The latest DC movie Clayface may be busily shooting in the North West this week, following on from The Batman’s Liverpool shoot a couple of years ago, but one DC comic that definitely won’t be following in their footsteps is Red Hood – the comic publisher has shelved the series after writer Gretchen Felker-Martin shared posts on Bluesky that joked about the assassination of Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, who was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Wednesday night.
“Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk,” read one post. “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b*tch,” added another post by the author.
Felker-Martin is trans, and Kirk was well known for his anti-trans stance. Felker-Martin’s Bluesky account has now been deactivated, but the posts were screenshotted and widely shared before DC bosses stepped in.
“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,” a DC spokesperson said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
READ MORE: Hollyoaks comes round for tea in anniversary Come Dine With Me special
While the Kirk posts got Felker-Martin plenty of attention, THR’s sources suggest that they were just the latest in a long line of events that had tested DC top brass’ patience with their new writer, although any post viewed as promoting violence or hostility would break the company’s social media policy.
The very first issue of Felker-Martin’s take on Red Hood only arrived in comic shops on Wednesday, the same day that outspoken MAGA activist and influencer Kirk was shot while speaking at Utah Valley University. The comic, the first in what was expected be an ongoing series, centred on Jason Todd, a former [Batman sidekick] Robin, who has now adopted the antihero persona of Red Hood.
“Sweat, blood and powder burns. Broken bones and mind control. A city rotted from the inside out,” said Felker-Martin in the PR blurb promoting the comic in June. “Jason’s going through hell on the hunt for an enigmatic telepath, and he’s taking us with him. I’m thrilled to be helming this new run of Red Hood with [artist] Jeff Spokes.”
Red Hood isn’t the first cultural victim of the Kirk assassination. On Thursday South Park was forced to pull episode 2 of the latest series of the controversial animated satire, Got a Nut, in which Eric Cartman hosts a podcast surprisingly similar to Kirk’s and takes part in the Charlie Kirk Awards for Young Masterdebaters, from US screens (it’s still available to UK viewers on Paramount+, for anyone with a taste for incredibly puerile, but relentlessly on point political commentary). The New York Post and Daily Beast reported that some MAGA commentators on social media were even trying to blame South Park directly for the assassination.
This afternoon, Donald Trump told Fox News that “I think we have him,” referring to a man authorities have named as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson who has been taken into custody suspected of the shooting.
Images courtesy dc.com
