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No one gets to publish anything and say that they're immune to criticism, or that their work is somehow not their responsibility. But working in licensed IP (intellectual property) can confuse the situation a little bit.
Before I start work on anything licensed, I have to submit a plot outline, with varying degrees of detail, and identify the characters I intend to use. My editors approve or adjust this outline, and sometimes tell me to take things out entirely.
Let me be clear: if I use problematic language or racist slurs, that's on me. My editors will hopefully catch it, but they may not know. There are a lot of words out there, as witness our monthly "I swear I didn't know" conversations on here.
I write the story, I even conceive the story, but the license holders approve and oversee the story. They're the ones who say "we want this to be aimed at this specific age range" or "we need more superhero action here."
The license holders own basically everything I write for them. Olivia Shipp, our protagonist in ALIEN: ECHO, belongs to Fox, and will be showing up in an upcoming Dark Horse Comic. I didn't write it. I didn't know about it until yesterday. She's not mine.
People on Twitter like to demand that I do certain things with Gwen Stacy, romantically, and that isn't up to me. I literally do not have the authority to make those choices, and could get fired for trying.
(Which is, TBH, sometimes a good thing, since the people making demands are often contradicting each other, and I like her being relatively unfettered. She's still figuring her own shit out. She doesn't need to be mired in IKEA erotica.)
This isn't me saying authors have no responsibility. I try really hard to make good choices in both my pitches and my actual writing. One of my own scripts threw me a little when it became a comic, because there was a line where the cultural norm would have slotted in...
...an easy ableist slur. I was able to intentionally steer clear of it, but the resulting line is surprising because it DOESN'T go for the cheap laugh. I have a responsibility. I try to live up to it.
But the target audience for the book, the age range I'm writing for, that's all determined by the people who actually own these characters. I don't get a say in the matter.
Also, the size and popularity of a franchise and of the character(s) you're writing will impact what you're allowed to do. If I got to write a follow-up to ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE, I doubt anyone would push back on me giving Steph an on-screen girlfriend.
But if I were writing a BATMAN title for DC, there's no way they'd let me give Bruce Wayne an on-page boyfriend. Not right now. Maybe in ten years, when I have six Eisners and cost them real money.
