CONTENT WARNING: This piece features comic book panels containing apparent anti-Semitic imagery.
UPDATE: This article has been edited to include a statement from Joe Bennett and Marvel Comics.
Artist Joe Bennett is being accused of putting anti-Semitic imagery into Immortal Hulk #43, which hit stores this week.
The issue features the Grey Hulk, Joe Fixit, in control of Bruce Banner's body. Fixit-as-Banner is a con artist grifting his way through New York City, who finds himself unable to avoid stepping into a fight when he sees a Black teen being assaulted by police officers. During one of his scams, Joe-as-Banner buys some jewelry with a stolen credit card to pawn it later. In the panel where he purchases the jewelry, we see that the name of the store (written in reverse as it's seen through the window) is Cronemberg's Jewelry, except that instead of "Jewelry," the L is omitted and it says "Jewer" (presumably "Jewery," but the Y is blocked out), along with the Star of David, a well-known Jewish symbol, in the display.
This panel evokes another Marvel controversy involving anti-Semitism from 2017, when artist Ardiaf Syaf featured a number of hidden references in X-Men Gold #1 to the November 2016 Jakarta protests against Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Chinese Christian Governor of Jakarta. Purnama drew controversy after suggesting that his political opponents were trying to discourage citizens from voting for him by citing Verse 51 of the fifth chapter of the Quran out of context. That verse was commonly translated into Indoneisan as, "Muslims should not appoint the Jews and Christians as their leader."
Syaf then included numerous references to the verse, which is also identified as Quran Surah 5:51 or QS 5:51. Syaf had Colossus of the X-Men wear a shirt with QS 5:51 on it.
One notable similarity between Syaf's hidden messages and this week's Immortal Hulk is that Syaf had the Jewish leader of the X-Men, Kitty Pryde, posed next to a sign for "Jewelry," with the sign partially obscured to highlight the first few letters, as shown below.
This is not the first time that the Immortal Hulk artist, a longtime comic book artist from Brazil who has been working in mainstream comics, primarily for Marvel, since 1994, has drawn controversy for his views. In 2019, when gay journalist Glenn Greenwald was assaulted by a far-right journalist, Bennett said that Greenwald should have been punched rather than slapped. Bennett apologized and deleted his comment.
Last year, when Bennett posted a drawing of She-Hulk on his Instagram, a fan replied, "Oh look, it's Hulk's angry transgender son," to which Bennett responded with laughing emojis.
In response to CBR's request for comment, Marvel shared the following statement from artist Joe Bennett:
“I’ve been including references to famous horror directors to pay respects to the genre throughout the series, and in Immortal Hulk #43, I included a nod to David Cronenberg. The misspellings on the window were an honest but terrible mistake – since I was writing backwards, I accidentally spelled both of those words wrong.
“I have no excuse for how I depicted the Star of David. I failed to understand this troubling and offensive stereotype, and after listening to you all, I now understand my mistake. This was wrong, offensive, and hurtful in many ways. This is a mistake I must own, and I am sorry to everyone who I hurt by this. I am working with Marvel to correct this, and I am using this lesson to reflect on how I approach my stories and my work.”
A Marvel representative followed Bennett's statement by noting the company, "fully acknowledged this mistake was missed on our side as well." Marvel also confirmed all art in digital releases, future printings and collections containing Immortal Hulk #43 will be corrected.
Source: Twitter