NEW YEAR? REALLY?

LegalDispatch 148

Howdy. Welcome to the first LegalDispatch of 2026 — which, so far, is looking a whole lot like 2025 so far…

FEEDBACK

Norman Anderson writes:

What a year! You’ve done a lot of really wonderful projects that most definitely helped a great many people get through this last year of dark times. I know it’s helped me. Also, this newsletter has been a comforting reminder that we are not alone in this world. There are many of us that are like minded. It’s a fantastic thing to see that you are still thriving in this type of work environment as well. Have a relaxing and happy Holiday and New Year. Thank you, good sir. 🙏🏻

Thank you very much. That’s very kind of you to say.

Neutral Foundry writes:

The part about maybe underselling the hopelessness resonates in a weird way. When you lay out the timeline of events like that, it becomes clear how quickly things compound. I've had similar moments where trying to stay optimistic feels almost naive. The idea of a general strike is interesting but you're right about mission creep being teh killer. Every movement lately seems to get diluted by trying to fix everything at once. Narrowing it down to one clear demand would require a level of coordination and discipline that feels almost impossible in the current landscape.

Well said.

It certainly doesn’t help that none of our elected officials seem all that interested in fixing things. I’d assumed they were just underwhelmed — not sure what to do in the face of unprecedented corruption and overreach — but now I realize that they’re just complacent, more interested in preserving their position at the trough than actually stopping the no-longer-slow rise of fascism. The Democrats will always be the party who brings a strongly worded press release to a gunfight.

And, oftentimes, it’s not even all that strongly worded.

Harvey Hammer writes:

Gotta agree with that last comment to 2025. I've been very absent from newsletters, so sorry about that - but this year for me's been full of great and not so great things. Writing my year in review for my newsletter, I have once again pinched your layout. Impressive once again to see what you've written in a year! Hopefully 2026 can bring us all back to things we've lost. Happy New Year!

Thank you. For some reason, I thought I wasn’t all that prolific in 2025, but listing everything out made me realize that wasn’t the case.

PROJECT DECADE

I wouldn’t call it a New Year’s resolution per se, more like a personal/business decision but I’ve decided not to take on any more spec/development projects until my current slate of pitches reaches some kind of critical mass of conclusion.

That being said, I’ve started work on a new novel. This is an idea I’ve been noodling on for over a year now which I’m very fond of and it’s exciting to finally get going on it. My first three novels (Overwatch, In Any Lifetime, PROJECT SPECTRE) were written during lulls in Hollywood work, so this should be interesting…

Here’s the first sentence (subject, of course, to change):

A five-alarm migraine raged through Nora Rayburn’s head on the morning she broke the world.

SAY GOODBYE TO HOLLYWOOD

TV comedy writer Lauren Bans wrote a piece for New York magazine about the number of people — particularly writers — leaving Los Angeles. You can check it out here.

The article spoke to me for many reasons, most of which should be obvious to readers of this newsletter.

This past Wednesday was the one-year anniversary of the Palisades and Alta Dena wildfires. The former forced me and my family to evacuate and claimed the homes of my manager and close friends of ours. Those friends were forced to stand by and watch their home burn while — I shit you not — a firefighter with a hose stood only a few feet away. The firefighter couldn’t get any water from the nearby hydrant.

The median annual tax bill for homes in the Palisades is around $17,241 well above the national average of $2,400. So my manager and my friends were not only completely and utterly failed by the local government, but they paid over seven times more than the national average for the privilege.

In June, my wife and I become empty nesters. I’m not sure if my television commitments will allow me to leave LA entirely — or even if there will be, y’know, a June — but for sure I’m going to be spending as little time here as I can manage once our youngest is out of the house.

SAY GOODBYE TO HOLLYWOOD TWITTER

Eighteen years ago, I joined Twitter to live blog the birth of our second daughter. I wrote as if I was her, so many of my first tweets were like: “Diaper change.” “Poop time.” “Pooping.” “Napping.” “Boobies.” (Given the way discourse on Twitter eventually went, I was ahead of my time.)

Then, when Arrow premiered, the network encouraged us to get very active on Twitter. And then get active on Twitter I did. I had a lot of great interactions with fans and a few not-so-great ones. I engaged in a lot of political debate with Trump supporters, but — to be honest — the worst behavior came from people from my own side of the aisle.

I’ve watched an entire generation of writers tweet themselves — and their friends — out of jobs because they either thought showrunners don’t look at their social media or that showrunners should still want to hire entitled virtue signalers who practice performative victimhood. Yeah, that sounds like a really fun writers room to work in. Sign me up.

But I digress.

After the 2024 presidential election, I resolved to get off of Twitter and off, I am happy to report, I have remained. Not only have I not missed it in the slightest, I recognize how measurably happier I am as a result. The only lingering negative emotion comes from when I think about how much time I gave to arguing with idiots and how much energy I gave to the attacks accusing me of misogyny, antisemitism, or wrongthink.

For the past year, I’ve had it on my to do list to delete my Twitter account. I finally did so this morning.

I wish I could say that Grok’s recent use of AI to generate CSAM was the final straw, but the truth is that there have been a whole bushel of “final straws” ever since Elon Musk took over the site.

Good riddance.

PROJECT RECURSION

Yesterday saw the announcement of what I’ve been teasing as PROJECT RECURSION: The Whisper War, a new, five-issue series from Comixology Originals. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news.

Here’s a better look at the cover for the first issue (art by Sedat Oezgen and Carlos Caberera):

And here’s a sneak peek of a page from Issue 1:

The Whisper War #1 comes out on February 10 from Comixology…

STAR WARS: JAR JAR

…and the very next day (2/11) sees the release of Star Wars: Jar Jar, the one-shot featuring Jar Jar Binks and Kelleran Beq which I co-wrote with Ahmed Best, the man who brought both these characters to life.

Comicbook.com had a preview of some of the art by Kieran McKeown and Laura Braga:

MITZVAH OPPORTUNITY

Stephen Culton of the Between A Pod And A Hard Place podcast has set up a GoFundMe to, like many others these days, cover his rent and avoid eviction. If you have some extra bucks to spare for a good guy, you can donate here.

Be good to each other.

Best,

Marc

Encino, California

1.9.26

A regularly-updated list of upcoming releases and events:

SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE Vol. 1: The Janus Directory (January 20, 2026)

SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE #9 (January 21, 2026)

THE WHISPER WAR #1 (February 10, 2026)

STAR WARS: JAR JAR (February 11, 2026)

SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE #10 (February 25, 2026)

THE WHISPER WAR #2 (March 10, 2026)

C2E2: Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (March 27-29, 2025)

STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS Vol. 2: A Higher Path (April 14, 2026)

THE WHISPER WAR #3 (April 14, 2026)

THE WHISPER WAR #4 (May 12, 2026)

BRING ON THE BAD GUYS TPB (May 27, 2026)

THE WHISPER WAR #5 (June 9, 2026)

THE WHISPER WAR: Digital Collection (August 4, 2026)