Joss Whedon: writer, creator, auteur…scam artist? Allow me to explain. He’s most famous for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but he’s had plenty of other “creations” to his name. Why is that word in quotes? Because they’re often blatant ripoffs of other creators’ hard work.

Other than Buffy, the man has made a career out of shamelessly rehashing old ideas and claiming them as his own. For example, Firefly is a rehash of classic Star Trek and Deep Space Nine. (Whedon himself even admitted that when he was creating the show, he wanted a kind of old Star Trek feel.) His Astonishing X-Men arcs were not only retold Iron Man tales from the early 1990s (especially the “Technovore” and “VOR/TEX” stories), but the whole “Danger Room gone bad” bit is a longstanding X-Men cliché! His newest project, Dollhouse, is reportedly culled from a 1970s German television show of a similar name, mixed with a copious portion of the Aphrodite IX comic book.

I know it’s very hard to come up with original material in the Information Age; there’s the old adage of “it’s not the idea, it’s the execution.” That’s perfectly fine and dandy, but Whedon’s work is so insanely close to the source material, it’s a wonder he doesn’t get sued for copyright infringement.

I’m not trying to attack Whedon personally. I’ve met the man, at a Wizard World convention many years ago. He’s really nice to talk to in person, but his shameless ripoffs when it comes to his “creations” just make me sick. And his fanbase rabidly eats this shit up with a smile! C’mon, even the most devoted Star Trek fans were good enough to throw out Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, so there’s no excuse for this crap.

Seriously, people wonder sometimes why modern culture seems to be going down the tubes, but then they give people like Whedon a free pass. Don’t bitch when you’re part of the problem.