Normal (2025) is a great action movie stuck with a bad title. Directed by Ben Wheatley and starring Bob Odenkirk, this stylish and violently entertaining film follows a grizzled small-town sheriff pulled into escalating chaos, including a full-blown Yakuza war in the middle of Normaltown, USA.

In this Film Buff review, AKAPAD breaks down why Wheatley’s distinctive visual style, sharp tonal shifts, and collaboration with cinematographer Armando Salas and screenwriter Derek Kolstad make Normal stand out — while the confusing title holds it back from the first impression it deserves. Bob Odenkirk continues his run as the new over-the-hill action star, delivering a performance that sits comfortably alongside films like Nobody and Bullet Train.

A fun, intense, and franchise-ready action movie currently streaming on HBO Max. Here’s the full review.

The Complex Legacy of Rob Liefeld in Comic Book History

Rob Liefeld is at it again — rewriting the origin of Marvel’s Cable. In this Extreme Monday breakdown, Peter A. DeLuca examines Liefeld’s latest claims that Cable was always meant to be Nathan Summers from day one. The documented history tells a more complicated story involving Louise Simonson, Bob Harras, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Uncanny X-Men #201, and Liefeld’s own earlier statements that Cable was originally intended to be Cannonball.

No spin. Just the archival record, the contradictions, and the demand for receipts.

Watch the full video analysis below and dive deeper into one of the most contested creator-credit debates in 1990s X-Men history.

Summary

This video provides a nuanced exploration of Rob Liefeld’s influential yet controversial role within the comic book industry, particularly focusing on his work with Marvel’s X-Men-related titles. The host, Peter A. DeLuca, who is recognized for deeply covering Liefeld’s career, critiques Liefeld’s repeated efforts to rewrite or reshape the narrative around his contributions, especially regarding the character Cable. The discussion delves into the origins and evolution of Cable’s storyline, dissecting Liefeld’s claims that he originally conceived key aspects of Cable’s identity, contrasted with documented facts about the involvement of other creators like Louise Simonson, Jim Lee, and Whilce Portacio. The video underscores the broader context of comic book production teams, editorial decisions, and industry dynamics in the 1990s and early 2000s while highlighting Liefeld’s fall from grace and his difficult relationship with fans and the internet. Ultimately, the host calls for concrete evidence (“receipts”) to substantiate Liefeld’s retrospective claims and stresses the importance of accurate, archival history in comics.

Highlights

• 🦸‍♂️ Rob Liefeld has repeatedly tried to rewrite the history of his role in creating Cable.
• 📚 Uncanny X-Men #201 and #341 are pivotal issues linked to Cable’s origins and mutant power revelations.
• 💥 Cable was initially intended to be Cannonball (Sam Guthrie), not Nathan Summers, according to Liefeld’s earlier statements.
• 🖋️ Other key creators like Louise Simonson, Jim Lee, and Whilce Portacio played significant roles in Cable’s character development.
• 📉 Liefeld’s reputation declined sharply in the 2000s, with lots of internet backlash and industry rejection.
• 📰 Marvel Age magazine provided early insights into Cable’s mysterious past and hinted at future story arcs.
• 🔍 The speaker demands original sketches, notes, and verifiable evidence from Liefeld to clarify his true contributions.

