Lines. Not Crossing Them Is Called "Being Civilized"

I don't read many comics anymore.  I am occasionally made aware of a new take on an old character that interests me or reminded of a series I always meant to read.  It's fairly rare these days.

Mostly, I like the art from my youth, DC and Marvel comics from the 70s to about the early 90s.  Most of the new stuff doesn't really do it for me and that's okay.

I may have to pony up some dough for a comic or two written by a guy named Tom Taylor.

I'm not considering buying his work because I'm really interested in the current state of Nightwing and Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl.

It's because this poor guy is getting burned in effigy because certain cretinous idiots think that death threats and effigy burning is an appropriate response to a writer taking a character they care about in a direction they don't agree with.

Let me repeat that.  These people are burning pictures of this man on video and posting death threats to this comic book writer because they are upset that he doesn't have Barbara Gordon back in her wheelchair in her "Oracle" persona but out kicking butt as Batgirl.

What.  And I ask this seriously.

The fuck.  No, really, I'd like an answer.

Is wrong with these people??  

I'm trying to imagine a reality in which a rational person's devotion to a FICTIONAL CHARACTER and their misplaced conviction that they have the right to dictate the direction that character's story is taken, justifies this kind of criminal, inhuman, horrific attack on another human being.  I can't do it.

There is no justification for this.  Full stop.

This is what comes of internet anonymity.  People who might once have simply stopped buying the book, perhaps with a short angry rant to the long suffering comic book store part-timer unfortunate enough to be stuck serving them that day, now feel that it's their right, perhaps even their duty, to expand and flesh out that rant and share their opinion with the world.  

In Ratatouille, Anton Ego reminds us "...the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

So to those out there inclined to let their criticism turn into incivility, hatred or violence, I challenge you to cancel your DC Comics subscriptions and go and write something better.  

 I only hope that your critics are kinder to you when you do.