Rob Liefeld’s Heirborne, A Mixture Of Pro Gun & Occupy Wall Street

Rob Liefeld posts on Facebook about his current schedule. “In the off chance that Convention Promoters read or catch this, many have been very generous in contacting me about shows so this could be a good connector. I’m not doing any shows for the foreseeable future. I declined very generous offers to attend Baltimore & L.A., Dallas months ago, along with many others going into 2023. In all honesty, I’m seriously burned out from all the travel and am looking forward to staying home for the foreseeable future. I am likely to be seen shopping in San Diego maybe even going in a professional capacity but that feels like a year from now.
I have Deadpool: Badder Blood to complete for a May 2023 release as well as my new HEIRBORNE series that I am launching. Thank you to all the great folks who came out to see me this past year. I had my biggest store signing, biggest San Diego & biggest New York shows ever. The state of comics and conventions is strong!”

Heirborne is a new series by Rob Liefeld about a world in which a superhero had dominated it, along the lines of Earth-3, Maximortal, Brightburn, Jupiter’s Legacy, The Boys, Miracleman, Uber and Empire.  Liefeld has described it as “the most socially relevant, societal-minded comic I’ve ever done. It comes from a terrifying premise: If there were a super-being, that person would oppress us, not serve us”. Which also reminded me of John Byrne’s never-used take on Superman, who – in real life – would have ruled the world.

Heirborne takes place “in a world in which a family of super-powered beings have subjugated the world, and only the select few get to live in luxury and comfort (think of them as the 1 percenters of our world). Most people in the world of Heirborne have to ration water and food. But there is hope in the form of a resistance. I believe the poor in the world are more at risk than ever. It feels like the middle class is indeed being wiped out and the elite among us are reminding us of how elite they are.”

It features the Magistrate as the Suoperman/Supreme type character, and also seems to have a bit of a pro-gun ownership message, with the posession of weapons a capital offense. Not that they seem to do any good anyway.

The allegories here are a little on the nose. Liefeld’s Brigade Remastered Edition #1 last month contained a five-page teaser showing off this world.

Someone’s been watching Handmaid’s Tale. And now we know that Heirborne will be launching, presumably through Image Comics, next year.

With weapons that work! Power,m as we know, is derived from the barrel of a gun. And we know how big the barrels of Rob Liefeld’s guns are! As for the time schedule, it may also be worth noting that Liefeld’s nine-and-a-half-year-old Kickstarter for Brigade, intended to have given the comic away en masse for free, still has many people in the comments reporting non-delivery or requesting refunds.