Rob Liefeld Trashes (and Fixes?) X-Men's From the Ashes Relaunch

Acclaimed Deadpool and Cable co-creator Rob Liefeld has completely trashed Marvel Comics' X-Men From the Ashes relaunch, calling out the questionable creative decisions that have brought the cornerstone comics franchise to its knees. Liefeld also offered solutions to Marvel, a company he has had no problem calling out for some time now.

In a recent edition of his Robservations podcast, Liefeld took aim at the publisher for its X-Men missteps. "We have to talk about the X-Men," he began. "It's been about a year since they announced the giant X-Men reboot and virtually everything has gone sideways. Cancelations, after cancelations, there hasn't been a week that has gone by in recent memory without one of these books getting canceled. They can't even reach five issues in some cases. Comics, before the second issue arrives, are being canceled. This is a dire situation. I mean, this is a storied franchise. No title in the last fifty years has had so much legacy and success, and now it is a line of books struggling to connect and build a new legacy."

The Youngblood creator added, "The X-Men family of titles is completely broken." Liefeld named-dropped Weapon X-Men, X-Factor, NYX, and last year's Deadpool series as disappointments that have been unsurprisingly axed by Marvel. As for solutions, "Stop doing so many books," he said. "I know the Quotaverse doesn't like that because it demands new #1s to justify publishing." He criticized the variant cover schemes the publisher now heavily relies on instead of investing more money into making the comics better.

According to Liefeld, not all X-Men characters need their own book, insisting Beau DeMayo's X-Men '97 animated series offered the roadmap to how most fans wanted to see the titular team interact. Liefeld also believes that as part of the X-Men's restoration, Marvel has to put its best creators on the Wolverine and X-Men titles, and give the characters stories of consequence. Liefeld also referenced the monstrous success of DC Comics' Absolute Universe during the podcast, stating that Marvel should pull out all the stops to recruit its architect, Absolute Batman writer Scott Snyder, to head up its X-Men revamp.

Rob Liefeld Torches Marvel Leadership

The New Mutants artist also hopped on X (formerly known as Twitter) to call for the exit of Marvel's current leadership brass, writing, "Man, I can’t make folks go on the record – but I can tell you, based on my DM’s, that comic book professionals en masse agree about the train wreck the X-Men office is."

Liefeld continued, "The guys at the top of the executive suite in publishing have to go – [Marvel Entertainment President Dan] Buckley, [Marvel Entertainment Senior VP of Publishing Operations & Procurement David] Bogart, [Marvel Publishing Senior VP of Print, Sales, and Marketing David] Gabriel. These guys have no new moves, they are spent and tired and it shows. Start over. My career has been across 7 Editor-In-Chiefs. Seen it done way better by brighter and more focused minds."

Source: Robservations and X