DC Comics Pulls The Dark Knight: The Golden Child Ad after Chinese backlash

DC Comics is the next major company to acquiesce to demands of the Chinese market as they recently pulled out one of their The Dark Knight: The Golden Child ad after Chinese social media slammed it as being “Pro-Hong Kong”.

Newsweek reported that the image was pulled from both DC Comics’ Instagram and Twitter page hours after it was published.Chinese fans claimed the book depicted ongoing anti-China protests in Hong Kong, representing veiled support for the demonstrators. There were even some comments that connected Batgirl’s attire (which was all black) with the Hong Kong protestors. But really, the main element that triggered Chinese fans of Batman and DC Comics had to be the molotov cocktail, a symbol for protest that did not go well with the audience according to Variety’s report on the subject.

Another person wrote, according to Variety: “The black clothes represent Hong Kong, the mask represents Hong Kong, the Molotov cocktail represents Hong Kong, what else here doesn’t represent Hong Kong???”

This comes hot on the heels of Activision and Blizzard Entertainment’s recent trouble with China, which led to the banning of a popular Hearthstone player.

The Dark Knight: The Golden Child is a continuation of Frank Miller’s story. For this volume, the story revolves around Superman and Wonder Woman’s child aka “The Golden Child”.