is far less about Card and his despicable beliefs than it is about DC and the message hiring him sends.

Jim

THIS IS my problem. DC should not employ such individuals is in the past they have shown tendencies to infringe there belief's into there work. HOWEVER, if they can show self restraint and not express there own opinions in there work, then power to him. That's just the way I see it. I can hate Card as a human for being a bigot, if his work is good (can't say i've ever read anything of his) then I can respect his work as an auther.

[locustsofdeath!]

Pff.  I do know your opinions on superhero books by now, Matt,

Have I been gone from the forum for so long that I don't know what your former handle was? I guessing you're Prof Byah - amiright?

I agree with your post, though: we should stay away from it, and make it disappear. I think folks did a good job of that with Frank Miller's last bit of bile, and I think - after the initial bit of curiosity waers off, because, let's be real, there's no way DC allow even a hint of hate-mongering to make it to print - this will be forgotten.

[JOE SOAP]

The distance by which multiple posters are missing point here is quite scary.

This is far less about Card and his despicable beliefs than it is about DC and the message hiring him sends.

I think it's ultimately about whether you choose to buy/read it or not. DC like any corporation will hire who the fuck they want, regardless, and no one can stop them. Topics and debates on this forum drift, as always, Jim. It's not quite something to be scared about.

[MercZ]

I would suspect that this pick was meant to be more relevant to American readers. Ender's Game is a very common book for high school english courses and a lot of people have had experience with him, including myself. Ender's Game itself comes up a lot on sci-fi book lists.

Honestly a big problem with Card for me is that he jumped on board with a lot of the right-wing lunacy in the US. It caused a bit of a stir in his fan community because he started using his page to make weird pronouncements about the US election back in 2008, accepting the weird nonsense about Obama being a birther, radical terrorist, religion hater, w/e.

To get an idea of his stuff

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/index.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700245157/State-job-is-not-to-redefine-marriage.html

And right out of the gate

THE FIRST AND greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.

Here he is throwing a fit over the most recent election. There's a lot of persecution complex going on.
http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-Articles-c-2012-11-07-213747.112113-Civilization-Watch.html

Complaining about Benghazi and media drowning out the "truth"

Barack Obama is still the selfish, cowardly commander-in-chief who abandons American public servants -- you didn't change him, nor did you give him any reason to change.

Claims that the government did as bad a job in Hurricane Sandy that was done in Hurricane Katrina, media is merely covering up the mess

When Hurricane Sandy devastated a part of America, you showed Barack Obama only in a favorable light.

Even though his administration, his FEMA, did at least as badly as the Bush administration did after Katrina, and with far less excuse, you did not run endless coverage of the people's suffering, the way you did with Bush.

Breaks Godwin's law

If Barack Obama had a propaganda minister with the power to shut you down if you ran stories that embarrassed him or his administration, would your station, your network, your newspaper, your magazine still be in business?

If America had a Joseph Goebbels who would arrest any journalist who reported anything that would make the administration look bad, did you write or say or report anything during this election campaign that would have put you inside a jail cell?

Everybody at Fox News would have been jailed, and Fox News would have been shut down. But you already do everything you can to get people not to listen to Fox, so the actions of such a propaganda minister would merely make official what you already try to accomplish by other means.

Don't you dare say I'm lying or exaggerating, because the Democrats did try to shut down conservative talk radio, and you supported them in that effort, allowing them to get away with calling the proposed action "fairness."

You go along with the big lie every day. You did it obviously and openly in these last weeks before the election, allowing Barack Obama to conceal, cover up, lie -- all because, like good obedient party flacks, you knew that nothing was more important than keeping the Beloved Leader in power.

Benghazi again

One choice is for the Republican House to investigate Benghazi, struggling to expose the truth about Barack Obama's high crimes and misdemeanors, both in his culpable negligence during the attack on our consulate, and in his repeated lies afterward to try to conceal his malfeasance.

Here Card pulls out the communist card then complains about being weak on terrorists, and Obama turning the healthcare system into the US into Europe's nightmare.

But far more likely is the other alternative -- that, faced with your monolithic groupthink, your insistent flacking for the Beloved Leader, your dishonesty that is equal to his dishonesty, your emulation of Pravda, the Republicans in Congress will give up, Fox News will drop the story, it will all go away, and the Beloved Leader will continue in power.