Key Insights

• 🕰️ Revisionist History and Creator Mythmaking: Liefeld’s insistence on claiming Cable as his original concept is a classic example of revisionist history in the comic book industry. Creators sometimes reinterpret their past work to claim extended credit, especially when relationships sour or legacies are contested. Without original proof, these claims can distort collective memory and fandom understanding.
• 🧩 Collaborative Creation in Comics: The case of Cable illustrates the complexity of comic book creations, which often result from multiple inputs across years — writers, pencilers, editors, and entire creative offices contribute. The character Cable evolved over time, with input from several significant figures including Simonson, Lee, and Portacio. Hence, attributing creation solely to one person oversimplifies industry practices.
• 🎯 Significance of Uncanny X-Men #201 & #341: These issues serve as keystones in the narrative development of Cable and related mutants. Uncanny #201 marks a major turning point for Cable and introduces elements that shaped the X-Men universe, while #341 reveals critical information about Cannonball’s powers. These comics highlight how storylines evolve and deepen over many years.
• 🌐 Internet and Fandom Accountability: Liefeld’s struggles with fan scrutiny and internet culture exemplify how modern digital communities hold creators publicly accountable. Past actions, statements, and creative works are preserved indefinitely, intensifying reputational consequences. This environment reduces the feasibility of unchecked revisionism.
• ⚖️ Editorial and Corporate Influence on Character Development: Marvel’s editorial decisions during the 1990s to early 2000s influenced character trajectories, including attempts to phase out Liefeld’s creations during the Joe Quesada era. This reflects broader industry power dynamics where publishers control intellectual properties and can reshape their narratives or creators’ credits.
• 💡 Legacy vs. Innovation: Despite numerous controversies, Liefeld’s influence on 1990s comics was profound. His creation of edgy characters and dynamic art helped define a generation of comic aesthetics. However, sustained impact requires not only innovation but also respect for continuity and collaborative crediting — areas where Liefeld’s legacy is mixed.
• 📜 The Need for Transparent Documentation: The video emphasizes the vital role of archival materials (notes, sketches, editorial mail, early magazine interviews) in preserving comic history. Such transparency enables objective analysis of creation claims versus retrospective narrative reconstructions, safeguarding intellectual integrity in pop culture histories.

00:00:03
[music] >> I should be reading this right now, aka Paddlers. The John Byrne, Chris Claremont Starlord. I I’ve been dying to bring this to you guys, but we’re discussing Rob Liefeld and in in good time, right? Cuz it is extreme Monday. This is your source, me, Peter A. DeLuca, coming to you from Philadelphia, PA. Guys, there’s no one else on the internet that puts more time into Rob Liefeld than myself. Now, Rob Liefeld has been doing a heck of a good job giving himself some awful

00:00:41
press. The uh in in the age of the internet, in the age of never forgetting, in the age of screenshots and screen recordings and internet archives, on the internet, everything is forever. Now, a little bit of a caveat for that. I would love some of uh discovery on the early Rob Liefeld spinner rack uh message board threads. Uh some of those back-and-forths and some of and and even that Rob Liefeld, the meanest guy in the room. We’re going to be doing a lot of Rob Liefeld as a person within the comic

00:01:15
book industry. We have stories, we have anecdotes. Uh I might be talking one-on-one with some individuals when they’re in town about this. I might be doing a couple like a few remote sessions to get some of these stories and and press some of these individuals. And let let let let me just say, if if Rob Liefeld ever sees this, I would I would love to know uh what benefit he has to rewriting any of the history that we’re about to go over. And here’s the amazing thing. Uncanny X-Men 341.

00:01:53
It’s amazing how often we cycle back to this issue. I I I will say time and time again, this is one of the most significant issues in all of X-Men. Because it deals with Cannonball. And Cannonball is essentially revealed to be like this omega level mutant I can go toe-to-toe with Gladiator, aka Marvel’s Superman. I prefer Gladiator, by the way, guys. >> [laughter] >> I think I’d rather get more him than the Man of Steel. So, Rob Liefeld, he’s a revisionist. He’s trying to

00:02:31
rewrite history. He’s trying to tell us that from inception that he pitched Cable as Nathan Summers. That he was a Summers kid. Now, we know from 2011 that I’m running the video right here, aka Padres. Cable was supposed to have been Cannonball. And I would say some of maybe Rob Liefeld’s ideas and concepts floated around the X office from time to time. But there is a huge time gap between Rob Liefeld’s time in New Mutants and X-Force and this very issue. We’re talking a lot of years. We’re talking

00:03:13
different editors, creators, writers, pencil, you know, even though they they were consistent and the X office was a small group for a very long stretch of time. Rob Liefeld’s ideas and concepts that from his podcast that he he makes the argument that he left ideas for Marvel. And he would maybe return. We all know Rob Liefeld left with very bad blood. So much so, this continued into the Joe Quesada era, where we got X-Statix, X-Force, and Soldier X. They wanted Rob Liefeld out, they wanted

