X-Men editor Tom Brevoort has been no stranger to courting controversy and tarnishing the Marvel Comics brand over the last few months. Posting to his Substack, he’s revealed Marvel’s cynicism when it comes to identity politics, but now he’s also talking openly about past bad business practices that intentionally screwed creators like Rob Liefeld.
Cable, X-Force, and Deadpool all had their names changed in an odd branding move by Marvel Comics a couple of decades ago, and the reason for this was that Marvel Comics didn’t want to pay Rob Liefeld for his X-Men-related creations. While CBR and the access media reported this rumor to be false for the longest time, now Tom Brevoort has come out and said otherwise on his substack.
The X-Men franchise has been embattled over the last several years with poor storylines and a complete mess in the Krakoa era ever since Jonathan Hickman left the titles to far less talented writers. Marvel Comics planned a reboot a few months ago under the stewardship of editor Tom Brevoort, who has already caused problems by disrespecting long-time fans and blocking readers he politically disagrees with on X. Now, on his newsletter, the Marvel Comics editor has doubled down to gaslight fans and confirm the new reboot will be filled with identity politics.
Warning signs have been clear for X-Men’s forthcoming reboot. Tom Brevoort teased changes with an image labeled “From The Ashes” before arguing with fans about what would come and telling them it would be a political book, saying, “the message is the premise.” He also called critics of putting identity politics into comics “cretins” in a substack post, further alienating fans.
Rob Liefeld, artist best known the creator of Deadpool and Cable, has also been in the news the last few months with a brand-new comic he’s been releasing direct via livestreams on the app WhatNot, as well as for his comments about woke comic Twitter, which upset a lot of the industry professional whisper network because of his statement that it was something to be avoided.
Tom Brevoort is now talking about Rob Liefeld and his past with the company, stating on his blog: “In a misguided and unsuccessful attempt to avoid paying creator incentives to Rob Liefeld, with whom he’d had some bitter encounter, Bill Jemas had decided to relaunch and rebrand the three ongoing series that Rob had creator participation in: CABLE, X-FORCE and DEADPOOL. So CABLE became SOLDIER X, X-FORCE became X-STATIX and DEADPOOL become AGENT X. And all three of them suffered failing sales and were ultimately discontinued.”
This confirms that Marvel Comics actively tried to screw Rob Liefeld out of royalties with name changes to their books, showing the company’s attitude toward creators on full display.
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This has been the case even back to the days of Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby when the creators or their estates had to sue Marvel or its parent company to get their due for the creations that have made the company billions over the years.
Rob Liefeld has maintained Marvel Comics hasn’t paid him in years, but recently chimed in when talking to Bleeding Cool about the incident, saying, I absolutely denied it at the time because it seemed inconceivable given the low sales that those titles were experiencing. Then, months later, I was informed of a first-hand experience of them trying to figure out a way to do it by someone who was in the very room it was…”
With Tom Brevoort revealing how badly Marvel Comics treats its creators right before an X-Men relaunch, one wonders why the company would allow this public relations blunder to the light of day.
Tom Brevoort is a real life Mister Sinister.
Marvel has a history of stuff like this, ask Jack Kirby.