Then, when his appeasement of our enemies results in a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv ...

When more and more Al-Qaeda-style attacks kill more Jews and more Americans around the world ...

When Obama's incompetent and anti-scientific economic policies have the consequences that such policies always have, and the American economy collapses under the weight of debts and entitlements ...

When Obama's crushing policies result in American healthcare sinking to the low level of service, the endless waiting lists, the needless death and suffering in the name of "fairness" that already afflict Europeans and Canadians ...

When the burden of ever-steeper taxes moves capital and industry and innovation to other countries ...
Will you step forward and take responsibility, and say, "We should have known; in fact we did know, but we did not tell you"?

Will you accept accountability for your lies and omissions in support of the Beloved Leader, for your slanders of the opponents of the Beloved Leader, for your having put your ideology and group loyalty above any notion of truth and honor?

That list of bad things -- we might get lucky. Some of those bad things might not happen. After all, there are still plenty of good people trying to keep us safe and make things work well.

The Beloved Leader isn't one of them, but he thinks he is, and so he might actually learn something and change his policies. It's possible, though it hasn't happened even once during the first four years of his reign.

Or Israel might take care of the Iranian nuke for us. Jews aren't going to sit still for another holocaust, even if the intellectuals of the world -- including you -- have re-embraced fashionable anti-semitism, this time under the name "anti-zionism" or "anti-neo-conservatism."

Or the Muslim world, which is just as burdened as the rest of us by these fanatics, these murderers, these terrorists, might finally do the right thing and stop funding and protecting them.

("Anti-scientific" refers to right-wing charges of Obama pursuing a radical environmentalist agenda)

And more ranting about the media

Just because brown-shirted thugs aren't beating your opponents in the streets doesn't mean you aren't every bit as much the enemies of democracy as any Nazi or Bolshevik ever was.

Telling us the truth and letting us make informed decisions -- that was your job. That's why the press gets special protection in the Constitution. That's why you're called "the fourth estate."

Democracy did not fail us in the presidential election of 2012.

You did.

Yeah. He's really nutty, pretty much spits out what the Tea Party here in the United States does. I don't agree with the right in the US, and I'm not just going on about him because I disagree with his views. The problem is he has, especially after 2003 or so, begun to interject more of his nonsense into his works. I stopped reading about the time I picked up Shadow of the Hegemon, in which he was making very clear his views. And it went downhill from there.

Lot of this has been leaking into his work now to the point that it's almost eye-rolling. It doesn't help that really it's superficial nonsense. Look at one of his short stories set in the Ender universe:

Orson Scott Card offers a Christmas gift to his millions of fans with this short novel set during Ender's first years at the Battle School where it is forbidden to celebrate religious holidays.

oh boy

I honestly wouldn't mind if Card wasn't so insistent on jamming his views into almost everything he writes now. It's difficult to separate his works form his views now. You got some writers in the American comic industry with some batshit crazy views (Frank Miller), and they usually end up in Superman or Batman for some reason- but for the most part they aren't aggressive with turning the strip into a pulpit.

[locustsofdeath!]

If you want to see just how much of a loon Card is, go to the US Amazon site, search Ender's Game, and read the review he wrote on his own book.

[Spikes]

Drift alert, 

I can understand the coluring of Card's work but completely discarding it seems a bit extreme to me.

The Savile's and the Glitter's of this world have used smoke and mirrors, public inaction - and the distance of time, along with every trick in the book to carry on.
The condemnation should be total. As i said earlier people are still using Glitter's music....

But for me, and more than anything, when a person is guilty of such crimes, or proudly gives free range to such views, then it simpley changes everything. And i cant view their work in the same way again.

Ill expand on one of my points, though

The case of Polanski; A man who did a runner, and who has been on the run ever since - and who has paid big money out to the person involved to smooth things over, is still making films and is still being feted.

And people know this - and yet still choose to work for him, and in essance allow him to carry on as normal. I dont feel the need to know these people personally to question why they should do this. Or to form a negative opinion of them.

