Rob Liefeld is done with Marvel after Deadpool red carpet snub

Rob Liefeld has put Marvel on blast. The co-creator of Deadpool, Cable and Bedrock has said he is done working with Marvel Comics and revealed the reasons on the latest episode of his Robservations podcast: he claims he and his family were treated poorly at the Deadpool/Wolverine premiere. In a subsequent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he expanded on what befell that fateful night:

At the premiere, Liefeld learned he and his family were not invited to the afterparty, something he was accustomed to attending. He also felt snubbed by Disney brass, including Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, whom he says was near him on the red carpet but did not acknowledge him.

“It was meant to embarrass, diminish, defeat me,” Liefeld said on his podcast of not gaining access to the afterparty.

And there was another apparent slight: Liefeld said he posed for professional photos with creatives on the Deadpool & Wolverine team, but later was told by his publicist that those photos were deleted. He believes they were only taken as a courtesy and not intended to be used, though other photos, featuring Liefeld alone as well as with his family, appeared as part of Disney’s Getty press portal from the event.

Liefeld has been doing work for Marvel for a while as part of his 7th or 8th career reinvention – including this year’s Deadpool Team-Up, which was already billed as his “Final Deadpool story.” But at this point, he feels Marvel doesn’t want to work with him. As he put it on the podcast, “At some point, you go, ‘I’ve received the message, and the message is clear.’” 

While Marvel didn’t comment directly, an insider told THR reporter Boys Kit, “While we respect what he’s contributed, he does not respect what others have contributed.” 

Which is what we call a “burial” in the business and suggests that Liefeld’s suspicions that Marvel doesn’t want him around anymore are probably accurate to some degree. 

After the story broke, Liefeld continued to tweet about the matter. 

….and on and on. 

On the one hand, it is definitely true that Liefeld can come on strong with his “I created Deadpool” rhetoric that sometimes leaves out co-creator Fabian Nicieza…not to mention the many other Deadpool writers and artists who defined the smart-ass character that made it to the movies. Gail Simone, who had a notable run on the character, wrote on FB that she’s been treated quite well at the same premiere (don’t read the comments.)

I feel very weird about this because I absolutely believe the creators of Deadpool should be treated wonderfully and with all the respect they have earned.

On the other hand, Marvel treated me wonderfully at that same premiere. I mean, they went WAY out of their way to make it a lovely experience.

I hope this gets worked out for everyone.

Also, I did NOT post this to have people bashing creators, I just find the whole thing a little confusing.

On the other hand, Liefeld’s claim on his podcast that ““Kevin Feige does not treat comic book creators well. That is my personal experience,” has some corroboration – although not from Feige himself. 

Ed Brubaker, who wrote the classic Winter Soldier arc of Captain America and co-created the current version of Bucky, also had complaints about his treatment at the Captain America: Civil War premiere, as related on another podcast: 

Brubaker mentions turning down a check for a “Thank You” credit in Captain America: Civil War because he found the tiny amount to be such an insult. To add insult to injury, Brubaker apparently had to attend the premiere in the overflow theater as opposed to the main big theater with the big stars. Since the basic premise of the B-plot for Civil War involving Bucky hunting down rogue agents of the Winter Soldier program was based on his Captain America comics run, Brubaker’s indignation is understandable.

Apparently Brubaker and artist Steve Epting, the team who reinvented Joe Simon and Jack Kirby‘s Bucky Barnes as The Winter Soldier, didn’t even get an invite to the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie after-party and had to text Sebastian Stan (the actor who plays the character in the MCU) to get them in because Kevin Feige‘s assistant apparently didn’t have them on their list. Adding salt to the wound was that Feige’s assistant was more than happy to let in other assistants and bloggers.

Brubaker also famously said he made more money from his cameo in The Winter Soldier than from royalties for writing the character – but his beef was more with Marvel Publishing than Marvel Studios. (Brubaker has gone on to write for several streaming series and is heavily involved in Amazon’s upcoming series based on his Criminal, co-created with Sean Philips, so he’s doing okay.)

There’s also this expose from THR four years ago, where the credits and money paid to comics creators for using their work in billion dollar movie franchises was termed “shut-up money.”

Multiple comic creators have publicly stated that DC’s payments for adaptations, in general, is higher. Comic creator Jim Starlin turned heads in 2017 when he publicly noted that Warner Bros. paid him more for a minor character that appeared in DC’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice than he received for Marvel’s major Guardians of the Galaxy characters Thanos, Gamora and Drax combined. After Starlin’s airing of grievances, Disney renegotiated his deal for Thanos, the villain of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Those films went on to gross $4.83 billion globally, and Starlin, while not sharing details of his deal, walked away happy. “The cliche is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Starlin tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The way these agreements are written up, Disney can be more generous if they want. It is written right there that they can change the terms to make it better.”

Starlin’s creations (some of which goes back to his high school notebooks) has informed so much of the MCU including the Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos, that one hopes he’s gotten a decent monetary compensation from Marvel Studios. The fact that Starlin also had a somewhat prominent SPEAKING LINE in Avengers: End Game, is evidence of that: while many comics creators get cameos in the films, a speaking line is much more rare, Stan Lee aside. (Here’s Chris Claremont watching a lawn mower fly in X-Men: The Last Stand.)

At any rate, Liefeld has been a pretty tireless evangelist for the Deadpool movies up until now. I’ve always been a little surprised that while the Deadpool films always have a Liefeld joke in them – as Kit pointed out, the final scene in Deadpool/Wolverine takes place in front of a store called Liefeld’s Just Feet – he didn’t get a cameo along the way. Maybe he’s just TOO energetic. At SDCC last year he made a very animated appearance on ComicsBeat’s “Inside the Con” show:

And that’s the enthusiasm Liefeld projects anytime you’re around him. 

While many will say that Liefeld’s outburst is him projecting a prima donna attitude, he still touched on a truth that has been pointed out many times: even though superhero movies are a bit on the wane, they have driven the movie industry for most of this century, and the comics’ creators don’t always get treated fairly along the way: either with payment or respect. 

While Liefeld is walking away from Marvel work, he’s back at Image, with a fully remastered edition of Youngblood Deluxe coming out in April, so he’s doing okay, too.