Since starting out as Timely Comics in 1939, Marvel's created countless classics… and
also done a few things they probably wish we'd forget.
Here are a few of the biggest missteps that the comics powerhouse and blockbuster movie
machine will never be able to erase, try as they might.
Disney made headlines for all the wrong reasons when James Gunn was abruptly fired from his
writer-director gig on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Gunn was axed in response to years-old social media posts full of bad attempts at dark humor.
For many disappointed fans, it wasn't the fact that Gunn was fired that was so outrageous
— show business can be brutal like that.
What bothered most was how quickly Disney caved to the pressure.
As defenders of Gunn have argued, including the vocal Guardians star Dave Bautista, the
posts only re-emerged as part of a concentrated campaign by far-right agitators to get Gunn
fired, particularly alt-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich.
Despite efforts by the cast to get the director reinstated, Disney stood by the decision - and
some still haven't forgiven them.
For his part, Gunn landed on his feet, being quickly scooped up by Warner Bros. to write
and potentially direct a Suicide Squad sequel.
But the firing has still left one of the MCU's best series feeling tarnished, with fans mourning
what could have been.
Marvel made some important strides toward fair representation in Hollywood with Black
Panther, but sadly it took the studio longer to find the nerve to do the same for gender
equality.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has been discussing the possibility of a Black Widow
movie for what seems like forever.
Speaking at a press conference in support of the release of Iron Man 2 on DVD back in
2010, Feige said,
"We've already started discussions with Scarlett about the idea of a solo movie and have begun
putting together concepts, but The Avengers comes first."
The Black Widow movie was bumped to the bottom of the pile in favor of new male-led franchises
and sequels in the years that followed.
It wasn't until Warner Bros. and DC proved with 2017's Wonder Woman that female-led superhero
movies could work that Marvel got on board with the idea, greenlighting Black Widow and
fast-tracking Captain Marvel.
But why did it take so long?
Feige told Entertainment Weekly,
"I think there are a lot of reasons.
Not the least of which was fighting for many years the erroneous notion that audiences
did not want to see a female-led hero [film] because of a slew of films 15 years ago that
didn't work.
And my belief was always that they didn't work not because they were female-led stories,
they didn't work because they were not particularly good movies."
"Okay, bad, good… gotta be something in between, right?
Maybe it's a little more complicated."
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is known for being a well-oiled machine, making the whole
extended movie universe thing seem easy by planning ahead years in advance.
That's true for the most part, but the MCU is far from watertight.
Its timeline has some major issues and some attentive fans have pointed them out.
The questions began when viewers noticed that lines of dialogue and title cards in the Sony-Marvel
collaboration Spider-Man: Homecoming stated that the movie takes place some eight years
after the events of The Avengers.
This didn't seem to tally, and Avengers co-director Joe Russo confirmed that it was indeed an
error.
Marvel released an official MCU timeline in the Marvel Studios: The First 10 Years source
book.
The new, corrected timeline confirmed that The Avengers took place in 2012 and placed
Homecoming in 2016.
Unfortunately the new timeline raised more questions than it answered.
“You weren’t manipulating the space-time continuum, you were breaking it!”
Dialogue in Infinity War states that the third Avengers film takes place two years after
Captain America: Civil War, but the timeline places them just a year apart.
ScreenRant writer Thomas Bacon points out that the most confusing choice is the new
timing of Black Panther.
The new official timeline places Civil War in 2016 and Black Panther in 2017.
But the Wakandan king T'Chaka dies in Civil War and his son T'Challa is named king in
the beginning of Black Panther.
So unless the final brawl between Cap and Iron Man took place around New Year's Eve,
the new timeline is saying that Black Panther left Wakanda without a king for around a year,
and that doesn't sound like something he would do.
Try as it might, Marvel just can't figure out a way to fix the timeline.
"Now is no time at all.”
When Kevin Feige announced that the cast of Black Panther would be 90 percent African
or African-American, he made it clear that Marvel movies were going to embrace diversity
going forward.
For a while it seemed as though Marvel Comics was going to follow the same path, but in
a 2017 interview, Senior Vice President of Sales David Gabriel appeared to complain about
the company's new emphasis on diversity.
According to Gabriel, sales figures suggested that diversity wasn't what Marvel fans really
wanted.
The senior VP told ICv2,
"What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity.
They didn't want female characters out there.
[...] We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our
female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character - people were turning
their nose up against."
Naturally, the interview led to a backlash, and Gabriel was forced to release a statement
clarifying his comments.
He claimed that Marvel bosses were proud and excited about the new range of diverse characters,
but hadn't done enough to promote them.
In 2017, a Marvel comic made headlines across the world for all the wrong reasons.
The company re-launched its X-Men line in April of that year, but what should have been
a time for celebration quickly descended into controversy thanks to Ardian Syaf, a Muslim
artist who hid political and religious references in X-Men: Gold #1.
On top of referencing the date of a protest held in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta,
Syaf drew the X-Men leader Kitty Pryde, a Jewish superhero, in front of a jewelry store.