His films may be great works, and no doubt put together by talented people - and if they contain genuine artistic moments then it would be foolish, with certain reservations in place, to not acknowledge this.
(In the same way people can discuss and acknowledge the cinematic artistry and innovation, in say, such films as Griffith's Birth of a Nation, or Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will).

And then hopefully acknowledge, in the same breath, what these films stand for, and what the people behind them believed in.

But my bottom line will always be, that certain instances will rob a piece of work of all its merit for me.

[MercZ]

If you want to see just how much of a loon Card is, go to the US Amazon site, search Ender's Game, and read the review he wrote on his own book.

What? I've never seen that, lol.

Anyways with regards to Card's involvement, I think it would be better to just boycott the comic rather than force DC to kick him off. If DC for some reason does kick him off in response to a petition (which would be extraordinary), he would likely complain about how people (the media conspiracy) are on a witchhunt after him and don't respect his artistic vision or whatever. I don't see how Superman could be a platform for his homophobia, but it'll likely be a patriotic wank, more so than usual when Superman is involved at least.

The way I see it, if he's on a strip that flops, well, he'll get fired by that force of business he loves so much and complains about people not respecting. The irony would be good there.

[Professor Bear]

I have never forgiven the Mormons for that time they called at my door and I misheard them as saying "we are Moomins" and I made the terrible decision to keep listening based upon an erroneous supposition.  I soon realised that the real Moomins weren't homophobic as they had always been nothing but supportive of Snufkin and Moomintroll and these people at my door were lying nutters.

I don't see how Superman could be a platform for his homophobia, but it'll likely be a patriotic wank, more so than usual when Superman is involved at least.

Superman writers have been quite ashamed of the "American Way" bit of his makeup for quite some time, actually.  It reached a nadir when they even removed those words from his intro blurb on the Superman books in the early 2000s.

[MercZ]

Superman writers have been quite ashamed of the "American Way" bit of his makeup for quite some time, actually.  It reached a nadir when they even removed those words from his intro blurb on the Superman books in the early 2000s.

My bad, I guess I forgot about the overreaction people had here when Superman "renounced" his US citizenship. Admittedly I haven't read much Superman for a long time, something about the whole thing always rubbed me the wrong way.

Also if anyone wants to see his really homophobe diatribe.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html

Now, there is a myth that homosexuals are "born that way," and we are pounded with this idea so thoroughly that many people think that somebody, somewhere, must have proved it.

In fact what evidence there is suggests that if there is a genetic component to homosexuality, an entire range of environmental influences are also involved. While there is no scientific research whatsoever that indicates that there is no such thing as a borderline child who could go either way.

Those who claim that there is "no danger" and that homosexuals are born, not made, are simply stating their faith.

The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

And a quote from the 2008 article

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700245157/State-job-is-not-to-redefine-marriage.html

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.

Funny thing is really a lot of his earlier works this stuff isn't readily obvious. It just became more and more pronounced as he got older.

[von Boom]

I have never forgiven the Mormons for that time they called at my door and I misheard them as saying "we are Moomins" and I made the terrible decision to keep listening based upon an erroneous supposition.  I soon realised that the real Moomins weren't homophobic as they had always been nothing but supportive of Snufkin and Moomintroll and these people at my door were lying nutters.

Moomins have better things to do than go knockin' on doors spouting dribble at reasonable folk.

Shame on you for confusing to two.

[JOE SOAP]

Also if anyone wants to see his really homophobe diatribe.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html

He does come up with some logic zingers:



Marriage Is Already Open to Everyone.

In the first place, no law in any state in the United States now or ever has forbidden homosexuals to marry. The law has never asked that a man prove his heterosexuality in order to marry a woman, or a woman hers in order to marry a man.

Any homosexual man who can persuade a woman to take him as her husband can avail himself of all the rights of husbandhood under the law. And, in fact, many homosexual men have done precisely that, without any legal prejudice at all.

Ditto with lesbian women. Many have married men and borne children. And while a fair number of such marriages in recent years have ended in divorce, there are many that have not.

So it is a flat lie to say that homosexuals are deprived of any civil right pertaining to marriage. To get those civil rights, all homosexuals have to do is find someone of the opposite sex willing to join them in marriage. - Orson Scott Card.