Another Take On The Steve Wacker Debacle AKA PR Crisis

As people who frequent various internet sites may be aware, popular and very even-tempered internet writer David Brother's did a post about Marvel comics and how he thinks it is a bit detrimental for them to ship so many issues of certain comics to a point where they are "double-shipping" (more than two issues a month). This means the regular artist can't keep up--resulting in substitute artists of a lesser quality. Marvel has an editor named Steve Wacker who basically treated Brother's like he was being an obnoxious fanboy to the point Brother's did a post on it--where he still was pretty cool-minded. Wacker didn't let it go, and still acted really poorly for a big-name editor at Marvel, and Brother's pretty much made a post saying, "You know what, I should have never engaged in this, I was foolish." That was mature of Brothers. The thing he also did was mention he was taking a break from Marvel. He is a man who really enjoys Marvel, so it would have taken some effort to make him want to stop. Well, looking over comments and discussions, I can say Wacker did enough I can't blame Brothers.

Now everyone else on the internet has commented on this and Wacker has an uncanny ability to pop up everywhere. Savage Critics discussed it and he was there, and Caleb of Every Day Is Like Wednesday made fun of Wacker's eerie ability to be wherever his name is spoken/written with a hilarious post.

The thing about all this is, I'm not going to debate who was right and wrong, Wacker clearly was stand-offish and rude towards people. The thing other people haven't talked about much is how does this reflect on Marvel from a PR standpoint? Steve Wacker looks like a mad dog Marvel can't keep on the leash who is going around attacking anyone who questions him and/or the company. Is it really a good press relations method for Marvel to passive-aggressively target anyone who has the slightest criticism about them--especially people who are very fair like David Brothers?

How many people are going to read about this Steve Wacker nonsense and take it as a sign that Marvel not only allows him to go around attacking people, the company condones it? "You have an observation about our comics that isn't purely glowing? Well, you're just a whiny and angry fanboy/fangirl!" is basically what Wacker is giving us, and Marvel isn't stopping him. This makes it look like Marvel either:

A. Can't control Wacker.

Or

B. Likes him behaving this way.

I don't know which it is, but either way this has been a PR nightmare for Marvel, something few people have mentioned and I just wanted to discuss. Luckily/unluckily so few people read this blog I think I will fly under the radar of Wacker's rage so I don't have to worry about him coming to my blog and saying anything.