Rob Liefeld is not one to hold his tongue. After severing ties with Marvel Comics in 2024 after completing his work on Deadpool Team-Up, he’s been somewhat openly critical towards Marvel Comics. On his podcast, he spoke very openly about his critiques and opinions of the current state of X-Men comics, and he’s now taken to X to express his opinion further.
“The guys at the top of the executive suite in publishing have to go - Buckley, Bogart, Gabriel. These guys have no new moves, they are spent and tired and it shows. Start over. My career has been across 7 EIC’s. Seen it done way better by brighter and more focused minds.”
He continued in another post, “Can’t emphasize this enough. Out of moves. Nothing fresh to offer. More tricks that customers and retailers reject. A sea of derivatives. Poor management of talent. Start over.”
Liefeld’s criticisms of Marvel have been widely documented, but you can check out his podcast Robservations if you want to know more or keep up with his new work. In the past, Liefeld has criticized Marvel’s variant covers, reliance on derivative characters, and too much of a focus on sales quotas amid declining sales for some of Marvel’s titles.
When Liefeld retired from Deadpool comics, he made a heart wrenching and nostalgic announcement on X. You can read his retirement post here or just below.
"I am retiring from Deadpool. It's official. Yup, after 33 years of not only introducing Deadpool but chronicling many of his most popular adventures it's time for the Deadpool Daddy to say farewell. One of the fun parts about getting older is you can retire from things, so here I am. So I worked up one last crazy Deadpool yarn for the fine folks at Marvel and they responded with electric glee and I started producing it last month for release Summer 2024. I often wonder what my life would be like if I had not created and sold not just Deadpool, but Cable, Domino, Stryfe and many others to Marvel. What If young Rob hadn't taken up the challenge of transforming a title that was headed towards cancellation is one of the better alternate universe tales. It certainly transformed my young career, creating opportunities and record breaking sales for New Mutants & X-Force. Creating and introducing the Deadpool Corps., featuring Lady Deadpool & Dogpool was a great function of my mid-life crisis during 2009. In 2015 I started Deadpool:Bad Blood, getting Deadpool his first original graphic novel, and his only chart topping, #1 ranking to date, an achievement that got me a round of congratulations from Marvel brass that pumped my chest out farther than Captain America's! No other auteur has combined to write and illustrate more Deadpool work, I'll complete this journey with over 1000 pages alongside my Mercenary Misfit. So, I'll finish this one last Deadpool story, and trust me, it's a wild one, and call it a collaboration for the ages. It'll be fun! In case you are wondering, why now? That's easy, I'll be 57 at the end of this and my eyes are still functioning, the work continues to be strong, I want to go out with the best effort I can muster. The hand-eye coordination won't be there forever. I'll elaborate more on this on my next Robservations podcast and look forward to taking this journey with you, the world's greatest fans, who have always provided the best support a cartoonist could ever imagine. And that, is saying something!"
What are your thoughts on the current state of Marvel comics? Let us know in the comments!