DC Signs Deniz Camp to an Exclusive Deal. Last Month He Posted “Missed Again” After Someone Shot at Trump.
Deniz Camp signed an exclusive writing deal with DC Comics this week. Bleeding Cool confirmed it today. Camp’s Absolute Martian Manhunter concludes July 1, and DC is bringing him back with full exclusivity ahead of San Diego Comic-Con and the Eisner Awards, where he has six nominations this year.
This is the same Deniz Camp who, on the night of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in late April, posted two words on X within minutes of shots fired outside the Washington Hilton: “Missed again :(”
Trump and Vice President Vance were both in attendance at the hotel when the shooting scare spread across social media. Camp posted before the full facts were known, before anyone had confirmed who the target was, before the word “missed” had any other reasonable referent. When the backlash came, he claimed he was posting about darts. He posted a picture of a dartboard. Neither Marvel nor DC issued a statement. Neither dropped him. Neither called him.
Now DC has not just kept him. They locked him in.
The contrast with DC’s recent history is direct and unavoidable. In September 2025, writer Gretchen Felker-Martin posted “thoughts and prayers you Nazi b----” and “Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk” within hours of Kirk being shot and killed at a Utah university. DC Editor-in-Chief Marie Javins personally called Felker-Martin to inform her that “any kind of promotion of violence or harm is unacceptable to them.” DC canceled the entire Red Hood series — not just future issues, but existing orders. Retailers were credited for copies already sold. The book was gone the same day it had launched.
Felker-Martin told The Comics Journal she had “no regrets” and that Kirk was “such a loathsome person” that his murder did not strike her as “an especially hot flashpoint.”
DC’s stated standard, from Javins’s own mouth: “any kind of promotion of violence or harm is unacceptable.”
Camp’s post sat on X for weeks. His Marvel work continued. His DC exclusive was announced this month.
The distinction between the two cases is not ideological in any principled sense. Felker-Martin celebrated the killing of a conservative figure who was actually dead. Camp appeared to celebrate a failed assassination attempt on a sitting president and then denied it with an explanation nobody believed. The outcomes: Felker-Martin was fired within 24 hours. Camp got an exclusive deal eight weeks later.
The argument DC could make is that Camp’s post was ambiguous, as he never named Trump, and he had an alternative explanation. Felker-Martin’s posts named Kirk directly and left nothing to interpretation. That distinction is real. It is also not how DC framed its standard at the time. Javins did not say “we fire people who celebrate confirmed deaths.” She said “any kind of promotion of violence or harm.” Camp’s post, timed to a shooting, reads as promotion of harm whether or not you accept the darts explanation. DC chose not to apply its own standard.
What makes this an industry story rather than just a DC story is Camp’s specific position in the current comics ecosystem. He has six Eisner nominations this year. He has credits at Marvel, DC, Image, Valiant, Vault, and Scout. He is the most nominated individual writer in the 2026 Eisner cycle. The awards apparatus that the comics industry uses to signal who matters has placed him at its center, and DC’s exclusive deal confirms that institutional position regardless of what he posted in April.
The comics industry has spent years telling conservative creators, fans, and readers that there are standards of conduct that apply to everyone. The Felker-Martin firing was cited repeatedly as proof those standards exist and are enforced without ideological preference. The Camp exclusive deal, eight weeks after “Missed again :(”, tells you what those standards actually are.
Three free books. No spam. Just new releases, deals, and the occasional update from the front lines of independent publishing. Sign up for the Jon Del Arroz newsletter and start reading today.
NEXT: Marvel Closes the Ultimate Universe After Identity Politics Killed What Hickman Built