The Firing of Gretchen Felker-Martin and the Hypocrisy of DC Comics
By: F. Daniel Kent
“I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts…[Artists] keel over like canaries in poison coal mines long before more robust types realize that there is any danger whatsoever.”
-Kurt Vonnegut from “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut” (1988)
“I had no regrets.” – Gretchen Felker-Martin from an interview with The Comics Journal
It has been a long few weeks. I am sure you have noticed.
In addition to the daily nightmare fuel we call the news, my own experience was more traumatic due to personal and health problems. Everyone who knows me has already heard enough about the zombie that seems to have chowed down on my leg in my sleep and the resultant epic saga it took to keep from turning into one of the undead myself.
True story.
Anyhow, we are here to talk about comics, the world we live in and maybe a dash of Magick between us as you read along. So, I will stop stalling and get to it.
By now, anyone not living under a rock is painfully aware of ABC/Disney’s “indefinite suspension” and subsequent reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel Live! over comments Kimmel made on air following the assassination of far-right wing podcaster, Charlie Kirk.
While he was certainly the most prominent public target, Kimmel was not the first creative who felt the cold sting of censorship over their comments. That dubious honor belongs to controversial trans writer Gretchen Felker-Martin who had just the day before made her DC debut in the first issue of the much-hyped new Red Hood series.
When news of Kirk’s death broke, Felker-Martin made comments on her BlueSky account including “Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch” and “Hopefully, the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk” among others. The blowback was swift as BlueSky temporarily blocked her account and DC comics executives started calling Felker-Martin demanding an explanation and an apology.
She told The Comics Journal that at 10:30 p.m. EST DC Editor in Chief Marie Javins called her and said, “The story of the issue’s release had gone from being celebratory to something that DC and Warner Brothers couldn’t stand behind or defend,” and further, “any kind of promotion of violence or harm is unacceptable to [DC Comics].”
“It was surreal,” she went on. “She yelled at me! They did very much want a groveling apology. I told her I wasn’t going to apologize for calling a Nazi a Nazi, that he’d spent his life trying to kill everyone I love, and that I had no regrets.”
DC Comics immediately canceled existing orders for Red Hood #2 and Red Hood #3, and any orders for future issues of the series adding that DC Comics will also credit retailers for all invoiced copies of Red Hood #1, inclusive of copies that may have already been sold.
When asked for elaboration, DC responded in a statement, “At DC Comics, we place the highest value on our creators and community and affirm the right to peaceful, individual expression of personal viewpoints. Posts or public comments that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with DC’s standards of conduct.”
I must ask in all seriousness, since when? DC has a long history of ignoring violent and sexually aggressive behavior. Indeed, in some cases they have protected the perpetrators in their midst out of concern for their bottom line.
To start with for now, let’s just put aside the fact that DC is in the business of publishing largely hyper-violent stories about lawless vigilantes stalking the streets and delivering their own brand of violent justice or even that the Red Hood series was hailed as DC Black Label’s first in-continuity “suggested for mature readers” title and carried the tagline, “Out of Gotham, Not Out of Bullets” or that the story featured Red Hood and Huntress, two of the most violent characters in DC’s stable who are known for solving problems by killing them – often brutally.
While all of that is germane to the conversation, there are greater points to be made because DC has rarely held their creators’ feet to the fire regarding violence either intimated or actualized. Don’t believe me? Let’s check the board.
Let’s start with DC’s current golden boy Tom King who worked as an operative of the CIA for seven years during the Iraq war. During that time, he admits to using illegal torture techniques during operations – a war crime and grave breach of the Geneva Convention – which he discussed at length with Frank Miller during a “75 Years of Batman” panel at NYC Comic Con 2017. Did DC bat an eye? Nope. King is the current ongoing writer of Wonder Woman and has since become an integral part of James Gunn’s DCU films.
Speaking of Frank Miller, who can forget his 2011 “propaganda comic” Holy Terror, considered by many one of the most Islamophobic comics ever? It’s a gruesome tale of a becaped superhero taking on al-Qaida and depicting Muslims as bloodthirsty mobs who stone and behead people while screaming “Praise Allah!”. At the time of publication, Wired called the book, “one of the most appalling, offensive and vindictive comics of all time,” and decried it as “a screed against Islam, completely uninterested in any nuance or empathy toward 1.2 billion people he conflates with a few murderous conspiracy theorists.”
Despite this, Miller went on to work on a number of new projects for DC including The Dark Knight III: The Master Race (2015 -2017), The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade (2016), Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child (2019) and Superman: Year One (2019) and Miller’s past DC work is still available for purchase in Trade Paperback and Hardcover from DC Comics.
Not bad enough? How about former DC editor Eddie Berganza?
DC repeatedly ignored allegations of sexual harassment dating back to 2006 (that we are aware of, Berganza joined DC in the 90’s so who knows what went unreported or undocumented) until they finally fired him in 2017. This, only after Buzzfeed published a detailed expose about him and the numerous women who leveled accusations against him which went all but completely ignored. In one instance, Berganza was promoted to a “creative only” executive editor position which put him directly overseeing one of his accusers after she had already reported him to human resources.
