I suspect one of the bigger skeletons in Waid’s closet just got paid off in the form of sudden employment in the industry, after years of being left out in the wilderness. Does anyone else think Devin Grayson has some stories to tell? Just from what we publicly know about Waid. Stuff that can be proven, no question, he has a long history of emotional abuse and borderline violence to those around him. Objects get flung and smashed. Walls punched in. Etc. This shows up in the way he attempts to gaslight AP like an abusive lover. “He only hits you because he loves you. It’s for your own good”. He’s clearly an abuser. Don’t you think his ex’s would have some interesting stories? And remember he tried to paint Meyer as some sort of PTSD suffering violent nut because of his military service.
The Judge doesn’t have to order anything made public. Anything filed with the court becomes public. There was a gentleman’s agreement between Meyer and Waid’s legal teams to limit public release of deposition and discovery materials to just what was needed for their filings. The agreement is common and was largely to Waid’s benefit. Waid like so many other instances, fucked himself with this one.
As for Marvel? They have to be cringing hard and getting alarmed. Some recently revealed communications make it clear that at a minimum AP’s principals felt that Marvel was an implicit element of the threat. It was in some way communicated to them that should they publish Jawbreakers the likely outcome would be any of AP’s associates and contractors being denied further industry work by Marvel. This came up immediately after, and with regard to unsolicited conversations with “Marvel’s MarkWaid”. It’s pretty obvious that the Dunn’s viewed the threats as legit, and that Waid or other parties involved had the ability and influence to do things such as deny AP affiliated colorists work. Add to that the mysterious “Joey” who appears to be an AP contractor/former full time employee, who’s own coloring business works directly for Marvel. To further add to this the appearance is that much of Waid’s legal defense fund was funded by Marvel employees and contractors. With some rumors indicating a certain degree of coercion from management encouraging contractors to donate. Some of this may go as high as Tom Brevoort. Plus there is a tertiary question that I am sure a lot of people would love to ask underoath. “What is Joe Quesada’s relationship to Renfamous and SJWSpiderman?” Because there clearly appears to be one.
We now know that the threat perceived by AP was that their associates would be denied work from Marvel. Where did this come from? How did this enter into the equation and thought process? This isn’t something the Dunn brothers would just pull out of their asses without some actual implicit or explicit threat. Which leaves Marvel in a dangerous place of exposure. Certainly Marvel Entertainment likely did not have an overt corporate policy regarding Richard Meyer. It’s likely Ike Perlmutter has never heard his name. But the takeaway impression is senior management has long ago lost control of the public activities of their middle management and general employees. These lower tiers are acting in ways that have the strong possibility to place their employer in legal jeopardy. Because nobody is paying attention, and nobody is enforcing the rules of proper and legal business behavior on them. They have people acting implicitly or explicitly in Marvel’s name that have no business doing so. This is exactly the same situation as with Funimation over in Weeb Wars.
God forbid Alan Braverman has to get involved...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U3NoDEu7kpg