Marvel Comics Fires Artist For Semi-Covertly Inserting Anti-Christian, Anti-Jewish Messages Into His Panels

When I saw Tom Knighton report this story at PJMedia, I figured it was fake news.

I've been down the rabbit hole about cover codes embedded in art.

And yet -- it seems to be true. Marvel fired the guy.

The artist is an Indonesian Muslim. Recently there was a major controversy in Indonesia about a non-Muslim Chinese Indonesian politician running in an election. Muslims protested his candidacy. These protests were referred to as the 212 protests (referencing the date, per the Islamic calendar, in which mass protests occurred).

The objectors frequently cited Quran verse 5:15 as a reason no Muslim should vote for a non-Muslim. That's the verse that says Muslims should not make "friends" of Christians or Jews, but some people claim that "friends" is misinterpreted, and should mean something more like "leader" or "legal protector."

Anyway, this artist jammed references to that burst of Islamist xenophobia into X-Men Gold issue 1.

He also added a very cute bonus. You'll know it when you see it.

The first reference was spotted on a shirt worn by Colossus, which read “QS 5:51” (for Quran, Chapter 5, Verse 51) while the second was the number “212” (for Dec. 2, 2016) spotted above the character Kitty Pryde on a building. Readers also noted that the latter image included a jewelry store with the first three letters of "jewelry" placed right next to the Jewish Pryde's head.

Okay, since you guys don't read the articles, I couldn't trust that you'd know it when you saw it so I had to bold it.

...

Syaf also reportedly shared in a Facebook post (that has since been removed) that he was inspired by the Dec. 2 protest. In a subsequent post, Syaf revealed his "career is over now."

See the panel here to see that "JEW" right next to a Jewish character's head. Really pops out at you -- not very subtle at all.

The panel showing Colossus wearing a t-shirt signalling the Quran verse 5:51 is at the top of this article.

Also in that article, you'll see a social media exchange with someone who caught the references and objected. Syaf doesn't deny the hidden coded message of QS 5:51 -- he just claims it's about "love" and "tolerance" or something.

By the way, Joss Whedon has announced that Trump will exterminate all gay men in America if you don't join #TheResistance.

To date, there has been no snarky fact-checking about this claim from PolitiFact or Jake Tapper, who spends hours and hours conservative bloggers in DMs to stop criticising him for his obvious partisan progressive bias, and has a high success rate for all of his endless exertions.

Incidentally, CNN just can't seem to decide if comparing a politician to Hitler is a bad move or crazy-good journOlism.

But keeping their partisan now-it's-a-rule-now-it's-not fake rules straight is a problem for all leftists.

Call them nonce rules then -- "rules" made up just for this one event, this one bout of criticism, this one partisan attack, which will cease to be "rules" at all within one week and/or the first Democrat violation of the "rule."

posted by Ace at 04:37 PM

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