Posted in: Comics | Tagged: mail bag

Bleeding Cool Mail Bag: Dan Didio, Dual-Branded PPVs, J.J. Abrams, and the Comment Section

Yes, we know. The comment section is still broken. We're still sad about it too. So we've decided to go old school. Again. We're going to open up the ol' Bleeding Cool mail bag and see what people have been sending us through the contact form currently prominently displayed at the bottom of all articles due to a CSS or javascript error.

As you may have noticed, our contact form has been modified to allow readers the opportunity to mark their feedback as private, shareable in a letters column with a name (we'll only use your first name), or shareable but without using a name, so feel free to send us feedback for future editions.

Now, let's open up the mail bag and see what our readers are saying this week…

Don writes in response to DC Co-Publisher Dan Didio taking shots at Marvel's execution of "diversity" in their comics:

He's not wrong.

That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about Dan Didio. Another reader, Robert, elaborated:

Considering the results, you have to admit he has a point. I wasn't against the concepts of what Marvel put forward, Sam as Cap was one of the only people I personally feel fits, but the way Marvel went about is left a lot to be desired (Original Sin just sucked.) Same thing with Bobby coming out, it was horrible executed and clunky as hell. There's a lot to be said about really putting in the time and work on getting the story right, hitting people over the head is rarely the best way to do things. There would always be that vocal minority that disliked the ideas regardless of execution, but like the saying goes, "Timing is everything."

Great to hear from you, Robert. One concept that we're against is your interesting take on punctuation. Have you ever considered a career as a Bleeding Cool writer? Also, if readers weren't meant to be hit over the head with comic books, then explain to us why they keep producing so many heavy omnibus editions?

Next, Diana disagrees with all this Didio love, writing:

Excuse me? Did Jason Rusch, Jaime Reyes and Ryan Choi not happen on DiDio's watch? Was he not the one who ultimately 86'd them for the exact same reasons Marvel are backtracking now?

Thanks for writing, Diana. Sadly, your argument is invalid because it references history older than one year. In the world of comics, fans aren't expected to have memories that go back that far. That's why the way characters are written is able to change completely based on whichever super-mega-crossover event is being published, and why comics need to constantly rebooted. Comic book fans are idiots who can't even remember to read a book every month, which is why the sales keep dropping and they need a new number one issue to remind them. Marvel and DC must have some kind of scientific evidence to back this up. Otherwise, why would they do it?

Another reader, Jim, took issue not with the content of the article, but with its headline:

"shots fired" way to trivialize gun violence and the feelings of its victims.

here i thought this website was woke.. but obviously trump and his supporters love of violence is just a joke to you with this insensitive headline

bleeding cool needs to be an ally. this article helps nothing.

besides its about stupid comics news. stick to your bread and butter which is identity politics outrage

We appreciate your thoughts, Jim, but we feel we should correct some misconceptions. First, this article was published on Tuesday, a day before the school shooting. Secondly, our bread and butter isn't identity politics outrage. Our bread and butter is clickbait articles about the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League, followed by articles trolling Marvel on their lack of female-led movies, articles about Ike Perlmutter's personal life, articles posting the tweets of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, articles about pro wrestling, updates on Netflix's Fuller House, stories about the DC-loving mayor of Long Beach, California, articles that feature quotes by world-renowned expert Professor Thaddeus T. Puffinbottoms, and then, and only then, identity politics outrage. Finally, we think you should take it easy on Trump and his supporters, Jim. They've had a rough week.

James writes in with a comment about one of last week's hot topics, the Irish reviewer who ruined Black Panther's perfect Rotten Tomatoes score:

are you SERIOUSLY trying to suggest that the IRISH review is due to Trumps AMERICA? Really? You do know there are other countries in the world, right? If the one bad review is due to Trumps America, are the 99% positive reviews also due to Trumps America? Or does it only work for the things you don't like?

James, thank you writing. As previously established, it was the Irish reviewer who cited Trump's America as one of the reasons for his negative review, not Bleeding Cool. We were merely reporting it. But let's not rehash this subject again. Instead, let's talk about other ways our Black Panther coverage has been right. For example, did you know that we're the only major website who properly predicted Black Panther's success? It's true. Other sites were reporting official estimates, which limited the movie at $160 million for the full four-day weekend, which would have put it in the top 15 superhero openings of all time. But it was Bleeding Cool who said Black Panther had a shot of being the biggest superhero movie opening ever.

