It's no secret that Marvel Entertainment is on the list of companies officially supporting SOPA. Contrary to what some hardcore Marvelites seem to think, Marvel is the only comics publishers explicitly on the list of supporters - DC is not on the list, despite the fact that other Warner Bros. subsidiaries are. Marvel is there not under the umbrella of Disney, but in addition to its parent corporation. Before we can leap to any conclusions as to why that is, we need some form of comment from Marvel.
Yet they have remained silent, ignoring the issue entirely save to shut down threads about the controversial bill on their website. An eerie shadow of things to come, which is all about giving corporations a frightening amount of control over the internet under the guise of preventing piracy.
SOPA has provoked such outrage that game giants Nintendo, Sony and EA pulled their support, perhaps fearing an epic backlash of the kind sustained by domain name registrar GoDaddy.
Yet nobody calls Marvel on it? Well, Steve Niles has articulated the concerns pretty darn well, yet he too is clearly dismayed by the lack of backbone and outrage on display from fans and creators.
Uncanny X-Men writer Kieron Gillen recently did an AMA on Reddit, birthplace of the SOPA backlash, and understandably he was asked about SOPA.
Not really one I can answer candidly and I'd rather not dance around it. Sorry, guys.
And so, the 'Ask Me Anything' became a misnomer rather quickly.
Gillen is a human being who needs a paycheck, so his closed version of an open forum is perhaps understandable. Redditors' blind willingness to accept it, on the other hand, defies reason and self-interest.
The fact that Marvel has benefited so greatly from social media while simultaneously waging a war on its non-corporate user base makes their support of SOPA all the more damning. While their editors, creators and marketing staff have fun and promote the brand on Tumblr, Twitter, and Google Plus, they are pushing for legislation that would allow them complete, unreasonable, power and control over the free internet.
I'm not calling for a boycott of Marvel. I'm not currently participating in one. I just picked up the Mighty Thor omnibus, and I love it. I'm not particularly fond of Gillen's work to date on Uncanny, but that has nothing to do with his SOPA stance (or lack therof).
It is time, however, to call them on it. To report about it, to talk about it, to demand answers. To flex the same muscles that made GoDaddy do a complete 180 in a matter of days. Because Marvel is the publisher of many wonderful titles, but they're not perfect and we don't owe them our liberties. SOPA is a broad and vindictive piece of legislation designed to punish the internet for sagging sales of traditional media that pumps out overpriced product at an increasing rate into an oversaturated marketplace. It poses a huge threat to the economy and to freedom of speech, to say nothing of truly independent entertainment. If any of those things matter to you, you deserve to know why Marvel is in favor of SOPA.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 9:05PM | 
