Announced back at NYCC, the Shadow of Vader miniseries from writer Chuck Wendig has had an eventful last few months, notably when Marvel, through editor Mark Paniccia, made the cowardly move to fire Wendig, thus placing the series in limbo. Now, both Polygon and io9 have received word from inside sources the series is officially cancelled, as Marvel made a terrible bed for themselves and had to lay in it too, deciding to take the easy street and cancel it instead of dealing with non-complicated things like rehiring Wendig, considering the outrage over his latest tweet storm, which got him fired, was orchestrated by bots and not real humans. It’s a damn shame, as there were some delightful ideas and concepts to come from the series, and it all fell through because of an editor appeasing Nazis and their bots. Head below for more details on what happened, what we would’ve got in the series, and Wendig’s comments on the cancellation.
Not even a week after Shadow of Vader was announced, Wendig revealed over a lengthy tweet thread and blog post (and some good FAQs about the whole thing) that Marvel’s Star Wars Editor, Mark Paniccia, had fired him over his vulgarity and politics. A high profile member of the reprehensible Comics Gate “movement,” a group of Nazis who believe diversity is killing comics, whom Paniccia personally follows on Twitter, took umbrage with Wendig’s latest outpouring of righteous fury (which yes, was a touch too vulgar regardless), and tried to create enough backlash so someone would hear them. It took a bot army to do it, but they got heard and, much like James Gunn’s cowardly firing by Disney proper after Nazis went after him too, Paniccia bowed to the incorrect group’s pressure and fired Wendig. The irony here is the group that thinks comics is dying due to diversity has less human voices than the group that supported Wendig and was against this unjust, spineless firing.
A lot of people have made the incorrect correlation that Lucasfilm and Del Rey, the publisher for the adult novels, have also fired Wendig, but they did not and still support him throughout this whole thing. This was a Marvel-ous mistake only, and instead of giving other authors a crack at the final two issues/using Wendig’s work for the first three, they have dropped the product all-together. So the true irony here is the terrible group that thinks diversity is killing comics is actually the one who is killing comics and I am the least surprised human in the galaxy. As an editorial decision for Mynock Manor, we will no longer be mentioning or crediting Mark Paniccia (which I’ve already put in place) with anything besides bowing to Nazi pressure and causing a fun new idea to become stardust, and that will continue until he’s replaced. I’ll discuss the decision to continue still covering Marvel content, and other thoughts, in the comics year-in-review coming mid-January.
Here’s what Wendig had to say about Shadow of Vader’s cancellation to Polygon:
“I mean, it’s a bummer. I wrote the hell out of a few scripts and outlined a few more, and the books had a few small to large touchstones to my [Star Wars] novel series, Aftermath. And there was tons of excitement over the book at NYCC. But Marvel has to do what Marvel has to do. Mostly I think they put themselves in a bad position by the way they knocked me from the book in the first place — and I’m sad that this was continued fallout from that. Onward, I suppose, to bigger and better things!”
UPDATE: For lengthier remarks about the whole thing, check out the newest post from Wendig’s blog, where he touches on how it would’ve been a conundrum for how to support or not support Wendig and this series.
It’s a real shame Comics Gate keeps killing comics, because Shadow of Vader looked like a real fun series, showing what type of shadow the Sith Lord spread across the galaxy with his actions, and it would’ve let us see characters from Wendig’s excellent Aftermath Trilogy, like Sinjir or even the Acolytes of the Beyond, and also give Willrow Hood a starring role he’s always deserved! I’m hoping Del Rey can pick up Wendig’s ideas and allow him to write a little short story collection, either calling it SoV again or Vader’s Shadow, and giving these awesome stories a chance to the see the light…or even IDW offering to take up the this anthology-like series. Until that unlikely scenario comes true, the shadow is no more.
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
SEE ALSO:
Star Wars Comics January 2019 Solicitations
NYCC 2018: Alphabet Squadron Novel, Shadow of Vader Comic Announced, New “Age of…” Maxiseries Details and More! (UPDATED)
SDCC 2018: Padmé, Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon Novels, “Age of…” Comics Maxiseries, and More Announced!