—Barrington Williams, B1Daily
Writer and producer Beau DeMayo (X-Men ’97, The Witcher) went off on Twitter over what he describes as Marvel Studios’ shafting of Black content creators.
Obviously, this is no surprise given Marvel’s incredibly racist track record—not only with Black producers (or lack thereof), but also with sidelining Black acting talent and writing Black characters out altogether.
Beau is right to be upset. His version of X-Men ’97 is essentially being adapted into a large-scale theatrical production, where he and other Black creators are getting no credit for pushing back against a studio that was obsessively focused on Wolverine.
So many of DeMayo’s choices from the show were adapted into the hugely popular Marvel Rivals video game, which incorporates phrases and gestures directly from DeMayo’s iteration of the X-Men.
Beau was fired for sending explicit texts to another employee, along with having a non-disclosed social media account.
Marvel has indeed worked against Black production talent since its inception, and this is well documented. Cases such as Terrence Howard’s removal, Don Cheadle’s lack of pay, Anthony Mackie’s near-nonexistent role for nearly a decade despite being proclaimed the “leader” of the Avengers, and, of course, the unfair removal of Jonathan Majors—despite his charges being dropped and surrounding claims of spousal abuse being found to be mostly false—are all incidents of Marvel treating Black talent differently than virtually anyone else they employ.
And that’s not a coincidence.
While DeMayo may be upset about this specific instance of copyright surrounding his work, Black production talent working at Marvel should be asking a different question: Do they have a case for a class-action discrimination lawsuit?
Marvel isn’t giving proper credit for DeMayo’s and other Black creators’ influence on how the X-Men are depicted in the MCU.
And that’s more than villainous.
—Barrington Williams, B1Daily
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