Should Artists who defend Nick Spencer Lose Credibility? Yes. Absolutely.

If you are an artist that defends the destruction of the intent of another artist's work, the creative community should take you less seriously.  Does that mean turning the work of ages past on its head is not allowed? Absolutely not.

The thing is, because real art is about the exploration of the soul, being contrarian or against the grain is the place where you will find great art.  Pushing the envelope is as natural to them as breathing, but that also means that there is a certain predictability in counter culture which is that which mainstream culture is NOT.

Thus, if mainstream culture starts to find interest and value in the patriotism of an American Icon, it is the natural temptation of artistic culture to challenge that and find new ways of looking at things.  This experiment often pays off; Wicked spawned a whole sub genre of films and stories about the antagonist as protagonist.  In an age of white washing and culture wars, this makes sense.  And Marvel has done an excellent job of turning many of these characters on their head, changing gender or race or even sexual orientation.

Marvel replaced Steve Rogers with someone who was Black (Falcon) and had a strong story run.

But Nick Spencer wanted to go further.  Nick Spencer, failed politician, and self proclaimed feminist because he had a story whose primary characters were women, suddenly feels that he has the chops to mess around with one of the seven or eight great icons of comics.  Sometimes this pays off; sometimes this is great story.

And the artists rushing to Nick's defense are shouting at the need to give him breathing room to do so.  But have you looked at Nick's bibliography? Nick is no Grant Morrison...Nick isn't Alan Moore.  Nick has done a lot of minor works and had short stints at some major ones.  No one at Marvel challenged him on this, but then; shouldn't we ask why?

In interviews with Nick, Nick himself has says that he is surprised that he didn't get more push back on this change but Marvel just let him do it.  Why doesn't that bother people? This isn't a story of Nick wanting to tell a powerful story and overcoming the odds to do it; its a publicity stunt and a way to kick against the foundation of an iconic image as 'a way to protest trump.'  So...why didn't he do a comic about Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington secretly being Nazis too?

People say that this is a gimmick; and that this too shall pass.  Will it? Given the inordinant amount of artists defending Nick, one must ask how much thought THEY have put into this? It seems a knee jerk response against the rabid #gamergate fanboys with no thought about what this looks like being announced the day after #SteveNeedsaboyfriend or the fact that he was originally created by jewish creators.

Make no mistake about it.  Nick knew exactly what he was doing.  Mealy mouthed excuses about "Hydra being more about Spectre than Nazis" means you don't understand Hydra OR Spectre.  So when an artist goes defending Nick's decision to do this, I must lose respect for them.  It's their choice and their creative currency, but when one artist disrespects the work of another SO MUCH without ANY visible thought to the material, I must simply shake my head and walk away.