High-school student Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider and became your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Now the head of Marvel, Spidey’s publisher, has his own radioactive, problem: Donald Trump.
Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter is under fire for donating $1 million to the veterans’ fundraiser the Republican presidential frontrunner held last Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, as part of his boycott of the Fox News GOP debate.
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Perlmutter is "one of the great, great men of our country in terms of business and talent," Trump said during the event. The former reality TV star said the rally raised $6 million for the country’s veterans; the money will go directly to his foundation and he will then cut checks for various veteran causes.
"The Perlmutters are thrilled to support their friend Donald Trump in his efforts to help veterans," a Perlmutter spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter.
The donation sparked a major outcry on Twitter. Liberal-leaning news site Salon called on fans to boycott Marvel books and movies because of Trump’s past statements about women and his controversial anti-immigrant stances, including his calls for ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.
Fans are condemning Perlmutter, who is estimated to be worth around $1.5 billion, as a supervillain akin to the Red Skull, a Nazi agent and the nemesis of Captain America, at a time when the comic book publisher, now owned by Disney, is trying to become more diverse through characters like Ms. Marvel, a Muslim teenage girl.
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Perlmutter and his wife previously gave $2 million to Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), another 2016 GOP presidential hopeful.
But while that donation raised few, if any, eyebrows, the controversy surrounding Perlmutter’s decision to chip in for Trump’s fundraiser seems to have legs, with the Taiwanese News Service sending up the act of charity in one of its trademark videos.
The clip features Cap and Iron Man rounding up immigrants and kicking them into the Negative Zone, an antimatter universe depicted regularly in the Fantastic Four.
The video asks if people are “wondering what they’ll do about that Mexican Spider-Man,” showing Miles Morales, an African-American Spider-Man from an alternate dimension, dressed in a sombrero.
The spoof likens Perlmutter to Thanos, who will be the “Big Bad” in the next two Avengers movies, and concludes with Trump wearing Uncle Sam regalia and the Infinity Gauntlet, the cosmic item that has been a common thread throughout Marvel’s cinematic universe.
