An awkward escalation occurred between the longtime Spider-Man editors during the Spider-Man and His Vicious Friends panel at New York Comic Con 2024 Nick Lowe As well as some Marvel fans in live panels and online. The online report sparked criticism from fans about his editorial choices and questions about what exactly happened during the panel. I know what happened with both because…well, I was there.
This is my report on the chaotic simultaneous events.
The first incident: Marvel’s panel chaos
At NYCC, the Marvel panels usually give away exclusive collectible comics at the end, which need to be kept until the end. However, for this panel, attendees were able to pick up their comics during the Q&A, so no one was forced to actually stay in the room. I have no idea where some of these rumors are coming from, but I can confirm that it is false.
The group is led by Spider-Man Editor Nick Lowe World Health Organization join in Jordan D. White, Joe Kelly, and Al Ewing on stage. Dan Castle He was supposed to participate, but he did not participate in NYCC due to recovery from COVID-19.
it The game started a little earlier than usual, with Lowe trying to drum up enthusiasm and humor from the crowd. There’s trailer footage and a fun voiceover, with Al Ewing doing his best to deliver a fast-paced narration on screen. Reaction to the Spider-Man project has been lukewarm, but there have been some surprising positives, such as a “surprise” appearance on stage. Charles Soule who is announcing his and Jesus Saez About to be with Eddie Brock as Carnage.
I have to highlight all of this for context, because this panel is about the normal Marvel panel at NYCC. At least, that was until the Q&A session began, when the first fan asked a very pointed question about Kamala Khan and her treatment at Marvel, and Law’s answer to the question wasn’t all that helpful.
This Reddit post does a decent job of summarizing, but I’ll clarify the rest because there’s a lot of context and words exchanged missing as to what actually happened in this back and forth. The issue going on in the arena isn’t so much a question of misogynistic writing – I think many Marvel fans would agree that there are legitimate questions raised about Kamala Khan’s freezing/death (but not actual death, as in the comics) – —so much so that emotions started to get really high.
For better or worse, Lowe was incredibly defensive in public, allowing that fan to continue grilling him and trying to fight back. What you read above is a shortened version of a longer and faster back-and-forth conversation that lasted much longer than it should have.
After that fan asked the first question, Lowe would try to retort instead of a professional.Usually just answer a fan question or two and move on. He also started his response to the query by “disagreeing with the premise of the question” (his words) as a passive-aggressive rebuttal, thereby invalidating the premise of the fan’s opinion.
To the audience, this was indeed a condescending response. Now, in pop psychology, there’s another widely used term for questioning whether another person’s beliefs are true: gaslighting. Please note that I said he had a background in psychology for 7 years before becoming a journalist. In Nick’s defense he was a deer in the headlights and was completely caught off guard by the barrage of questions, and I admit that because I was caught off guard as a reporter too and I thought the panel was over and like everyone really The others were shocked.
To make matters worse, while the brief five-minute or so exchange continued, there was silence in the room. I wouldn’t call it agreement or disagreement, or as extreme a statement as outright writerly misogyny, but I will say that I think many fans are still upset about how Marvel’s editorial handled the death of Kamala Khan. It doesn’t even happen in her own book. Especially when we know she’s not dead.
I think a good moderator would have cut off the question earlier – or better yet – not even gotten defensive in the first place. Just give a “take it or leave it” answer to the honest fan opinion question. Then move on. That said, the room quickly fell silent after normal Q&A resumed, and a few kids even came up to the microphone to ask questions.
As reports of this exchange spread across the internet, and the eternal online complaints about Marvel’s handling of the Spider-Man franchise continue to emerge, another online-only incident is unfolding, originating from the same group:
The Second Thing: An Announcement That Didn’t Actually Happen
The Internet incident was caused by misinformation by reporters Jon Gorga, Who tweeted that Nick Lowe just credited the writer Justina Ireland “The first woman to write multiple issues of The Amazing Spider-Man.”
The problem is that this never actually happened and was later proven wrong and corrected by Gorga. Spider-Man has at least two female writers, including the great annocenti back in time, and recently Kelly ThompsonHe was unhappy with the misinformation, as revealed in a now-deleted tweet.
As outrage spread online — mixed with the group’s outrage over the actual incident — Gorga issued a correction, but the damage was done.
At this point, the fanbase on X and Reddit was already heated, sparking criticism of Lowe’s recent decisions during his time as Spider-Man editor.
In fact, online fans will never be happy about what happens in Spider-Man’s office – whoever sits in the writing chair is hated (Dan Slott) and despised (Zeb Wells), while Editors will be a convenient punching bag. Quickly tweeting other facts only adds to the “ha ha” vibe. That said, when moderating a panel in public, editors should probably be prepared to defend their decisions without being so embarrassed — especially on something as legitimately controversial as the death of Kamala Khan .
Stay tuned for more coverage of NYCC ’24 beat.
