Mole Man leads a supervillain team called ‘The Manosphere’ in Fire and Brimstone #1, out today. Fans have accused Smith of going soft in recent years. This probably won’t help.
Kevin Smith is back writing Marvel comics, and he brought a villain team called the Manosphere.
Spider-Man/Hulk: Fire and Brimstone #1, the first of four issues, hit shops August 19. Smith writes with Andy McElfresh, with art by R.B. Silva.
Mole Man leads the group. Stilt-Man and Sandman are in it. Spider-Man narrates the whole thing.
What else is in the issue
The Manosphere is one thread in a busy comic.
Smith also introduces a new Cardinal for New York, Cardinal Leviticus Thornhill, which is a different Cardinal from the one Dogma fans might expect. Bruce Banner turns up at a church, the Hulk does what the Hulk does in a church, and there is groundwork laid for an exorcism.
The issue ends on a Daredevil pun bad enough that Bleeding Cool called it out.
For anyone keeping track of Smith’s preoccupations, a Marvel comic with priests, exorcisms, and Catholic guilt in it is not exactly a swerve.
Why Mole Man leading it is the joke
The name will get the attention. The lineup is where the writing is.
Mole Man debuted in 1961 as the first villain the Fantastic Four ever fought. His origin is that he was short, unattractive, and mocked by everyone around him, so he went underground, found a kingdom, and came back angry at the surface world for how it treated him. That is the character. It has been the character for 65 years.
Stilt-Man is a guy on very tall legs. He has been a punchline in Marvel comics for decades, killed off and revived mostly for laughs, and creators reach for him when they want a villain nobody takes seriously.
So a group named after a modern movement built on male grievance is fronted by Marvel’s original aggrieved rejected man, with its most mocked character standing next to him.
Whether that lands as clever or as heavy-handed depends entirely on the reader, and it is going to split them.
The reaction is going to be a fight
A satirical villain team named after “the manosphere” is going to read to some people as a writer taking an easy shot at an audience he no longer shares much with, and to others as a decent gag executed well.
Smith has been a lightning rod in comics discourse for years, and the argument over him usually says more about the people having it than about the work itself.
Kevin Smith and Marvel have history
This is not a debut. It is a return, and the last one is remembered for a specific reason.
Smith wrote a well-regarded Daredevil run in the late 90s that helped launch the Marvel Knights imprint. Then he wrote Spider-Man and the Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, which shipped three issues in 2002 and then stopped.
The fourth issue arrived in 2005. A three-year gap in the middle of a six-issue story, and the tone of the back half drew criticism when it finally landed.
He was also lined up to write Marvel Knights Spider-Man and had to be replaced over scheduling.
So the interesting question about Fire and Brimstone is not the villain name. It is whether four issues arrive on a schedule.
What Smith has coming next
More than this.
A Star Wars crossover is on the way, along with additional Jay and Silent Bob one-shots. Smith is building a run rather than dropping in for a single project.
That makes the reception of this one matter beyond itself. A writer with a Star Wars book coming is a writer whose current comic gets read as a preview.
Three issues left. The Daredevil pun is apparently just the start.
God help us all.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Bleeding Cool (August 19, 2026), Rich Johnston’s coverage of the issue including the Manosphere lineup, Cardinal Thornhill, and Smith’s upcoming projects