At times, I deviate from this blog's normal theme of creating Deathstroke-centric content for Deathstroke fans if I feel a certain non-Deathstroke topic needs to be addressed. Most of the time these posts have to do with celebrating a given creator's birthday, to recognize a significant day in history, or to acknowledge the passing of a significant person that has made a lasting contribution to the comic book industry as a whole.
But today's post is a little different. Today's topic is not a celebration. Today's topic is not a recognition of anything positive about the medium I love or its millions of passionate and supportive devotees who have derived entertainment, sometimes comfort, and on some rare occasions, inspiration from the tales of "good" versus "evil" that have been part of pop culture for nearly a century. Don't misunderstand me, the industry and its history are far from spotless, but in its totality, comic books have provided far more positive things to the world than negative ones.
The same can be said of the vast, and I mean the VAST majority of comic books fans, that love and support the industry the way that I do. They simply love the medium, warts and all, and by no means wish for any form of harm to befall anyone for any reason, let alone because of fictional events that play out within the pages of a comic book. But today's post is not about "vast, and I mean the VAST majority of comic books fans." It is about those that feel it necessary to not only wish to bring harm upon others but to publicly express those same wishes directly to comic book creators with whom they have absolutely no relationship other than one of creators and consumers of fictional stories.
[The remainder of this post will reference the events of Heroes in Crisis (2018) that is still in progress at the time of this writing as well as other stories written by Tom King. Spoilers do appear below, so reader discretion is advised.]
(This post continues below.)
Heroes in Crisis (2018), written by Tom King, was released on the morning of Wednesday, April 24, 2019. By the afternoon of Wednesday, April 24, 2019, King's life was threatened by a "fan" on social media. It seems that this "fan" was upset, to the point of apparent emotional instability, over what King had written about a fictional character in a comic book. King's actual, real life was threatened because of a fictional story about a fictional person that doesn't otherwise exist outside the context of a comic book.
This death threat happened to King in the real world because Tom King had the audacity to write a comic book story in which Wally West, who according to an entire generation of comic book fans is "my Flash," suffered an emotional break at Sanctuary, resulting in a temporary loss of control over the Speed Force energies resulting in the deaths of several heroes. West then attempted to cover up his actions by staging the dead heroes' bodies to fit a contrived murder scenario for which Booster Gold and Harley Quinn were blamed. To solidify his alibi, West then murdered a future version of himself to complete his constructed crime scene with a dead Flash.
Wally West's actions were written by King to illustrate that anyone is capable of anything if that person had experienced severe emotional trauma. Granted, no one in the real world would unleash a raw blast of Speed Force energy, but emerging bodies of psychological, sociological, and educational research support the necessity of trauma-informed practices, especially in schools, to aid individuals in coping with and overcoming the effects of experiencing severe emotional trauma. King did not characterize West as a crazed individual, a criminal mastermind, or even an "evil" person, but as a traumatized person who momentarily lost control, did something horrific, panicked, and then tried to cover it up. These are not the noble actions of a hero, but they are the actions of an individual that has been completely broken by emotional trauma, which was really King's overarching theme for Heroes in Crisis all along.
This death threat happened to King in the real world because Tom King had the audacity to write a comic book story in which Wally West, who according to an entire generation of comic book fans is "my Flash," suffered an emotional break at Sanctuary, resulting in a temporary loss of control over the Speed Force energies resulting in the deaths of several heroes. West then attempted to cover up his actions by staging the dead heroes' bodies to fit a contrived murder scenario for which Booster Gold and Harley Quinn were blamed. To solidify his alibi, West then murdered a future version of himself to complete his constructed crime scene with a dead Flash.
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| An emotionally traumatized Wally West losing control of the Speed Force, killing other Sanctuary patients nearby. Art by Mitch Gerads. |
Wally West's actions were written by King to illustrate that anyone is capable of anything if that person had experienced severe emotional trauma. Granted, no one in the real world would unleash a raw blast of Speed Force energy, but emerging bodies of psychological, sociological, and educational research support the necessity of trauma-informed practices, especially in schools, to aid individuals in coping with and overcoming the effects of experiencing severe emotional trauma. King did not characterize West as a crazed individual, a criminal mastermind, or even an "evil" person, but as a traumatized person who momentarily lost control, did something horrific, panicked, and then tried to cover it up. These are not the noble actions of a hero, but they are the actions of an individual that has been completely broken by emotional trauma, which was really King's overarching theme for Heroes in Crisis all along.