Now that the dust has settled, who was right? The movie will have made $192 million in three days, falling just short of The Avengers' $207 million record, and becoming the second biggest superhero movie opening ever. The four day total is expected to be somewhere around $218-$227 million. So it's pretty clear that we got it closer than anyone else.

The lesson here: never doubt that Bleeding Cool is accurate when reporting on Black Panther. Pip pip!

Next up, Aaron writes in about WWE going with dual-branded PPVs:

Thumbs sideways. It will depend on the PPV angles, and historically WWE seems likely to fuck it up, but if the combined shows are booked as well as the Rumble was then I'm all for it.

Great observation, Aaron. Unfortunately, your hopes are flawed because they're based on WWE shows being booked well on a consistent basis, something we have no evidence from the past decade to back up.

An anonymous reader wanted to share some nuanced thoughts on the state of pro wrestling:

WWE Raw and Smackdown Live are to damn SOFT

Raw is Really weak and soft because why it's to damn kid and family friendly it's not hardcore at all 3 hours of run down show the promos sucks ass big time the creative team doesn't even know what the hell their doing at all when it comes to Real wrestling if you watch NJPW they let their own wrestlers have creative control over their on promos so that they can build their on character and they bleed wwe need to get with the time it's 2018 let the wrestlers on Raw and Smackdown Live have more creative control over their on character you know why the tickets sale are down and the crowd are sitting their silence because WWE "SUCKS" and so do Micheal Cole get rid of him his voice sounds like a BITCH please get rid of this guy but on the other hand stop calling us the wwe universe we are FANS who wants to watch REAL Wrestling not a damn kid show wwe it's time to man up or step aside because if you keep going this rate with raw and Smackdown Live you will always have low ticket sales and people around the world will stop watching raw and Smackdown Live I hate to say this but you know what I'm saying it anyway "NXT" show and their ppv are better than raw and Smackdown Live shows and ppv why just listen to the Fans they are loud and they are into the shows and the ppv I Love the shows I tone in every Wednesday to watch NXT and their ppv because it's exciting and you see NEW things every Wednesday and their promos are AWESOME Now this is A Damn Show raw and Smackdown Live take Notes

While we appreciate your take, anonymous, we're not sure we necessarily agree with everything you say. That being said, there is something WWE could learn from your email. The problem with WWE's main weekly shows, Raw and Smackdown, is that they're paced way too slowly. If they picked up the pace, like you did in your email by excluding any form of punctuation, the shows would feel much faster and the segments would blend into each other like your sentences without periods.

In our last wrestling-themed email, Mick takes us to task for misusing a term:

" after Roman Reigns is coronated as WWE Universal Champion at WrestleMania"

Actually, he will be 'crowned' at Wrestlemania. Just like a king or a Queen is. The event is call a 'coronation'.

If he was 'coronated', he would be turned (in biological terms) into a crown-shaped object, which would be a much more interesting sight.

Sorry, Mick, but Merriam-Webster does list "coronate" as a transitive verb that means "crown," and includes "coronated" as its past tense. Do you really think we could get a job writing for Bleeding Cool, the most typo-free website on the entire Internet, if we weren't much gud at language?

Carlos writes to complain about our still-broken comment system:

idk man. why i cant comment?

Carlos, Bleeding Cool aims to provide our readers with the latest in high-tech intrusive ad experiences, which has led to our pioneering of such techniques as auto-play videos or ads that freeze your browser so you have no choice but to continue to stare at a Bleeding Cool article until you reboot your computer. Sometimes, in the pursuit of these lofty goals, errors occur, and one of those is preventing the comments from displaying. We hope to have it fixed soon, but until then, I'll continue to do this weekly letters column so that the voices of Bleeding Cool's readers can be heard, and so that we can meet our weekly quota without putting in any real effort.

Brian writes in to elaborate on the subject of Carlos's comment:

Hey Jude;

Long time reader, several time writer. Just wanted to say that your new mailbag section, while quaint, is a stupid idea in the world of online things.

