Re: Action...or Beck It Like Bendis

Action Comics and I go back a long way. Although I no longer possess it, I am reasonably sure (I have a pretty good memory for old comic book covers) that the first issue I purchased was #354, which hit the racks (we didn't have stands back in those days) on September 6, 1967, which was (1) shortly after my 10th birthday and (2) just slightly over a year after my first ever comic book purchase, which was Batman #181 (June 1, 1966). It was never a title I bought religiously, but I had some pretty long runs with it over the years. Like when it went weekly from issue # 601 to #642? Oh, yeah, I was there. I loved that run. But I fell away from mainstream comics awhile back. Not so far a fall that I wasn't more than a little miffed when DC decided to re-start the numbering on Action, though. That really irked me. And when I heard that they were going to go back to the original numbering, I was so pleased that I decided to check it out. Thus did I buy issue #957. And I did like it, so I continued to buy it. And then I thought, "Heck, they're going to hit #1000 any minute now, so I might as well stick around for that, right?" And there were highs and lows, but it was coming out bi-weekly, so it only took about two years to get there.  

And that's pretty much where we are now.

I have to admit that I was less than happy with Brian Michael Bendis's first issue. The writing seemed a bit too cutesy pie to me, a bit too self-important. But I was planning to give it an honest try...even though the book went up a buck, to $3.99 per issue, which I thought was not very nice.

But today I read issue #1002, and that's it for me. The straw that broke this camel's back was this bit of dialogue:

I don't know why Bendis thinks it's okay to use "autistic" as a pejorative adjective preceding an obviated obscenity...but you know what? I don't care, either. It was as offensive to me as if he'd used the word "retard" or a racial epithet. I don't care that this bad language is put into the mouth of a bad guy. It's a nasty way to use the term, and all I can say to Brian Michael Bendis is Fuck You. Not that he would care, of course. Nor would he care that I will never buy another comic book with his name on it. But at least I'll feel that there's one bad human being I've stepped away from.

Well, that's not fair, of course. Writing one nasty thing doesn't make BMB a bad human being. But I'm pissed off, you know? As if autistic people don't get enough shit already. As if the people who love autistic people don't get enough shit already. In the world of autism, shit is as steady as rain in the Solomon Islands. There's no need for a writer to go out of his way to add to it.