But for at least one individual, West's downward spiral was an indignity. For this person, King's characterization of "his Flash" as a fragile person capable of horrific things could not be tolerated. For this person, the "appropriate" response was to contact King via social media and threaten to end his life. So to be clear, this person expressed a real desire to really end someone's real life (a husband, a father of three, and a former counterterrorism operative whose job it was to keep people alive no less) because that person wrote a fictional story about a person that doesn't really exist.
What the hell am I missing, here? How does a reasonable person go from being disappointed with a comic book story to wanting to kill a person that quickly? The simple answer is that a "reasonable" person doesn't. Let's assume for the sake of argument that this person was just a moron troll just trying to get a rise out of King, I doubt that King's wife and children are amused. What is worse is that this isn't the first time that King's life has been threatened via social media. King's controversial Batman (2016) #50, in which Catwoman jilted Batman on their wedding day, also resulted in a litany of death threats from enraged fans, so many in fact that King was provided a team of bodyguards just to attend the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con.
The irony of the Tom King/Heroes in Crisis situation would be poignant if it weren't so perverse. King's life was threatened by a "fan" because of a story he wrote about a person suffering from emotional instability, but someone becoming enraged enough by a comic book story that the course of action used to deal with that rage was to get on Twitter and tell the writer that you want to murder him is in and of itself an act that screams emotionally instability.
Furthermore, King is far from the only comic book creator that has had their lives threatened because of the fictional events that they have written. Donnie Cates, writer of Venom (2018) was threatened when he made changes to the fundamental relationship between Eddie Brock and his Venom symbiote. Even before allegations of sexual abuse against him emerged, Eric M. Esquivel was the subject of racist death threats due to the subject matter of his Vertigo series, Border Town (2018). Billy Tucci, the creator of the independent comic book, Shi, revealed that the FBI informed him that he and his wife were the subjects of death threats on Twitter and that the suspect was known to the FBI and the threats were considered to be credible. Chelsea Cain received death threats while working on her well-received Mockingbird (2016) series just for being a female comic book writer that wrote Mockingbird as a feminist. Nick Spencer had his life threatened for writing Captain America: Steve Rogers (2016) #1 when its last page revealed Captain America (not the original) to be an agent of Hydra. Dan Slott received threats on his life simply for leaking the ending to Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #700. And so on, and so on...
Does the nature of social media itself play a role in the rise of fan rage toward creators? Screen names and Twitter handles can act to provide a layer of anonymity for users giving them a sense of immunity emboldening them to say outrageous and hurtful things without a perceived fear of consequence. The desire and competition for "likes," "followers," and "retweets" among Twitter users serve to incentivize increasingly outrageous comments in order to garner new and repeat views to Twitter feeds. Social media can also act to isolate individuals within virtual echo chambers in which "like-minded" individuals volley commonly held ideas to one another so often that these ideas intensify due to repeated exposure. Social media research has also uncovered something of a competitive "I'm a bigger fan than you" effect in which people in a given fan community tend to double down on either popular or contrarian views within the community, again resulting in increasingly intense points of view.
So is social media solely to blame, or does it simply amplify the negative aspects of fandom itself? Fandom of all stripes tends to promote fans of various pop culture phenomena retreating into designated camps of "us" and "them," with "us" being good and "them," being bad. Marvel vs. DC, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Manchester United vs. Liverpool, PlayStation vs. Xbox, and countless other fan rivalries have resulted in myriad uncivil exchanges throughout the years. Social pressure within fan camps also tends to encourage teasing, if not outright trolling of those the rival camps. In the case of Heroes in Crisis, there has been an extremely vitriolic camp of "fans" that feel as though "their Flash," Wally West, has been unduly "disrespected" by DC Comics since the return of Barry Allen to the role of the company's main Flash following Grant Morrison's Final Crisis (2008) and Geoff Johns' The Flash: Rebirth (2009). They felt that their years of fandom and fan devotion to Wally West entitled then to some degree of ownership and even some control of the character. This outrage only intensified when DC Comics rebooted their entire comic book universe after the events of Flashpoint (2011) giving rise to the New 52, which had no Wally West at all. Even when a Wally West was introduced to the New 52 in the pages of The Flash (2011) Annual #3, these fans felt as though they were being mocked as this new Wally West was an African-American teenager and not "their Wally West."
