Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett takes another look at angry fans.

I apologize for there not being a Confessions last week -- I missed my deadline due to the fact I got home later than expected from seeing Rifftrax Live: MST3K Reunion.

It was a one-time-only live “Super Riff-A-Palooza” featuring both the Rifftrax crew and the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as well as Jonah Ray, the host of the upcoming MST3K revival.  Different sets of Riffers took on a variety of old movie shorts with the whole gang working together to deal with Stamp Day For Superman, a 1954 black-and-white short made by the United States Department of the Treasury to promote the sales of U.S. Savings Bonds.

For those who haven’t seen it, it features the cast of the Adventures of Superman TV series (George Reeves, Jack Larson and Noel Neill) shilling hard for kids to buy Savings Stamps at their schools, and is on its own plenty odd.  In particular, there’s a strange sequence where a captured burglar suddenly confesses to a surprisingly sympathetic Superman that his life of crime was due to never learning the virtues of saving as a child.  But the Riffers still find plenty to comment on, including a few jabs directed squarely at Batman v Superman.  For those who want to see it, the film is available on YouTube.

I had rather hoped my previous Confession (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--You Can’t Argue With Angry”) would be the last time I’d be writing about angry fans (a.k.a. Those Opposed), as least for a while anyway, However a couple of stories appeared on my newsfeed this week about the unintended consequences of being in opposition to something that I simply can’t resist writing about.

First up was The Hollywood Reporter piece titled “Tom Rothman on ‘Spider-Man’ Plans and Loving ‘Ghostbusters’ Trolls: ‘Can we Please Get Some More Haters to Say Stupid Things?’”  In it, Sony chairman Tom Rothman “welcomes the national attention” over the new Ghostbusters movie and is quoted as saying, “It’s the greatest thing that ever happened.  Are you kidding me? We’re in the national debate, thank you.  Can we please get some more haters to say stupid things?”

For those who haven’t been paying attention movie sequels haven’t done so well at the box office lately (Fantastic Four, Annie, Conan, Robocop, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and releasing a Ghostbusters movie now is a calculated risk for the Sony Corporation.  So, by hating the very existence of a movie they haven’t seen Those Opposed, to the new Ghostbusters movie have managed to mitigate some of that risk.

Then there was this story, “Zack Snyder Invited A Group Of BATMAN V SUPERMAN Haters To The JUSTICE LEAGUE Set To Prove He’s Learned His Lessons” which appeared on the swiftfilm website.  Apparently Snyder’s publicist “reached out to some of the harshest critics of Batman V Superman, because he had read their reviews and found their critiques fair, and invited them to London to visit the Justice League set.”

Here Those Opposed were rewarded, not just with a free trip to England but just as importantly, by hearing director Snyder admit that “mistakes were made” on the movie.  For Time-Warner a couple of international airline tickets and Snyder consuming a little crow was a very small price to pay for getting the movie some much needed good press.   While it made an enormous amount of money, all of the negative responses to it were threatening not just the chances of Justice League but all of the films in their cinematic superhero universe to follow.  And if you’re going to create one of those, undoubtedly Job #1 is to not alienate your base.

Back in 2014 (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Brands New To You”), I listed a number of properties that were making their debut at the International Licensing Expo.  The one I never expected to see in America was Gon, a CG series based on the manga by Masashi Tanaka published in North America by both DC (as part of the now defunct Paradox Press and CMX lines) and Kodansha.  Well, not surprisingly, I was wrong.  It just began streaming on Netflix, which describe it as being a “goofy” kids’ show for ages 2-4/5-7 about a “cantankerous miniature dinosaur who plays, eats, sleeps and faces the challenges of a wild creature who has outlived the rest of his species.”

Goofy and intended for kids it may be, but even though I’m not overly fond of CG TV animation I found myself grudgingly enamoured with it.  The manga is completely lacking in both dialogue and comic sound effects so I couldn’t help but be irritated by the absolutely unnecessary (and utterly inane) lines given the animal cast.  But happily, Gon remains mostly mute, only capable of saying his name, and the series does a nice job of capturing the character’s rambunctiousness.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.