While the whole sign is legible, fans pointed out that the first three letters were particularly
prominent.
He also drew fan favorite Colossus in a T-shirt with "QS 5:51" written across the chest, a
reference to an anti-Semitic and anti-Christian verse from the Koran.
It's easy to see why readers were upset about the message Syaf was secretly peddling, a
message that goes against the inclusive themes of the X-Men.
After predictably firing Syaf, Marvel released a statement that read,
"These implied references do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else
at Marvel and are in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel Comics and what
the X-Men have stood for since their creation."
"We're the X-Men, a dated metaphor for racism in the ‘60s.
So, respect.
At ease, officer."
Marvel started a very public spat with fans with 2016's Captain America: Steve Rogers
#1.
It was revealed at the end of the explosive issue that Marvel's star-spangled Avenger
turned to the dark side, with Steve Rogers revealing himself to be a HYDRA agent.
The fact that HYDRA is essentially an offshoot of the Nazis didn't seem to matter to Marvel,
though it mattered to fans.
Petitions were started and hashtags like #SayNoToHYDRACap and even #BoycottMarvel appeared on social
media.
Marvel kept telling fans to hang tight, and in the end HYDRA Cap was defeated.
But was it worth it?
“Whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don’t think he’s the kind you save.
He’s the kind you stop.”
A lot of readers felt like it wasn't worth it at all, and Polygon gave voice to those
fans, writing during its Secret Empire autopsy,
"It's irresponsible to play sleight of hand with potentially volatile and offensive imagery
just because 'it all works out in the end'."
Rock legends Alice Cooper and Kiss had already starred in comics in the '70s.
The company decided to resurrect the idea of inking musicians in the mid-'90s, at a
time when comic books were once again big business.
In a detailed piece for Spin, David Grossman wrote,
"The Marvel Music imprint aimed to not only revive the forgotten rock-comics genre, but
elevate it to new heights, both artistically and commercially.
[...] In the end, Marvel Music mostly served as a vehicle for the higher-ups at a newly
rich company to hang out with rock stars."
Comics starring Billy Ray Cyrus, Onyx, the Rolling Stones, and even Bob Marley were hastily
put together, but Marvel just couldn't figure out how to market them, much to the dismay
of Marvel Music head Mort Todd.
Recruited from Cracked magazine to helm Marvel's more rock-minded comics, Todd told Spin,
"They didn't know how to sell anything that wasn't superheroes [...] So I was infuriated
with Marvel and didn't renew my contract."
Marvel Music's spectacular failure contributed to one of Marvel's darkest times.
The dud imprint was pulled in 1995 and Marvel filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy the following
year.
Brian Michael Bendis joined the Marvel writing staff in 2000 and quickly made a name for
himself working on the Ultimate Spider-Man series.
His Marvel career got off to a flying start, but his relationship with fans turned sour
in 2004 when he was given creative control over Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
Buoyed by the success of his Spidey run, Bendis went in hot and decided to shake things up
big time.
Instead of easing himself into the title, he disassembled the Avengers, killing off
Hawkeye, Ant-Man, and Vision and scattering the remaining team members.
In 2018, Bendis told CBR,
"Some fans liked it, and some hated it.
There were a lot of arguments online, and a fan said to me, 'We're Avengers fans.
All we buy is Avengers, and we have no idea who you are, but you came over and kicked
all our toys over.'"
In November 2017 - 17 years after he started working for Marvel - Bendis jumped ship and
signed an exclusive deal with DC Comics.
When he spoke to CBR a few months later, the new Superman writer pledged that he wouldn't
make the same mistakes that he made on The Avengers.
He explained,
"It's not that I would have changed the story of Avengers, but the glee with which I did
things, I could have been more cool with."
Just weeks after Brian Michael Bendis departed for DC, Marvel's editor-in-chief Axel Alonso
also left the company without explanation.
Veteran writer C.B. Cebulski took his place at the top, but his reign was destined for
a rocky start.
The week after he was announced as the new head honcho at Marvel Comics, Cebulski admitted
that he'd previously written under the pseudonym Akira Yoshida.
Akira Yoshida was once a mysterious character in the comic book world, gaining notoriety
in the mid-2000s for his work with Marvel, who were desperate to find foreign writers
that could create authentic stories for the American audience.
As it turns out, Yoshida wasn't a fresh foreign voice at all.
Cebulski had been masquerading as a Japanese writer, inventing a full backstory and conducting
interviews.
Among the outlets that managed to score a rare interview with "Yoshida" when he was
active was CBR, and the website's Assistant Editor Jon Arvedon was not happy when he found
out about Cebulski's deception.
Arvedon wrote,
"One or more people were fully dedicated to perpetuating this nearly endless trail of
dishonesty to maintain the false aura of authenticity surrounding the mysterious Akira Yoshida.
Cebulski finally owning up to it is certainly a small step in the right direction, but the
damaged reputations and the harm done to writers, artists and readers may take years to repair."
"Caught in my own web of lies."
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