UPDATE: Jae Lee has responded below

UPDATE 2: Tom King Apologizes (also below)

DC Comics creator Tom King must be bored this weekend with San Diego Comic Con going to Zoom meetings instead of people paying him for autographs in person. On Friday, he confirmed that his White Male Privilege™ is real by taking to Twitter to cry over a cover that comic artist Jae Lee had done several months ago for Ethan Van Sciver’s self-published Cyberfrog: Rekt Planet which was revealed publicly well over 6 months ago. Van Sciver debuted the cover in a tweet that included a #Comicsgate hashtag and remarkably that comic book crowdfunding campaign has raised over 1 million dollars so far. 

Now, six months after Jae Lee did a cover for an Ethan Van Sciver comic, Tom King thinks it’s the right time to throw his fellow and former DC creators, along with publisher DC Comics, under the bus for what King considers the crime of Jae Lee’s alleged ‘wrongthink’ over having any association with a consumer movement that King disagrees with. In fact, he and many other progressives and misinformed readers and retailers have labeled ComicsGate a “hate group.” Nothing could be further from the truth, but he’s not alone in his willful ignorance.

It looks like Tom King has become another member of a hateful “Cancel Culture” that we’re hearing about more and more these days. Is this just another example of slacktivism, or better yet – attacktivism? Why couldn’t Tom King confer with his fellow creator before trying to destroy his career? I guess his empty pledge to the Whisper Network just wasn’t enough. He has to go after other creators that don’t even work for him over things that are none of his business. Oh, but don’t worry comic book fans. Tom ended up having a conversation after trying to ruin Lee’s career, and Jae apparently explained that he neither knew nor cared about the childish, Twitter, cape drama that Tom is clearly thirsty for. King reports that they’re “all good” now and Tom has confirmed that Jae never supported “hate of any kind”.

Does that include Tom’s hatred too? Because you must really have to hate someone to try and publicly destroy their career without cause or confirmation.

In spite of Tom King’s opinion, shared by many other politically progressive comics creators, Comicsgate is actually a movement involving several comic creators and fans who have spoken out against what they feel is an overabundance of progressive politics, forced diversity, disrespect for legacy characters, hiring practices based on identity politics rather than merit, and blatant social justice activism in both the comics as well as the modern comic book industry at large.

The ComicsGate movement has developed its own loose knit community, with former DC-exclusive creator Ethan Van Sciver being one of its loudest voices.  One look at the Twitter feeds of King’s fellow white male activists like Dan Slott, Nick Spencer, Mark Waid, Tom Brevoort, and their allies in the Whisper Network, and it soon becomes very clear why thousands of fans have been turned off and are now putting their money towards things like Cyberfrog and other CG adjacent projects instead of mainstream comics. 

All this begs the question, did Tom King only just now find out about Jae Lee’s ‘problematic’ artwork? Was he informed by other political activists in the ComicsHate movement (the nickname for those who are anti-ComicsGate)? Does he just hate Asian people? Is he a proud member of ‘Cancel Culture’? All of these could be true, but if even just one of them is true, which seems likely, Tom King is another big let down, just like his Batman run.

Jae Lee was sadly dealing with a family loss and is barely on social media, but responded on his Instagram to say that he and Tom are in fact “not all good.” And he sets the record straight.

Don’t even get me started on his embarrassing attack on former Superman actor Dean Cain.

Seriously folks, who is demonstrating that they are “full of hate”? Maybe it’s time DC started enforcing their social media policies for creators again. This has gotten out of hand.

Just Some Guy and Captain Frugal both responded:

Tom King apologizes. Perhaps the best possible outcome for his foolishness. Let’s see if he dials it back from now on.