But Berganza’s substantial history of habitual sexual harassment and sexual assault was already one of comics’ worst kept secrets and had been so well-documented for so long members of the comics community were shocked when the axe finally fell. There was already an unspoken rule in the DC offices that female employees were not ever to be left alone with the Berganza for years before this and everyone seemingly went along with it.
It was so bad that when Greg Rucka (who recently went on record about the toxic working conditions at DC) was approached in 2016 to return to Wonder Woman for the Rebirth initiative, he refused to work with Berganza who was editor of the book at the time. DC’s solution was to move Berganza to another book and replace him as editor on Wonder Woman. Surprising absolutely no one, none of the women who took complaints to DC Human Resources work in mainstream comics at all any longer.
Do you need more?
In 2020, several women (including musician Meredith Yayanos, artist Zoetica Ebb, and photographer Jhayne Holmes) publicly accused fan favorite Warren Ellis of sexual coercion and manipulation. The Guardian later reported that “roughly 100 women have come forward, while 33 of them have composed written statements, supported by emails and text messages.” His work is also still available through DC Comics and further, his work is now being adapted for use in James Gunn’s DCU starting with the inclusion of his character The Engineer in the recent Superman film and The Authority (which he spun out of Stormwatch at Wildstorm before DC bought them out) is being developed as a film of its own. DC never made a peep about their “standards of conduct” and quietly returned him to print shortly after.
If all of that isn’t enough, how about the most famous betrayal of them all?
In July and August 2024, five women accused author and legendary comic writer Neil Gaiman of sexual assault and abuse on the Tortoise Media podcast “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman” which was then followed by a New York magazine cover story in January 2025 included interviews with four of the women who had previously spoken to Tortoise Media, as well as four more women.
Despite Gaiman’s denials against the allegations, Dark Horse Comics severed ties with him and ceased publication of any of his work including the Anansi Boys adaptation that was halfway through its comic adaptation run. His agency dropped him as a client. But his DC work is still available from DC Comics in Trade and Hardcover formats.
This in addition to DC still publishing the Sandman Universe branded titles as part of their DC Black Label line – the very line Felker-Martin’s Red Hood series – was a part of reeks of preferential treatment and protection of an author who has made DC millions of dollars over the years and will likely continue to do so for a long time to come.
What do all these examples have in common other than DC sheltering them? They are all cisgender, straight, white men. I can tell you are shocked.
Felker-Martin’s dismissal is far more alarming than Kimmel’s and further exposes the toxic culture and hypocrisy endemic to DC Comics. Some will be quick to point out that Felker-Martin has been known to make controversial statements on social media before regarding subjects like 9/11 and Hammas. However, DC knew who they were hiring and knew about the previous controversies and hired her anyway. They were clearly eager to court an “edgy” trans creator and capitalize off her infamy but when the chips were down, they folded and played the “standards of conduct” card which seemed nonexistent prior to this incident.
The fact of the matter is it does not matter what Felker-Martin wrote on her own social media. If we are to raise the alarm about Freedom of Speech, we must extend that protection to all creatives, especially those who are among the most vulnerable and easily targeted among us – even those with whom we disagree strongly. Indeed, not only was Felker-Martin the first creative “canary” to fall in the coalmine of entertainment censorship surrounding the Kirk shooting, but it is telling that the current administration wasted no time in trying to pin the attack on the trans community first by falsely claiming there was “trans ideology” stamped into the bullet casings and then focusing on the killer’s supposed romantic relationship with his trans roommate.
While everyone was rallying around and distracted by Jimmy Kimmel’s situation, The FBI was considering adding trans persons and their supporters to a new domestic terrorist list as TIVA (Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism). While that has yet to materialize, the President has issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence”.
According to the Law Office of Arnold & Porter, a law firm specializing in this area, “The Presidential Memorandum has direct and immediate implications for tax-exempt organizations (including charities, advocacy groups, and political organizations) who the government perceives as espousing “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christian [views]; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; [or] hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality. The implications extend to the funders and supporters of such organizations” (emphasis mine).
Yet, still all anyone can talk about is Jimmy Kimmel.
It is becoming shockingly clear that trans rights and the rights of their supporters are being eroded now more than ever and the situation with Gretchen Felker-Martin is not just a case of censorship, it is a wake-up call to anyone who is part of or espouses support for the trans community.
As for DC’s supposed “standards of conduct”, I can think of no one better to sum it up than Gretchen Felker-Martin herself when she wrote on her now reinstated BlueSky account, “There are pedophiles, war criminals, and confessed sexual predators on staff. You can still buy all their work. Being a rude, abrasive loudmouth while trans is the only unforgivable sin to these people.”
Indeed.
F. Daniel Kent is a freelance writer, opinion columnist, comic book lover and Witch living with his husband and thousands of action figures in Middle Tennessee, USA
Published October 3rd, 2025