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Unforced error, Immortal Hulk 43 Edition.
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68 posts in this topic

6 hours ago, Buzzetta said:

I've seen #2 before... 

In 2017, a Toy Designer (later denounced as a 'freelance' artist by Hasbro) included a political message on the side of one of the Transformers that year in "transformer language / Cybertronian".  Upon discovery by Hasbro, there was a running change on the figure where the political message was erased for future releases.  What made it more problematic was that this was specifically a Transformers toy marketed and set at a price point for kids.   This was not a masterpiece figure or a higher end toy geared toward the adult collector market. 

Fair enough. And it certainly can't be ruled out. I guess I just like to think the better of people if I can. But to be clear, the end result is repulsive regardless of how it got there.

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3 hours ago, BabaLament said:

@THE_BEYONDER Think it’ll have anything on the slab label beyond “First Printing”?

Doesn't the issue of Wolverine with the unfortunate "k" word have a notation about "slur"? I wonder if there will be something similar for this, though I can't imagine how they'd word it.

Edit: Just looked, and the Wolverine issue has "recalled edition" above the serial number, and "recalled from retailers because of racial slur" in the right hand notes, so I wonder if they'll do somethign like that, should a recall occur.

Edited by F For Fake
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For people who didn't read the whole article this explains it deeper:

There was one small, subtle moment in this issue that I need to call attention to, and I’m sorry to say it isn’t for a happy reason. Early in the issue, Joe stops into a jewelry store to buy a diamond bracelet with some money that he recently pickpocketed. As he does, we get a glimpse of the store’s window display, which bears the name “CRONEMBERG” and, in painted gold relief below it, a prominent Magen David, the Star of David.

Even in the best possible interpretation, this is odd. The scene has otherwise no connection to Judaism or the Jewish ownership of the shop; there are no Jewish themes to which the comic is trying to point us. The only conceivable interpretation, to put it frankly, is that this is a visual play on the old and antisemitic trope of Jews running the diamond business: a centuries-old cliché rooted in stereotypes of Jewish merchants as unscrupulous profiteers willing to do business with shady criminals (which, indeed, the shop is doing in this scene) [Ed. Note: One thing we didn’t see when this article was first published was that instead of the store being labelled as a JEWELRY store, the word JEWERY was written instead. It was slightly hard to notice, being written backwards, but is pretty blatant. This makes for an incredibly overt antisemetic dogwhistle in this book.]

This is not an overt moment. I imagine it would be easy for most readers to overlook entirely. But as a Jewish reader coming to this comic, the sight of a Jewish symbol stenciled on the outside of that window was hard to ignore, and hard to justify. Perhaps this was called for in the comic -script itself (though that seems unlikely to me), or perhaps it was the addition of the issue’s art team, penciler Joe Bennet or inkers Ruy José and Belardino Brabo. It may be worth noting here that Bennett has, in previous years, expressed some less-than-admirable social viewpoints: in 2019, after controversial journalist Glenn Greenwald was struck by a supporter of far-right Brazilian autocrat Jair Bolsonaro, Bennett posted on facebook that “the slap was mine, too! Should have thrown a punch,” before he deleted the post and publicly apologized. Marvel’s reticence to stop using Bennett on their books has been troubling, and has required, for my part, a certain willingness to hold my nose when analyzing this series. Whether or not this particular instance was at his initiative, I felt it needed to be mentioned.

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A lot of Jews are in that business here in NYC, I don't see it as necessarily being antisemitic, but all the other stuff is just bizarre, and points in that direction. Maybe he thinks Jewish owned Jewelry stores put giant Stars of David in their windows? 

And, of course, it is now being listed for $30-$50+ on ebay. Maybe he put it in there on purpose, got 500 copies for himself on the cheap, and is now selling them on ebay? Of course, I buy 2 copies of the earlier, the diner cover, because I liked it... the attempts to paint that cover as racist kind of failed though

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@Juno Beach Thank you for the additional information. I briefly considered that perhaps it was Bennett taking a shot at the boss; with Ike being an Israeli-American. However, as noted by others, he would have to be incredibly stupid to do something like that, as it would be career-ending.

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11 minutes ago, the blob said:

A lot of Jews are in that business here in NYC, I don't see it as necessarily being antisemitic, but all the other stuff is just bizarre, and points in that direction. Maybe he thinks Jewish owned Jewelry stores put giant Stars of David in their windows? 

And, of course, it is now being listed for $30-$50+ on ebay. Maybe he put it in there on purpose, got 500 copies for himself on the cheap, and is now selling them on ebay? Of course, I buy 2 copies of the earlier, the diner cover, because I liked it... the attempts to paint that cover as racist kind of failed though

Further in the article:

RS: And editorial should be actively looking for problems like these after their colossal oversight in X-Men Gold #1 a few years back. I went looking for reference photos, trying to see if I could find something that matched this visual, and I could not. The shop window simply does not look like the shops in the NYC Diamond district. Either Ewing asked for the symbol in the -script, or Bennett intentionally chose to add it. It’s a mistake they should apologize for and rectify when the issue is collected in trade, just as Marvel did when collecting X-Men Gold #1.

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Can't believe that no one has asked for an apology for the overt toxic masculinity in the guys dialogue with the woman yet.

Plus, the art blows - they should all be flogged just for that.

-bc

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4 minutes ago, Juno Beach said:

Further in the article:

RS: And editorial should be actively looking for problems like these after their colossal oversight in X-Men Gold #1 a few years back. I went looking for reference photos, trying to see if I could find something that matched this visual, and I could not. The shop window simply does not look like the shops in the NYC Diamond district. Either Ewing asked for the symbol in the --script, or Bennett intentionally chose to add it. It’s a mistake they should apologize for and rectify when the issue is collected in trade, just as Marvel did when collecting X-Men Gold #1.

Yea, nobody else looks at this stuff before it is published? Back in the 70s when 85% of the editorial staff at Marvel was Jewish, they would have caught this.

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5 minutes ago, Gabagool said:

there was no malicious intent here IMO. people are doing what they always do in this day and age and they're trying to do the usual  "cancel culture" nonsense by ruining this talented guy's career in comics and life... people need to stop overthinking things.

Link to where people are trying to cancel his career? Talented is debatable. I think his art is plain bad. 

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