Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, published between 2010-12 in the US, has been available in Brazil in Portuguese, without controversy, as Vingadores: A Cruzada Das Crianças, since 2016 through Editorial Salvat and Panini Comics.
That is, until this week at the Rio Biennial (the Rio International Book Fair) when the Mayor of Rio, Marcelo Crivella, came to learn one of the comics in the collection features a gay kiss between two male characters, Wiccan and Hulkling.
The Hollywood Reporter (THR), relating the saga, explained that both characters are in a committed relationship and both are clothed in the scene.
But from the Mayor’s incensed reaction on twitter one would think otherwise.
The twitter text is backed by a video where Crivella expands on his text, and which THR kindly offer a translation for.
Books like this need to be wrapped in black sealed plastic with a content warning displayed on the outside.
Crivella has banned the comic book from being sold at the event, but it’s unclear how much further his powers extend to restricting sale of the book in Rio or beyond.
And it would seem his rage came too late for the fair itself as the books had already sold out.
