Let's Talk About MCU Stans And How They're Ruining Fan Discourse

Hi, I'm David Harth, and I feel like this one will probably be a lot worse than the one that I said was going to make people hate me. Remember how last week, I said some things about bad fans and then said I was going to possibly write more about it or do a thing on Thanos?

Yeah, we're not doing the Thanos thing this week. I'm going to do it, but this is way more important.

Today, we're focusing on MCU stans and why they are the worst. This week has given me even more ammunition than ever before, and we're going to start with what really set me off about the whole thing. So, the Ditko estate announced they're going to sue Disney over copyright stuff for Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, which, let's be real, isn't a bad thing. Creators' rights are essential, and while Marvel is trying to say it was a work-for-hire deal, they also tried to pay off Steve Ditko many times over the years, and he never took a dime. Little weird they'd do that if someone didn't have a legal leg to stand on.

Now, before we get farther into it, I just want to say I'm not going to sit here and say that Steve Ditko was some kind of paragon of virtue. He wasn't Jack Kirby, a good man who wanted to create and wouldn't dare take a book from someone else because everybody's family needs to eat. Steve Ditko was an Ayn Rand loving Objectivist who thought the poor were parasites. So, I'm not defending his right to Spider-Man like I would if he was Kirby. I sincerely believe that Kirby is the greatest human being to ever be a part of the comic industry. Ditko tried to sneak Objectivist garbage into Spider-Man, forcing Stan Lee to actually do some work on the book. That said, Steve Ditko did a lot of work on Spider-Man and, according to statements from Stan Lee, did all the work on Doctor Strange. He was smart enough not to take whatever pittances Marvel tried to give him after the fact because he wanted a cut of everything, and taking the little checks would have made it seem like he was going along with Marvel on the whole thing.

So, should his estate be allowed to take the copyrights and all that? I don't know but what I do know is they should be getting some money. Spider-Man has made Marvel a lot of money over the years. Comics, toys, clothes, posters, video games, TV shows, movies, books, and just about everything else you can think of has had Spider-Man on it. Giving Ditko's family a cut of that isn't exactly wrong, not when Stan Lee got to have a cushy job his whole life and was allowed to lie about his role in the creation of Marvel's greatest heroes. Marvel has Disney money behind them. They could drop the Ditkos a hundred million dollars tomorrow. They'd make it back in less than a day.

Now, because this is Disney, after the Ditko estate did their thing, they decided to sue the estates and persons of a whole bunch of Silver Age Marvel creators, including Stan Lee's, on Marvel's behalf. You know, just in case one of them got uppity. This is the kind of company we're dealing with. Marvel is pretty scummy, all things told, as we've found out way more about lately vis a vis not paying people for using their work in the movies, and Disney is actually worse. This is the company that sued a daycare center in Orlando for having an unlicensed Disney mural on their wall.

We can all agree that this is pretty bad, right? The Ditko estate probably shouldn't be given complete control of Spider-Man, but a deal with them, buying them out, or giving them points on the back end, as it were, would be fair and not even cost all that much money compared to what Disney and Marvel. Marvel movies have made 22 billion dollars in the last 13 years. Factoring in costs of buying Marvel and the price of the movies, that's billions of dollars of profit. And that's just movies. Disney can give out some cuts out and make some things right, and it would be great PR for them and Marvel.

Enter the MCU stan.

Now, I'm sure I don't have to tell most of you the difference between a fan and a stan. Most people are MCU fans. That's just a fact of life. These people will never read a comic book, but they'll watch the MCU stuff and like it. I have massive problems with the MCU, but I'm still a fan of it. Except for that Party Boy Thor episode of What If…. That can eat a whole bag of penises. Rotting ones. Fans are the kind of people who like something, talk about it online a bit, and that's it.

Stans are very different. A stans' entire identity is predicated on the thing they stan. I am a stan for many things- comics, DC, X-Men, ContraPoints, pre-Disney Star Wars, Hideo Kojima games, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman. I also know that my stanning can be problematic, though, and I've tried to keep it from poisoning discourse too much. This is not the way of the MCU stan. I'm going to share some observations about the MCU stan and then go on because I feel these things are important.

To begin with, there's a difference between a Marvel stan and an MCU stan. Marvel stans love all things Marvel. They love the comics, the movies, the shows, the old cartoons, all of that. They know Marvel's history, and they realize that while they love the company, they know it isn't perfect. They aren't going to defend a multi-billion corporation over a comic creator because they also love comics and know this industry can be very bad to its creators.

