Heatstreet | No one is buying Marvel’s lineup of social justice-themed comics.
It’s no surprise, given that few readers want politics to be forced down
their throats. Thus liberal darling Ta-Nehisi Coates and Yona Harvey’s Black Panther & The Crew is getting the axe after poor sales, just two issues after its launch. Its cancellation comes just weeks after a Marvel VP revealed that comics with forced messages of “diversity” were responsible for the publisher’s sales slump.
Set in a near-future Harlem-turned-police state patrolled by robotic
police officers controlled by a private security contractor, the comic
has every element you’d expect from a comic attempting to tell a story
inspired by Black Lives Matter. The cops beat people up for no reason,
too.
Naturally, the social justice superheroes take justice into their own
hands and go to battle against the corrupt system, while learning about
the historical figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Univision-owned
entertainment vertical Gizmodo enthusiastically describes The Crew as one that “[tells a] timely [story] about real world issues, like how police brutality devastates black communities.”
Coates explained to The Verge
that Marvel decided to kill the publication due to poor sales, and that
there wouldn’t be any continuation after the current story arc ends in
its sixth and final issue. The market spoke, and Marvel listened. Fist tap Big Don.
