A Sense of Doubt blog post #3869 - DC Cancels Red Hood Comic Book After Social Media Post By Author
I feel behind on the blog due to work and homework commitments. Catching up.
Fear seems to be the emotion of the year: on all sides.
Seems to me that DC Comics might face as big or bigger of a backlash for the reason they canceled the comic and fired Felker-Martin than if they had not.
Shame on you, DC Comics. Cowards.
Thanks for tuning in.
DC Comics Cancels ‘Red Hood’ After One Issue Due To “Public Comments” “Promoting Hostility”
https://comicbookclublive.com/2025/09/11/dc-comics-cancels-red-hood-after-one-issue-due-to-public-comments-promoting-hostility/
by Alex Zalben
DC Comics has taken the rather shocking step of abruptly canceling its new Black Label Red Hood series after only one issue. The news came to retailers late on Wednesday night (September 10) that the publisher was cancelling all further orders for the series, including the previously solicited issues #2 and #3.
The mature readers series written by Gretchen Felker-Martin, with art by Jeff Spokes, was an in-continuity adventure taking place after the heavily delayed H2SH storyline running in Batman, by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, which found Jason Todd, aka the Red Hood, heading to New Orleans stand-in New Angelique, and getting embroiled in a supernatural murder mystery alongside The Huntress.
Per Popverse, retailers were told that, “DC Comics cancels existing orders for Red Hood #2 and Red Hood #3, and any orders for future issues of the series. DC Comics will credit retailers for all invoiced copies of Red Hood #1, inclusive of copies that may have already been sold.”
While one could speculate that the delay of H2SH led to the cancellation — the final two parts of that storyline are now planned for release on November 12, 2025, and January 28, 2026, respectively, after initially planning to finish by this past August — that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In a statement shared with Comic Book Club, DC Comics said, “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.”
Felker-Martin has been consistently outspoken online, with her views well known for years. Her social media posts were known entities well before the Red Hood series was announced. But given the timing — the news story dropped at 1 am ET — posters on BlueSky have specifically pointed to her posts about the death of Charlie Kirk yesterday at Utah University. Felker-Martin’s account has been suspended since the posts, but screenshots shared by others show her posting three skeets referring to Kirk, in particular: “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi bitch,” with a follow-up of “Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk.”
However, a third post may be the one that drew the attention of the right-wing posters who began to circulate and criticize Felker-Martin’s posts, mostly on X (formerly known as Twitter). In it, the writer states, “The job market is grim, but there’s a silver lining: Gavin Newsom needs a new co-host for his podcast.” This is in reference to the first episode of Newsom’s podcast, which found him sitting down with the Talking Points creator.
For what it’s worth, Felker-Martin is transgender. And Kirk frequently espoused anti-trans ideology, up until the moment he died. As reported in multiple outlets, at the time of his death, he was debating whether trans mass shooters are one of the biggest dangers to the United States. When asked by an attendee how many transgender mass shooters there have been in the past 10 years, Kirk answered “too many,” with the attendee clarifying there have been five. As for Newsom, the governor and Presidential candidate hopeful has also been public about his own negative trans views, and Felker-Martin (again, in posts from the banned BlueSky account) has been critical of him, as well.
However, it seems the issue stems from Felker-Martin’s long history of posting, which was a violation of DC’s social policy, not just this week’s posts about Kirk. Is it possible that the ones mentioned above were the breaking point? Perhaps, given the timing. As is, given Felker-Martin is banned from BlueSky, and DC isn’t sharing any further statements, for the moment, this is all we’ve got to go on.
Earlier today, news broke that DC Comics has canceled Red Hood, their mature-readers Black Label series, which just debuted yesterday (September 10) in stores. But while the announcement noted that they were cancelling the previously solicited second and third issues as well as “any orders for future issues of the series,” they didn’t specify how many issues that was. And the answer is: a lot.
Specifically, the series written by Gretchen Felker-Martin, with art by Jeff Spokes, and letters by Becca Carey, was planned for at least 12 issues and two collections. DC shared as much back on June 16 when they announced the news of the Red Hood series, stating, “Red Hood Vol. 1, collecting issues 1-6 of this new ongoing DC All In comic book series, will publish on June 16, 2026, and Red Hood Vol. 2, collecting issues 7-12, will publish on December 1, 2026. Future volumes will be announced soon!”
While — as we can plainly see from this example — nothing is certain in the world of comic books, it sure looks like DC Comics was in the Red Hood business for the long haul. Red Hood #2 was originally solicited for October 2, 2025, while Red Hood #3 would have come out in stores on November 12, 2025. Red Hood #6 then would likely have come out in February, followed by a four-month gap until the collection was released, and Red Hood #12 in August, followed by another four-month gap until the second collection in December.
A 12-issue run isn’t out of the ordinary for a Black Label series, but it isn’t par for the course, either. Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Riccardo Federici’s The Last God ran longer than that, and several series by Tom King have run for 12 issues (Rorschach, Danger Street, Strange Adventures, and Batman/Catwoman). James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno’s Nice House by the Lake and Nice House by the Sea are also 12 issues each, though the latter is only partially through its run, and is moving to the Vertigo label.
But that sort of commitment to anything in the main continuity other than, say, Batman or Superman is surprising, and points to how seismic the decision to cancel the title was. It also means that Felker-Martin, Spokes, Carey, and Taurin Clarke, who was planning on joining the title as the regular cover artist with issue #2, are now out about a year of work.
So why was the title canceled? A statement provided to Comic Book Club by DC Comics explained, “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.”
We detailed the circumstances at greater length elsewhere, but the short version is that Felker-Martin has been consistently posting about hot-button issues on social media for most of her career. While the timing, and fans and detractors on social media, pointed specifically to her BlueSky posts about the death of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk yesterday, it seems this cancellation was actually caused by ongoing violations of DC’s social policy.
Given the long run mentioned above, and Felker-Martin’s history of posting, one could wonder where the disconnect happened between DC Comics and the writer… Whatever you think about Felker-Martin’s posts yesterday or before that (her BlueSky account has currently been banned, reportedly for the aforementioned Kirk-related skeets), if DC knew they were in for the long run with her and Red Hood, the fact that she was posting potential violations of the social media policy shouldn’t have been a surprise.
As is, that’s tilting at windmills because Felker-Martin did violate the social media policy, and DC did cancel Red Hood. All 12+ issues and two collections of it.
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