An MCU stan is not a comic fan. They know nothing about Marvel beyond the Disney propaganda- Stan Lee created everything, the MCU saved the company, and the movies are the greatest things ever. They feel no reason to read the comics because the movies are so much better than they could ever be. They treat fandom like sports- their team is the best, and all other teams are terrible. They take it to the next level, though, because they don't even love their team; they love one aspect of their team and don't care about anything else. That's like only being a fan of the defense of the 2003 Superbowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers instead of the whole team. I understand because that is the greatest defense ever and some of the best athletes to put on a Bucs uniform, but it's not seeing the forest for the trees. The MCU stan cheers for the MCU, and that's it.

So, on Twitter, these people have entered the discourse on the Ditko thing this weekend, and it's been terrible. As I said earlier, Ditko was not a good person, but he helped co-create these characters and didn't take Marvel's shut-up money. The MCU stans pretty much ruined the entire discourse. They defended the multi-billion dollar corporation whose actual history they know nothing about and then straight up tried to explain comic company contracts to comic creators. The whole thing was just kind of sickening in a lot of ways, but it's really just an extension of what I was talking about with Dune and Villeneuve and Shang-Chi going to theaters only.

MCU stans are ruining fandom. Sure, ComicsGaters are obviously worse because they are just shitty bigots, but they are such a small group, and we can pretty much just ignore them and let them have their little corner and die off. Also, as an aside, Joe Bennet went mask off and started working for Vox Day, so I was right. Star Wars fandom has their bigots, but again, no one listens to them either. We all know that bigots don't really matter and should be ignored, at the least, and destroyed and exiled at best. MCU stans are probably actually a larger segment of the population than comic fans or general Marvel stans. They pounce on anything that speaks against their chosen fandom, a fandom they know very little about beyond the movies they've seen and what they've been told. They are relentless. They are undereducated. They take any negativity towards the MCU as a personal slight. They've made their fandom such a part of their lives that if their fandom isn't the best and the purest, that means that they aren't, so they will scream down anyone who says otherwise.

Now, look, I can't say that I haven't been guilty of that in the past. I think most stans have. The problem is when one starts to be abusive about it. When someone tries to say that Disney doesn't need to throw some money to the Ditkos or that comic creators don't understand work for hire, they’ve reached a new level of terrible. It's fine to argue that Avengers: Endgame is the greatest movie ever. Do you on that one. When you start defending a multi-billion dollar entertainment corporation that owns most pop culture against a dead man's family, well, maybe it's time to chill out. Anyone with a brain and an ounce of empathy is going to go with the actual humans. MCU stans are going to go with Disney because Disney gives them the MCU, so they stan. Oh, how they stan.

MCU stans ruin fan discourse because they can't be realistic about their fandom. That's bad. I've learned over the years to be realistic about my fandoms and my Stanning. I get into arguments, but if you tell me that there are bad X-Men books? Yeah, I know. I've read them. If you tell me Star Wars is simplistic fare? Yep. Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison aren't perfect. Kojima games have some out there stories that don't always make sense. MCU stans can't do that. They can't admit that their chosen fandom isn't perfect. They can't admit the MCU is formulaic. They can't admit the movies have tonal problems. They can't be realistic about the thing they love. I love my wife. I stan her hard. She isn't perfect.

Please don't tell her I said that.

Anyway, MCU stans need to grow up. There's a reason that I want the MCU to finally have a movie bomb. These people need to learn humility. They need to learn that their fandom isn't this all-powerful conqueror. They need to know.

On the one hand, you can look at this whole thing and say, "David, you just hate stans. Stans are bad. MCU stans aren't bad because of what they like. They're bad because stanning isn't a good thing." That is a pretty valid viewpoint, but you know what? I've never seen a One Piece stan tell someone that a multi-billion corporation is blameless. I've never seen a Hamilton stan hate on every other musical and anything related to musicals that aren't Hamilton. I've watched these people this weekend act like the worst human beings possible.

So, what's the solution?

There isn't one. Some people are always going to take things too far. I know because I've done it. You can't cure this sort of thing. The only thing that can be done is calling them out and telling them they're wrong when they go too far. Maybe we all need to stop "Stanning". Maybe. I don't know. I do know that MCU stans are the worst right now, and that's all there is to it.

So, I think I'm done this week. I've said my piece about the whole thing. It won't matter. MCU stans won't stop.

Anyway, follow me on Twitter. Come back next week when I'll probably talk about Thanos finally. And I swear at some point, I'll stop bagging on Marvel.