10 Biggest Comics Controversies Of 2017

The new Marvel Editor-in-Chief started his first day in the position by sparking a new controversy for the beleaguered publisher.

Marvel somewhat surprised everyone when it announced the departure of Axel Alonso and his replacement C.B. Cebulski, a long time employee of the company. However, the surprises kept coming, with a revelation on Cebulski's very first day in the new role.

The truth came out about a rumour that had been circling the EIC for some time: in the early-2000s, Cebulski used a pseudonym in order to write for Marvel, while also working as an editor at the publisher. Now, while that may seem a little dodgy, especially given Marvel's rules at the time against editors writing books, that wasn't the most controversial part of it.

The pseudonym wasn't just a name, but a whole identity created... an identity named Akira Yoshida.

As you may note, Cebulski is not Japanese at all, however the Yoshida identity was sold as a Japanese writer of manga and Western comics, as a prime example of Marvel's commitment to diversity, and had even had editors claiming to have met him in person (who it would turn out was another Japanese man entirely who they had misidentified, somehow, as 'Yoshida').

While Cebulski is a lover of all things Japanese and Asian, and has lived there for a great deal of time, and even speaks Japanese fluently, he is not himself Japanese, and many saw his pretending to be tantamount to appropriation.

Moreover, Marvel knew about it months back, had reprimanded behind the scenes, but still ultimately raised him to Editor in Chief.