My suggestion as a web developer is to remove, at random, half of the ridiculous javascript bloat that your so called "advertisers" have added to your website.

Instead, have Rich open up his purse strings to hire an actual sales team who goes out and does actual sales to actual other companies.

BTW, I love your Wrestling posts, but Dan Wickline's stupid Sportsballings posts can go directly to hell where they can die a long and painful death. There are plenty of other stupid Sportsballings websites out there without the random assed token Sportsballing posts getting errr…posted here.

Great to hear from you, Brian. While we hear what you're saying, stupid ideas are the lifeblood of the internet. Think about what sites like Twitter or Facebook would look like without stupid ideas? It would be a barren wasteland, we'd all have nothing to do when we're supposed to be "working," and we'd be forced to… *gulp*… interact with other humans in person. No thanks, Brian.

That being said, we are working on getting the comments fixed as soon as possible. We've gotten a lot of feedback about it, and we understand it's important to our readers to be able to post and read the comments, and therefore it's important to us, because that means the readers will stick around longer and be subjected longer to the javascript bloat from our "advertisers," which is what pays the bills, after all.

As for Dan's sportsball posts, that's all a part of our plan to eventually conquer the entire media world and replace the New York Times and Infowars.com as the paper of record. You see, it's not fair that only comic book fans, wrestling fans, and fans of the hit Netflix show Fuller House get to experience the excellence of Bleeding Cool's "journalism." Our work is too good to keep isolated to niche mediums like comics and TV and movies and video games, though we understand why you'd want to keep it all to yourself.

Anonymous writes:

Bruh. Bring the goddamn comments back. BC sucks without em

Didn't you read the previous responses?!

Loki writes in to talk about this week's X-Men: Bland Design, specifically the recap of Weapon X:

I think you missed out on an opportunity to point out the creepy factor. Domino banging warpath is like uncle Jessie sleeping with dj. Or that it didn't work out with Colossus cause he wasn't murdery enough.

We appreciate the feedback, Loki, though we're not quite sure we agree on the whole Uncle Jesse thing. Domino didn't raise Warpath in a house in San Francisco with her dead sister's husband and his wacky best friend… did she? Now that we think about it, though, a crossover between two of our favorite franchises, X-Men and Fuller House, does sound like a fantastic idea. It could be based around the messed up Summers/Grey families, where someone is always dead at one time or another. Who would you like to see move in with Jean or Scott to raise a young Cable, Nate Grey, and Rachel Grey in a hilarious sitcom environment? Let us know and we'll feature it in the next mail bag!

Anonymous writes to discuss Star Wars director J.J. Abrams's comments on diversity in Hollywood:

People like J.J. in Hollywood don't really care about doing any true objective sort of good. They just push the diversity angle because they want to be praised and adored for being progressive. It's purely ego driven. They think it makes them superior. They also think it places them above criticism. And if anyone disagrees with them for any reason, then they can play the victim card, or disregard such criticism as "Sexist" "Homophobic" "Racist" or whatever. With his kind in Hollywood these days it's all about what's right for THEM, rather than what's actually legitimately right.

Even here, Jar Jar is saying "Look at me! I'm championing women and minorities because I'm better than regular people! If you disagree with me for any reason, then you are a bad person. Now pat me on the back and praise me for my progressiveness!" Of course we don't see Jar Jar ever turning down a gig so a woman or a minority can have it, do we? He's just butthurt here because he tried to recreate Star Wars in HIS image and people are calling him out on his bullshit. HE'S the one doing the lashing out.

Ive never had a problem with minorities or women in Star Wars. I do have a problem with egotists using them as a shield.

Wait a minute… the initials in J.J. Abrams stand for Jar Jar?! It all makes sense now! Especially the terrible ending to LOST!

Okay, that's it for this week. As always, thanks to all of you for reading, and especially those of you who choose to write in with your comments or feedback. We do expect those comments to be fixed at some point soon, but do feel free to keep sending us emails either way, and we'll keep doing these columns as long as long as we get them. You can use the comment form below, or hit us up directly at judeterror (at) bleedingcool.com.

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