Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics, X-Men | Tagged: rob liefeld, tom brevoort

Tom Brevoort Says Bill Jemas Renamed Xbooks To Stop Paying Rob Liefeld

Tom Brevoort recalls "Bill Jemas had decided to relaunch and rebrand the three ongoing series that Rob had creator participation in."

I do hope that Tom Brevoort, Executive Editor and SVP at Marvel Comics runs a deadpool on which story from his weekly Substack newsletter (now celebrating its second year) I am going to grab and turn into a story for Bleeding Cool. Because this week, a deadpool would be very appropriate. It could have been his comment about Machine Man, or his non-comment about AI art, but no. Instead it was his confirmation of something that we suspected but didn't have proof and which had been denied. And hey, by now, you've read the headline, so I don't know why I am pussy footing around.

Tom Brevoort talked about the series Cable & Deadpool from 2004, which Marvel insists on collecting as Deadpool & Cable. Brevoort writes, "In the year or two prior to this, 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."

Bill Jemas, the then-publisher of Marvel Comics and responsibile for some of its more madder ideas at the time. It was certainly believed by many. But, Brian Cronin at CBR reported that this rumour was false.

"COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Marvel changed the names of X-Force, Deadpool and Cable to avoid paying Rob Liefeld royalties. STATUS: False"

Like that. Saying "at the time, some conspiracy theorists argued that the move was done by Marvel because of a clause in Rob Liefeld's contract with Marvel that stated that they had to pay him royalties on sales of any titles created by Liefeld, which would include Cable, Deadpool and X-Force. However, this appears to be extremely unlikely (so much so that I categorize it as false). For one, it is highly debatable that simply changing the names would change any deal Marvel had with Liefeld. But most importantly, the move would not make sense…because Marvel WASN'T PAYING Liefeld ANY ROYALTIES at the time!!"

And quoting Rob Liefeld, "So the idea that they would kill the books in order to save on royalty payments to people like myself is simply unfounded. It would be much more devious if the books were selling exceptionally well and Marvel re-named them in order to keep the riches for themselves, but in the case of these titles, there are no riches to keep as they are barely posting profits at all."

Brian Cronin says that "Liefeld had not received royalties on the books in years. It was likely that any royalties would kick in at 100,000 copies sold (or perhaps even higher). The sales on all three titles barely (if even) reached 40,000 before the relaunch. And none of them improved dramatically post-relaunch."

But what Brian Cronin may not have realised is that Liefeld had – and still has – creator-participant deals for these characters which pay out when they used, not just how much they are used. It just may not have been much. And of course Bill Jemas is one for not making sense a lot of the time. And Peter Milligan and Mike Allred played that up in X-Force before the title changed names.

Rob Liefeld recalls "X-Force? It had been retired and re-imagined as a goofy satire book with a floating poop creature. Cable and Deadpool had been retired and re-imagined as Soldier X and Agent X and met with universal derision. Were these the products of too many bong hits by progressive minded hippies? Seemed like it to me."

As for Cable & Deadpool in 2004, Tom Brevoort added "Somebody, possibly Joe Quesada, had contacted Rob Liefeld about doing covers for the series, and he agreed to do the first six. Ultimately, though, he dropped out after four."

UPDATE: Rob Liefeld has changed his mind and tells Bleeding Cool "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…" as well as adding "Also, I have had 3 meetings with Bill Jemas, all pleasant, smiles all around. Never a "bitter encounter" among them."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!