The unending social media complaints about the absence of "the real Wally West," were finally heeded when Geoff Johns brought back "their Wally West" in the pages of DC Universe Rebirth (2016). To explain his absence in the New 52, it was revealed that Wally was trapped within the Speed Force and while there he became aware that some sentient force, later revealed to be Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan, had not only changed the DC Universe but had also erased ten years of time, and experience, from the heroes, making them weaker versions of themselves. When Barry managed to pull Wally from the Speed Force, his physical contact with Wally triggered the return of memories from before Flashpoint. Wally was portrayed as the symbol of hope and the key to regaining what Doctor Manhattan had taken from the DC Universe. In a cruel twist of fate, the burden of being the "symbol of hope" was specifically mentioned in Wally's confessional in Heroes in Crisis #8 as a contributing factor in his emotional breakdown. But for Wally's diehard fans, including the person responsible for King's deaths threat, this was an unacceptable violation of their fandom and could not go unpunished.
As a longtime fan, I completely understand being disappointed or even angry about the direction of a comic book series. When Marv Wolfman killed Barry Allen (my Flash) and then replaced him with Wally West in Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), I was livid, but I never thought about killing him. I simply didn't buy the Flash (1987). When Ron Marz took Hal Jordan (my Green Lantern) and turned him into a homicidal megalomaniac during the "Emerald Twilight" story in Green Lantern (1990), then replaced him with some Kyle Rayner person, murdering Marz never entered my mind. Azrael or Jim Gordon as Batman? I hated these ideas, but I never wanted anyone's blood because of them. Colossus betraying the X-Men to join Magneto's Acolytes in Uncanny X-Men (1963) #304? I was so furious about it, but I never wanted to harm Scott Lobdell for it, or for that matter, his asinine run on Superman (2011) either. I have never, ever wanted to threaten the life of any comic book creator for the things that they have written because I have the fundamental understanding that the events that unfold in comic books ARE NOT REAL! Nor should they have any real impact on the overall quality of my life; my real life!
I love comic books, the comics industry, and the great majority of fans that make up the comic book community, but I detest the sickening and apparently growing movement in which disgruntled "fans" find it necessary to voice their anger about comic book stories as threats of murder against comic book creators. Thought it is a relatively small number of internet trolls that threaten creators, any number of creators that are threatened is too many. If reading comic books can provoke you to the point of rage and rants that consist of threatening the life of a perfect stranger, then maybe comic books are not something that you can handle at this time in your life. Maybe the need you feel to cyber-stalk said perfect stranger just for the opportunity to wish them bodily harm or death should be a warning sign that other significant issues may be at play in your life and that you need help; real professional help, for a real problem. I sincerely hope that this is the last time any comic book creator has their life threatened because of a comic book story that they write, but then again maybe I'm the one not living in reality concerning this issue.
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| Redacted screen capture of Tom King's Twitter issue report about the person that threatened his life. Image Source: @TomKingTK (Twitter) |
What the hell am I missing, here? How does a reasonable person go from being disappointed with a comic book story to wanting to kill a person that quickly? The simple answer is that a "reasonable" person doesn't. Let's assume for the sake of argument that this person was just a moron troll just trying to get a rise out of King, I doubt that King's wife and children are amused. What is worse is that this isn't the first time that King's life has been threatened via social media. King's controversial Batman (2016) #50, in which Catwoman jilted Batman on their wedding day, also resulted in a litany of death threats from enraged fans, so many in fact that King was provided a team of bodyguards just to attend the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con.
The irony of the Tom King/Heroes in Crisis situation would be poignant if it weren't so perverse. King's life was threatened by a "fan" because of a story he wrote about a person suffering from emotional instability, but someone becoming enraged enough by a comic book story that the course of action used to deal with that rage was to get on Twitter and tell the writer that you want to murder him is in and of itself an act that screams emotionally instability.
 |
| Mockingbird's feminist agenda Art by Joëlle Jones and Rachelle Rosenberg |
Does the nature of social media itself play a role in the rise of fan rage toward creators? Screen names and Twitter handles can act to provide a layer of anonymity for users giving them a sense of immunity emboldening them to say outrageous and hurtful things without a perceived fear of consequence. The desire and competition for "likes," "followers," and "retweets" among Twitter users serve to incentivize increasingly outrageous comments in order to garner new and repeat views to Twitter feeds. Social media can also act to isolate individuals within virtual echo chambers in which "like-minded" individuals volley commonly held ideas to one another so often that these ideas intensify due to repeated exposure. Social media research has also uncovered something of a competitive "I'm a bigger fan than you" effect in which people in a given fan community tend to double down on either popular or contrarian views within the community, again resulting in increasingly intense points of view.
