I cannot bear the secret any longer. Guys, you were right. You who complained that the media was somehow prejudiced against DC movies were right. You who thought that Marvel/Disney was paying off critics to praise their movies while slamming DC’s were right. You were always right. And now I must confess: there is a secret conspiracy to destroy DC’s live-action movies, and I have been a part of it.


I know, it’s horrible. Sickening. Truly, I can barely look at myself in the mirror since I allowed io9 to publish such drivel as Germain Lussier’s Suicide Squad review, which states “basic” “flaws” about the movie that are “in line” with “pretty much every other reviewer on the planet.” They’re all in on it, guys. Let’s face it: Suicide Squad was great. It was flawless. Only a conspiracy unlike the the world had ever seen could possibly create such a cruel, pernicious, sustained, and remarkably consistent false narrative about the film having “tonal” “problems.” What does that even mean, anyway? I don’t know. We made it up.

As so many of you have suspected, we are indeed funded by Marvel/Disney. They spare no expense purchasing our opinions, and we spew hate on DC/WB movies as they hand us our checks. How else do you think that the staff of io9 own Lamborghinis? It’s not like Gawker has a lot of money at the moment! (In all honestly, the fact that all of ours cars’ license plates read “I H8 DC” really should have been a clearly tip-off, guys.)


But we don’t just do it for money. We also do it because we loathe DC and its characters so much. Personally, I hate them because I grew up reading Marvel’s comics instead of DC’s and that was enough to make me want to embark on a secret crusade to ensure DC’s movies fail at the box office. Others have more personal reasons; I know that Geoff Johns cut off Katharine Trendacosta on a freeway once, and she’s been spuriously making up stories about the “insanity” on the Suicide Squad set ever since. One staffer, who shall remain unnamed, watched Dan DiDio gun down his parents in a darkened alley one night; he—or she—swore thereafter to devote his/her life to saying mean things about DC’s films in vengeance.

I am coming clean because I cannot in good conscience pretend that WB/DC’s movies are bad any longer. Suicide Squad isn’t just a good movie, it’s great. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice made Captain America: Civil War look like a Mary-Kate and Ashley direct-to-VHS piece of crap. And Man of Steel… I loved Man of Steel, especially when Superman murdered that guy! That was my favorite part! And yet I allowed my thoughts to be perverted for large bags with money signs printed on them, with help from my own disgusting pro-Marvel prejudices.

We even stooped so low as to make up problems for DC’s movies to have—they were so flawless, inventing flaws became our main mode of criticizing them. For instance, I’m shocked anyone believed me when I said that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had its primary villain piss in a jar and then enact a remarkably complex plan to get it into the hands of a US senator seconds before she was about to be murdered anyway. Or when I said how Pa Kent told young Superman that he should have allowed dozens of children, trapped in a submerged school bus, to drown. What Superman movie would have a scene so preposterous? What movie would do such a thing? It seems impossible to believe, and yet so many people believed me and my fellow paid-off critics—too many people.

I know some of you are upset by this admission, and to you, I can only apologize. To those of you who are confused, because I, like many critics, have periodically raved about things like the most recent Wonder Woman trailer, that Justice League clip from Comic-Con, certain parts of BvS and Suicide Squad, a great deal of DC’s television series, most of their animated series, and so forth… it was all to just throw you off our trail. It was a long con, and I’m ashamed of my part of getting you to fall for it.


So from this point forward, I swear to you readers that I will only tell the truth about DC and Marvel’s assorted live-action film—the truth which we all know to be that DC’s films are perfect masterpieces of superhero cinema while Marvel’s are piles of poopy garbage.

And to that handful of brave, clever fans, who have had the courage and the foresight to call out the entire entertainment journalism industry for this obvious, horrid bias, I salute you. I beg of you, do not stop there—I know Rotten Tomatoes seems innocent, in that they literally only aggregate other people’s reviews and thus have no opinions themselves. But they are crooked as the rest of us! I just… I just don’t know how yet. Once I figure it out, though, I’ll confess that too. Meanwhile, keep signing that petition! We’ll get ’em eventually! Maybe!


I do not ask forgiveness for my sins, because I do not deserve them. I just need to let you all know that I can no longer take part in the greatest nerd conspiracy since the Illuminati managed to get Joel Schumacher hired to destroy the ‘90s Batman movie franchise from the inside. I will do my best to make up for what I have done, by making sure to never, ever, say anything bad about a DC movie ever again. Even if it’s true. Nay—especially if it’s true.