“Marvel didn’t pay Kirby for The Avengers idea?” I find myself saying. “The idea that a bunch of pre-existing work-for-hire characters could continue existing together? What jerks, not predicting in 1963 that kids’ disposable pulp heroes would be worth billions of dollars half a century later and cutting their employee in for money they could have kept for themselves. The bums.”
This is one of those “What? I can’t even, I mean, whuh? Really” things. I can get not necessarily joining protests against publishers for their shabby treatment of the people who created the intellectual property that made the company literally hundreds of billions of dollars, but I really don’t get this new “You’re surprised by that? You clearly don’t know how the world works. I have disdain for you” mindset that seems to be emerging in response.