So is social media solely to blame, or does it simply amplify the negative aspects of fandom itself? Fandom of all stripes tends to promote fans of various pop culture phenomena retreating into designated camps of "us" and "them," with "us" being good and "them," being bad. Marvel vs. DC, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Manchester United vs. Liverpool, PlayStation vs. Xbox, and countless other fan rivalries have resulted in myriad uncivil exchanges throughout the years. Social pressure within fan camps also tends to encourage teasing, if not outright trolling of those the rival camps. In the case of Heroes in Crisis, there has been an extremely vitriolic camp of "fans" that feel as though "their Flash," Wally West, has been unduly "disrespected" by DC Comics since the return of Barry Allen to the role of the company's main Flash following Grant Morrison's Final Crisis (2008) and Geoff Johns' The Flash: Rebirth (2009). They felt that their years of fandom and fan devotion to Wally West entitled then to some degree of ownership and even some control of the character. This outrage only intensified when DC Comics rebooted their entire comic book universe after the events of Flashpoint (2011) giving rise to the New 52, which had no Wally West at all. Even when a Wally West was introduced to the New 52 in the pages of The Flash (2011) Annual #3, these fans felt as though they were being mocked as this new Wally West was an African-American teenager and not "their Wally West."
 |
| The return of Barry Allen, or the beginning of the "My Flash" movement. Art by JG Jones |
The unending social media complaints about the absence of "the real Wally West," were finally heeded when Geoff Johns brought back "their Wally West" in the pages of DC Universe Rebirth (2016). To explain his absence in the New 52, it was revealed that Wally was trapped within the Speed Force and while there he became aware that some sentient force, later revealed to be Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan, had not only changed the DC Universe but had also erased ten years of time, and experience, from the heroes, making them weaker versions of themselves. When Barry managed to pull Wally from the Speed Force, his physical contact with Wally triggered the return of memories from before Flashpoint. Wally was portrayed as the symbol of hope and the key to regaining what Doctor Manhattan had taken from the DC Universe. In a cruel twist of fate, the burden of being the "symbol of hope" was specifically mentioned in Wally's confessional in Heroes in Crisis #8 as a contributing factor in his emotional breakdown. But for Wally's diehard fans, including the person responsible for King's deaths threat, this was an unacceptable violation of their fandom and could not go unpunished.
As a longtime fan, I completely understand being disappointed or even angry about the direction of a comic book series. When Marv Wolfman killed Barry Allen (my Flash) and then replaced him with Wally West in Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), I was livid, but I never thought about killing him. I simply didn't buy the Flash (1987). When Ron Marz took Hal Jordan (my Green Lantern) and turned him into a homicidal megalomaniac during the "Emerald Twilight" story in Green Lantern (1990), then replaced him with some Kyle Rayner person, murdering Marz never entered my mind. Azrael or Jim Gordon as Batman? I hated these ideas, but I never wanted anyone's blood because of them. Colossus betraying the X-Men to join Magneto's Acolytes in Uncanny X-Men (1963) #304? I was so furious about it, but I never wanted to harm Scott Lobdell for it, or for that matter, his asinine run on Superman (2011) either. I have never, ever wanted to threaten the life of any comic book creator for the things that they have written because I have the fundamental understanding that the events that unfold in comic books ARE NOT REAL! Nor should they have any real impact on the overall quality of my life; my real life!
I love comic books, the comics industry, and the great majority of fans that make up the comic book community, but I detest the sickening and apparently growing movement in which disgruntled "fans" find it necessary to voice their anger about comic book stories as threats of murder against comic book creators. Thought it is a relatively small number of internet trolls that threaten creators, any number of creators that are threatened is too many. If reading comic books can provoke you to the point of rage and rants that consist of threatening the life of a perfect stranger, then maybe comic books are not something that you can handle at this time in your life. Maybe the need you feel to cyber-stalk said perfect stranger just for the opportunity to wish them bodily harm or death should be a warning sign that other significant issues may be at play in your life and that you need help; real professional help, for a real problem. I sincerely hope that this is the last time any comic book creator has their life threatened because of a comic book story that they write, but then again maybe I'm the one not living in reality concerning this issue.
