DC Comics has fired a transgender writer and canceled the new series she was working on over her social media posts reacting to the death of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian Nationalist activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk.

In the wake of her firing, horror writer Gretchen Felker-Martin says she has “no regrets” and stands by the “sentiment” behind her posts.

Related

Stephen King apologizes for Charlie Kirk comment as GOP freaks out over ‘belittling’ comments

According to multiple outlets, screenshots from Felker-Martin’s now-deactivated BlueSky account show that on September 10, she wrote “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b***h” and “Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk,” in reaction to news of Kirk’s assassination during a speaking event at Utah Valley University that same day.

The posts and Kirk’s death happened to coincide with the September 10 release of the first issue of a new comic book series starring Batman character Red Hood, which Felker-Martin was reportedly slated to helm through December 2026. But as Popverse reported, DC quickly released a statement to retailers following Felker-Martin’s posts, informing them that it was canceling orders for the series’ second and third issues and providing refund credits for copies of the first issue. On September 11, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that the series had been canceled.

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

In a statement provided to THR and other outlets, a DC spokesperson 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.”

Unnamed sources also told THR that the Kirk posts were not the only reason for Felker-Martin’s firing. According to The Comics Journal, the writer’s previous posts — criticizing Israel’s war on Gaza and describing the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as “the most principled and defensible thing” Osama bin Laden ever did — made her involvement with the Red Hood series controversial, particularly among the far-right “Comicsgate” movement, since it was announced in July. Her 2022 novel Manhunt, reportedly set to be adapted for TV by trans director Lilly Wachowski, also features a scene in which anti-trans author J.K. Rowling meets a gruesome end.

Felker-Martin told the outlet, and a spokesperson for DC confirmed, that she received a call from her editors, Arianna Turturro (who is trans) and Rob Levin, in August in which they discussed concerns over her social media posts.

According to Bounding Into Comics, screenshots from Felker-Martin’s social media appear to show that she posted about getting a call from an executive from Warner Bros., DC’s parent company, about the Kirk posts. “She yelled at me,” Felker-Martin wrote. “They did very much want a groveling apology.”

In another post, Felker-Martin wrote that she told the exec that she refused “to apologize for calling a nazi a nazi [sic], that he’d spent his life trying to kill everyone i [sic] love, and that i [sic] had no regrets.”

Speaking to The Comics Journal, Felker-Martin clarified that DC Editor in Chief Marie Javins called her at 10:30 p.m. on September 10 to say that DC and Warner Bros. could no longer “stand behind or defend” her involvement with the Red Hood series, adding that “any kind of promotion of violence or harm is unacceptable.” A DC spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that Javins was on the September 10 call informing Felker-Martin that the series had been cancelled.

In an essay posted to her Patreon on September 12 criticizing Kirk’s far-right beliefs and his posthumous valorization, Felker-Martin wrote that she “had spent years smelling traces of the poison fumes he left in his wake,” and that she stood by “the sentiment of what I said.”

However, she told The Comics Journal that her posts were the result of “a moment of poor impulse control.”

“Had I thought for another second, of course I would’ve known [that it would be a problem for DC], and naturally, as soon as I had said it, I did know,” she said. She added that she regrets that the rest of Red Hood’s creative team has been drawn into the controversy.

As for DC, she told the outlet she believes the company considered her a “disposable person.” They were interested in her “transgressive” cache, she said, but “the moment that became politically disadvantageous for them, they cut and ran.”

“I have no desire to be part of any organization that wants to pretend that people like Charlie Kirk are decent human beings who deserve respect,” she added.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.