Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics | Tagged: chuck dixon, Eric D July, joe bennett, Ripaverse

Joe Bennett Finds A New Home WIth Chuck Dixon And Eric D July

Joe Bennett and Chuck Dixon have created a new superhero comic, Alphacore, for Eric D July's Rippaverse, getting boosts from culture wars.

In 2021, Marvel Comics published The Immortal Hulk #43 by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett. A number of messages were intentionally hidden in the artwork, referring to other Hulk comic book creators, including Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Jim Starlin, and Al Milgrom. However, there was another taken in a very different fashion. A jewellery store featured is named after David Cronenberg, the movie director known for the kind of body horror that The Immortal Hulk has embraced. But, instead of the window sign reading 'Jewelry,' it reads 'Jewery', placed above a Star of David., while Bruce Banner and the store employee are talking about money. Joe Bennett apologised for what had been interpreted as an anti-Semitic slur, telling us, "I've included references to famous horror directors to pay respects to the genre throughout the series, and in Immortal Hulk #43, I included a nod to David Cronenberg. The misspellings on the window were an honest but terrible mistake – since I was writing backwards, I accidentally spelt both of those words wrong. I have no excuse for how I depicted the Star of David. I failed to understand this troubling and offensive stereotype, and after listening to you all, I now understand my mistake. This was wrong, offensive, and hurtful in many ways. This is a mistake I must own, and I am sorry to everyone who I hurt by this. I am working with Marvel to correct this, and I am using this lesson to reflect on how I approach my stories and my work."

It absolutely looked like an error; we noted all this had been overseen by Marvel editorial. And reported that, internally, Marvel acknowledged their failure regarding this and corrected the art for the digital version and future printings and collections and issued a voluntary recall, reprint and replacement.  The comparison was made to a recalled issue of Wolverine that featured the word "kike" rather than "killer" in error, rather than the issue of X-Men Gold in which the artist Ardian Syaf inserted specific references to an anti-Christian/Jewish march with violent demands.

However, it was not enough for some. Culture warriors went to town and unearthed a now-deleted cartoon by Joe Bennett, drawn in 2017 that featured Jair Bolsonaro, then-President of Brazil, on horseback, wielding a sword to behead political opponents, including former Brazilian Presidents Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer, and Luiz Inácio da Silva, as well as Senator Aécio Neves amongst other political figures, seen as rodents and vermin. A number of people online have seen this as reflecting anti-Semitic tropes and have spoken out about the visual language being used by Bennett, even though Bolsonaro is as pro-Israel a leader as one could get.

Al Ewing, writer of the comic that Bennett has drawn for the last four years, Immortal Hulk, publically boycotted working with him after October's publication of Immortal Hulk #50. and tweeting out "the tropes are apparent. Human beings as vermin being exterminated. Even if it's no longer up, that it was drawn in the first place, signed, and so proudly displayed by Joe speaks volumes. This isn't the first issue with Joe that I've been made aware of… Immortal Hulk is done, but I won't be working with Joe again." Previously, Bennett expressed support for a Bolsonaro-supporting journalist who assaulted journalist Glenn Greenwald, though he deleted it and apologised to Greenwald afterwards.

As a result, Marvel Comics chose to drop Joe Bennett been dropped from the high-profile one-shot Timeless. And Marvel Comics has yet to work with Joe Bennett since. It was a complete cancellation of a popular creator by Marvel Comics, along the lines of what happened to Chuck Wendig.

Since then, Joe Bennett has also been working for a Florida-based Christian-focused publisher Kingstone Comics and most recently their US Comics imprint which is publishing a Christianity-themed history of America from the Plymouth Rock setlement called America Part One. Which includes more fight scenes than the usual Christian history comic books.

But Joe Bennett has also found another home, working with former Punisher, Batman, Robin, Birds Of Prey and Nightwing writer Chuck Dixon over on Eric D July's Rippaverse Studios line. After entering the culture wars itself, previous titles got a boost with considerable coverage from Eric D July's employer, the Blaze Network, Fox News and other right-wing media. And there's nothing one side of a culture war loves more than a victim of the other side, such as Bennett. Their new comic, Alphacore #1, was offered for preorder last month, has just shipped to backers and has now reported over 12,000 orders. And because they price the comic high, from $28 to $50 for a 96-page book per copy, plus shipping and further premium options, they have reported sales of over a million dollars. Different from crowdfunding schemes such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, there's no independent verification of those numbers, but also no reason to doubt them.

Alphacore is a superhero-police comic book about an affluent city that has problems with a superpowered underclass. It features a superhero team that deals with threats that the police are "too outgunned to handle." But they also have to deal with the politics as "not everyone is a fan of their superpowered heroics, and not all of them are on the opposite side of the law." And apparently, there is a "puppetmaster pulling the strings behind these crimes." I mean… yeah.

It certainly looks damn fine, as one would expect from a Joe Bennett comic book; there is a reason he is an Eisner Award nominee. From all accounts, while this may not reach the heights of his work on Immortal Hulk, for those denied their Bennett fix and teamed with the likes of Chuck Dixon, it might just be what they have been waiting for.

Though something tells me those who take to YouTube to decry any politics in superhero stories won't have a problem with this superhero comic. In which superfolk help out the police who just don't have big enough weapons to fight the criminals who are spoiling a perfect society. Those are the politics that certain folk are quite happy with.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!