Smoking and the Fascist Left

Y'know, I got as much hatred for the tobacco companies as anybody. And yeah, I totally get how dangerous and bad smoking is, and I don't smoke, and I will do my best to make sure neither of my kids smoke.

But this whole anti-smoking Nazi shit from the left has got to stop. There's fighting the good fight, and then there's taking it so far that it becomes a nonsensical crusade.

Demanding that comic book characters don't smoke is a good example of this. Quesada's "No Smoking" edict remains, while well-meaning, a stupid edict that does minor (but real) damage to characters like Nick Fury, Jonah Jameson, Wolverine and the Thing. It's a character trait, and a relatively harmless one, and I'm sorry, I understand the whole "kids and role-models" thing, but you show me a kid who started smoking because he wanted to be cool like Jonah Jameson. Or the Thing. Or even Wolverine. It doesn't happen.

Then you get the AMA Alliance taking Marvel to task over having Thunderbolt Ross smoking a cigar in the new Hulk movie (spoiler alert!). They even go so far as to act as if it's some kind of error, pointing out that Ross didn't smoke in the first movie. Guys? Did you see that movie? If the Incredible Hulk is better than Ang Lee's piece of crap, they can put a cigarette, pipe, hookah or cigar in every character's mouth in Incredible Hulk.

Anyway, I know nobody's changing their mind on this. But this kind of thing is just patently ridiculous. There are plenty of real issues surrounding smoking and the tobacco industry to tackle... taking time out to send a press release because a fictional villain in a new movie smokes? Well, that leads me to think your press arm has been smoking something itself.