Right-wing parasites, misogynist Mens Rights activists, and opportunistic grifters who so desperately latched onto Gamergate are on the prowl again. As the culture war within the video game community continues to lose steam from its peak at the end of 2014, the conservative heroes of the anti-feminist movement are desperately looking to continue their fight against the so-called social justice warriors. And theyll gladly suck the life out of any geek culture they find viable, if it means battling progressives. Their new target? Comic books.
Comic books are in the midst of a bit of a renaissance. Yes, the struggling industry is certainly helped by a never-ending parade of box office smash superhero franchises, but the comic book medium itself is working toward sustained survival through diversity. Black heroes, Latino heroes, Muslim heroes, women heroes the new face of comics dont only appeal to the aging, primarily-white male comic book base.
As were now seeing, these diverse heroes ability to attract new audiences are quite literally helping save the comic book industry for everyone. But conservative vultures dont care about that they smell blood in the water. As the culture wars seep further into geek subcultures, they circle a loud subset of geeks, those ignorant fanboys who feel that merely introducing diverse characters into their video games or comic books declares an all-out war on their whiteness and manhood. And these leeches care not about the art of comic books or video games, but what they need to say and do in order to transform angry nerds into brainwashed angry conservative nerds that deliver page views to their websites.
Of all the bloodsucking culture war hustlers, perhaps none come close to approaching Breitbarts Milo Yiannopoulos when it comes to ludicrous attempts at manufacturing controversy within the geek world. Like many of the right-wing reactionaries, Milo is clueless about video games and cares even less about comics. How do I know?Milo has outright shown pure disdain for the gaming communityhe was trying to win over, of course, before he realized there was market potential waiting to be tapped. And hes been caught doing it for the comic book audience too.
While the new, diverse comic book heroes all seem to have pissed off their fair share of crybaby reactionaries, none has drawn the ire of the Internet assholes quite like the new Thor. Their favorite musclebound alpha male has been substituted by a woman. And with that, the vultures swoop in. In an article for Breitbart titled Female Thor Is What Happens When Progressive Hand-Wringing and Misandry Ruin a Cherished Art-Form, Milo opines about the new gender swapped Thor. He complains about how comic writers are being forced to push forth this progressive narrative, forced to transform male characters into females. This, of course, will ruin comic books forever!
The only problem with Yiannopoulos article is the entire thing. Theres no gender swapping in the new Thor. The man known as Thor, the son of Odin, is in the new comic book series. He hasnt been replaced. He exists. In the story line, Thor becomes unworthy of wielding Mjlnir, his hammer. An unknown woman a completely original character separate from the man formerly known as Thor lifts the hammer and becomes the new Thor. The woman is now Thor. The fact that a woman playing Thor would cause such outrage,when even a frog is able to take up the title of Thor sans controversy, is absurd.
Once the fact that the son of Odin is actually in the comic series alongside the new Thor and that this is an integral part of the story which Yiannopoulos clearly did not read haters usually resort to attacking how a woman as Thor goes against Norse mythology. But, while Marvels Thor is based on Norse myth Thor, they are not one in the same. Norse myth Thor also, unlike Marvels Thor, does not speak English, did not originate inside the body of a med student named Donald Blake or join up with a genetically modified American patriot, an eccentric billionaire with an iron suit, and a giant green monster to form a superhero super group. Making its way around the Internet is this panel from Thor No. 5 which totally irks the anti-feminist set in which Thor punches a creep for saying feminist like its a four-letter word.
Their complaint is that the new Thors dialogue is bad in these panels that were actually written as a response to their underlying complaint about a strong lead feminist woman showing up in their comics. The dialogue is bad compared to what? Male Thors long history of cringeworthy lines?
If this all sounds preposterous, wait until you hear what Milo actually cops to getting wrong in his comic book article.In a correctiontucked away at the bottom of the page, Yiannopoulos explains that no, the new Spider-Man Miles Morales is, in fact, not bisexual, as he claimed in his post he is biracial. Oops! But one thing you wont find in Yiannopoulos corrections is the entire paragraph he omitted when it was pointed out to him that the data he was presenting actually proves his entire point wrong an entire section of the article, still wrongly being parroted by the brainwashed reactionaries, removed with no note or correction. (Milos ethics-senses not tingling?)
The data this Breitbart buffoon so ethically removed were the over-the-counter sales numbers of the new Thor comic as reported by comic book distributer Diamond Comics. Milo pointed out that sales of the Thor comics plunged from 150,682 to 69,497. But of course they did and, no, its not because new Thor is a woman hes comparing issue No. 1 of the new Thor to issue No. 4 of the same series. In the comic industry, No. 1s of any series always sell more and then dip after. This is due to a multitude of reasons, ranging from collectors who buy first issues to readers who simply want to try out a new series. The real data to analyze would be how the new Thor is selling in comparison to the previous series featuring the male Thor.
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The new Gamergate: Angry white men are trying to shut down diverse comics