Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: marvel, rob liefeld, x-force

Rob Liefeld Return To X-Force Causes Ructions

It's Rob Liefeld time again. When writer Vita Ayala was named the new writer on New Mutants last year, as part of Jonathan Hickman's Krakoan X-Men line. Newsarama gave the story the clickbaity headline "New Mutants gets new writer post-X of Swords" not saying who it was until you clicked through. Rob Liefeld quote tweeted it, saying "No I am not coming back to the rescue twice in one lifetime."

Maybe he read the article, maybe he didn't, maybe it was just an opportunity for an ego boost, but it did not go down well on social media. Over thirty years ago, Rob Liefeld joined New Mutants with then-writer Louise Simonson and basically managed to move her off the title in favour of Fabian Nicieza – whose contribution he has more recently described as comparable to a janitor writing the book – before relaunching the title as X-Force. Yesterday it was announced that Rob Liefeld is returning to X-Force for a new 30th anniversary series, X-Force: Killshot. And some people clearly haven't forgotten.

Chris Hassan who writes the popular X-Men Monday slot for AIPT Comics, with lots of Marvel creators and editors taking part, and is regularly referenced by Bleeding Cool, tweeted his own personal boycott. "NEVER coming to #XMenMonday: This garbage. Publishing this is an insult to good, talented creators in the X-Office who are hard at work telling new stories and NOT disparaging their peers' work on Twitter. Stand behind your creators – stop rewarding those who insult them" and following up with other responses "It's very upsetting. Give jobs to better human beings.", "I'm not very prominent, but thanks for the kind words. I pour countless hours into putting X-Men Monday out every week. I'm not dedicating ANY of that time to someone who's hurt so many people" and noting "He's criticized the current X-Books and creators on multiple occasions, among other things. So it's just upsetting to see." Minutes before the X-Force: Killshot announcement, Rob Liefeld also retweeted a now-deleted triple-fistbump to the following tweet.

I am going to make a guess and start that X-Force: Killshot won't be taking place alongside current Krakoan continuity… after all, it's not entirely sure which recent issues Rob has read, what with current stories such as the terraforming of Mars as a new mutant home as a defence against fighting human space terrorists Orchis. Which has just had a crossover featuring all the mutants in the sexiest costumes around. Villains and antagonists of all manner of human and mutant races, such as Omega Sentinel Karima Shapandar, Lily Lemus and Opal Vetiver of the Hordeculture, Bei, Genesis, Isca, and others of the Swordbearers Of Arakko. Literal actual other races such as the Cotati, Brood, and Knull symbiote dragons. All the time while continuing the mutant tales of oppressed minorities trying to find space in their world to be themselves, that has been a staple of the comics for almost sixty years, in a new direction.  Certainly one way or another, it is going to be an interesting September in the X-Men offices.

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