At the Spider-Man and his Venomous Friends panel at New York Comic-Con 2024, an awkward escalation occurred between longstanding Spider-Man editor Nick Lowe and some of the Marvel fandom both at the in-person panel and online. The online report led to fans’ critiques of his editorial choices, along with questions as to just what exactly happened during the panel. I know what happened with both because… well, I was there.
So here’s my report on what happened regarding the messy co-occurrence of events.
The First Event: Marvel’s panel kerfuffle
At NYCC, Marvel panels usually give out exclusive collectible comics at the end, which requires staying until the finish. However, for this panel attendees could pick up their comics during the Q&A, so no one was being pressured to actually stay in this room and I don’t know where some of that rumor came from but I can confirm it was false.
The panel was led by Spider-Man editor Nick Lowe who joined Jordan D. White, Joe Kelly, and Al Ewing on stage. Dan Slott was supposed to attend but he abstained from coming to NYCC as he was recovering from Covid.
It kicked off a little earlier than usual, and Lowe was trying to rally enthusiasm and humor amongst the crowd. There were trailer videos and a funny voice-over featuring Al Ewing trying his best to narrate at a fast-pace on the screen. Reception to the Spider-Man plans was a mix of lukewarm reactions, but also some surprising positives, such as a staged but “surprise” appearance from Charles Soule who was announcing his and Jesús Saíz’s upcoming run with Eddie Brock as Carnage.
And I have to stress all of this for context because this panel was about an average regular Marvel panel at NYCC. At least, until the Q&A which is when it began, as the very first fan asked a very pointed question about Kamala Khan and her treatment at Marvel, and Lowe’s response to the question didn’t help much.
This Reddit post did a semi-decent job of summarizing but I’ll clarify the rest because A LOT of context and words exchanged are missing regarding what actually happened in this back-and-forth. The problem that happened on stage wasn’t so much this line of questioning regarding misogynistic writing–whom I think many Marvel fans would agree people have rightfully taken issue with regarding the fridging/death (but not really death because comics) of Kamala Khan–so much that the emotions started to run very high.
For better or worse, Lowe got incredibly defensive in public and let that fan keep grilling him and tried to counter suit. What you read above is a short version of what was a longer and snappy back-and-forth, and one that went on far longer than it should have.
After that first question from that fan, Lowe would then try and counter back in an argument in lieu of professionally just answering a single fan question or two, and then moving on. He also began his response to the questioning with a counter-argument of passive aggression by “Disagreeing with the premise of the question” (his actual words) invalidating the very premise of that fan’s opinion.
To the audience, it did seem a somewhat condescending response. There’s also a widely used term for this in popular psychology now regarding the questioning of whether or not another person’s beliefs is true-called: Gaslighting. Mind you, I say this having a background working in psychology for 7 years as a specialist before becoming a journalist. In Nick’s defense, he was a deer in the headlights caught absolutely off guard for this line of questioning and I say this admittedly because I was also off-guard as a reporter who thought this panel was just about over already and was genuinely shocked like everyone else.
It didn’t help that while this brief 5 or so minute exchange continued, there was a deafening silence in the room. I wouldn’t call it as agreement or disagreement, or as extreme of a declaration as outright writers misogyny, but I will say that I think many fans still remain upset over how Marvel editorial handled the death of Kamala Khan in an event that didn’t even happen in her own book. Especially when we knew she wasn’t dead.
I think a good moderator would have cut this line of questioning off earlier – or better yet – not even engaged with defensiveness in the first place. Just give a take-or-leave-it answer to an honest fan opinion question. Then move on. That said, the room did quiet back down soon after resuming a normal functioning Q&A where even some kids came up to the microphone to ask questions.
As reports of the exchange hit the internet, and more of the eternal online complaints over Marvel’s handling of the Spider-line bubbled up, another online only incident was unfolding, stemming from the same panel:
The Second Event: the announcement that didn’t actually happen
The online incident was a misreport sent by journalist Jon Gorga, who tweeted that Nick Lowe had just credited writer Justina Ireland as, “The first woman to write a run of issues of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’”.
The problem is this never actually happened and was later proven false and corrected by Gorga. Spider-Man has had at least TWO women writers, including the great Ann Nocenti back in the day, and more recently Kelly Thompson, who took umbrage at the misinformation, as revealed in a now deleted tweet.
As the online outrage swirled – mixing and melding with the outrage over the actual events at the panel – Gorga posted a correction, but the damage was done.
At this point, the fandom was already heated both in X and Reddit, leading to critiques about Lowe’s recent decisions during his tenure as editor of Spider-Man.
It’s a fact that online fandom will never be happy with whatever is happening in the Spider-office – whoever is in the writing chair will be hated (Dan Slott) and dissed (Zeb Wells), and the editors will be a convenient punching bag for whatever the take of the day is. Quick tweeting of alternative facts just adds to the brew-ha-ha. All that said, when running a panel in front of the public, editors probably should be ready to defend their decisions a little less awkwardly – especially with an event as legitimately controversial as the death of Kamala Khan.
Stay tuned for more NYCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
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