Boycott Marvel - Now With More Reasons

You may or may not have heard about the protest to boycott Marvel and The Avengers due to the lack of integrity they have in giving Jack "The King" Kirby any credit for creating any of their biggest characters and solidified their "We just don't give a shit" attitude with its legal victory in which a judge has decided that Jack Kirby was a work for hire and his name and his heirs have no legal claim to the characters that he helped/did create.

From a business stand point, I understand. After so many years of denying his involvement, to go back on that now would mean tons of back payments and just one more hand in the cookie jar of royalty payments. So of course the powers at bay armed themselves with lawyers and found every possible way to get out of losing money.

I can't speak for the other Bastards, but I'm boycotting the Avengers movie. I can understand the business of not wanting to do it on the comics because they're lazy and cheap and doing the right thing is hard... but you can throw him a bone on a movie credit. Frankly, ICv2 summed it up nicely and sources everyone that started this "Kirby Awareness" as I'm calling it since everyone shudders at the word boycott.

If you need another movie or reason to hate Marvel this week I've got one more that everyone seems to have missed. The creator of Ghost Rider sued Marvel (I believe for the rights of the character) and lost. Now he owes Marvel $17,000 bucks... and he's broke since comics are one of the only entertainment industries not unionized. There's a petition for Marvel to forgive creator Gary Friedrich for his debt and others are raising money for the creator to pay off his debt. The fact that either are needed show the sad state that Marvel Comics Entertainment has become. Again, I will be boycotting the Ghost Rider movie as well, since Friedrich stands to receive zero dollars and zero cents from the film. You can get more info here.

What I find to be the saddest thing about all of this is that a company that produces superhero comics that are all about doing what's right even if it's the hardest thing in the world to do... does anything but the right thing. We read these funny books to escape the sometimes terrible realities of the world and Marvel can't just sack up and acknowledge the hard work of the people that got them there in the first place? How much money do the investors and board members need?

Now you have the info you need. Decide for yourself and just know that in both cases the law is on Marvel's side. The thing is, when the police shoot at Spider-Man when he's doing the right thing... the law is on their side too, but we still root for Spider-Man. Maybe Marvel should practice what it preaches and stop alienating their fans.