00:03:53
his creations out, his creations had some traction. Uh but they wanted to again uh see if they could extend outside of what the characters names were. This experiment, I mean even though X-Statix is is one of the best things Marvel’s ever published uh the the experiment maybe proved correct. That’s the wild thing because between Soldier X, Agent X, and X-Statix, if you get one like book that that has longevity, which was X-Statix uh it’s a win. So, think about that. So, they canceled

00:04:32
all of his books. This is in the 2000s where Rob Liefeld, in my view absolute low. Uh no one was seeing him at conventions. Uh there there would be all of these YouTube videos. I remember there there was this one YouTube video where people would leave uh how to draw like comics of Marvel way and then maybe some Burne Hogarths, but they would just leave him books with notes and they would record it record his reaction from like, you know, down the aisle and post it. Rob Liefeld was clowned on because he’s

00:05:05
so bad with the internet. He pissed a lot of people off in the Spinner Rack days. There’s endless stories about this guy and I I’ve been debating on this very channel, should we breach that? Uh should I have conversations with some of these people, or put them on the record, uh and press them uh back and forth on some of these allegations. So, Rob Liefeld makes a lot of comments to Rich Johnston recently in an article that I’ll I’ll put down below. That’s what she said. Rich Johnston, to his non-credit,

00:05:37
doesn’t press Rob Liefeld when he makes like these claims or he drops these comments. Here’s the thing. Marvel Age Marvel Age was teasing Cable and new characters Rob Liefeld new mutants, right? The Marvel Age was Marvel’s version of Wizard magazine back in the day. I think it’s one of the most relevant things Marvel has ever published. You should always be buying, tracking down, and reading back issues of Marvel Age. Within Marvel Age, Rob Liefeld in his notes about Cable mentions he has a shadowy past and he

00:06:13
has a history with Wolverine. This would eliminate Cable coming even coming from the future. Now, given within this this rack of character designs that we saw in Marvel Age, we also get Cougar that was later used in Youngblood. I don’t know how Marvel doesn’t sue for that uh whatever like I don’t know who was working for Marvel legal at the time. But Rob Liefeld wants us to believe that everything about Cable that we like was a pond inception. There’s a benefit he views in us believing this opinion where

00:06:52
from his own words it’s contradictory. Rob Liefeld wanted Cable to be Cannonball. Sam Guthrie. He had said it out of his own mouth. We have Uncanny X-Men 201. The number one book, the number one back issue and and Wizard spent time teasing this. Uh uh you you would see it month after month, Uncanny 201. Who’s involved with Uncanny 201? Wells Portacio. What happens with Wells? Well, Wells also has a future character of his own. Bishop. Interesting. Wells Portacio also tends to hang out with a guy named Jim Lee. The two of

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them are a part of Aegis Entertainment aka other known as Homage Studios. Homage Studios was the driving force of what we like to refer to as the Jim Lee’s X-Men. We kind of forget that Jim Lee and the uncanny X-Men of that era was in fact a studio produced studio driven comic book. Lot of guys working on different panels at different times. Sure, all the money shots were drawn by Jim Lee, but you got to maintain the monthly schedule so on and so forth. This is why when we got the adjective-less X-Men, the

00:08:11
highest selling comic book of all time that I do dispute. Wells was working on uncanny, Jim Lee working on X-Men. Interesting, right? So, within this article, within this past weekend, it came about that Jim Lee Jim Lee’s name gets thrown into it. And you say it was Jim Lee that did the Nathan. Nathan Summers. We pulled the trigger. We put it in our book. Rob Liefeld at that time had no knowledge of that. But they knew there was something that could be done with Cannonball. And the X office waited years and years

00:08:50
and years. They waited until they were done with Rob Liefeld, that they were done with the stink of Heroes Reborn. They waited a long a long time. And here’s the thing. I Rob Liefeld should take more credit for this than trying to retcon history and to make us believe that it was Rob Liefeld’s original. So, here’s the thing, right? Rob Liefeld on his podcast has said time time time again time and time and time again. He says it all the time. He says this, “I have the receipts.” Okay.

00:09:25
Stop talking. Stop talking. Let me see the receipts. And I use the same argument when it comes to Bill Finger and Bob Kane, right? We know Bob Kane has the receipts. His story never changed. Like all of it, right? Everything with Wolverine and Wolverine’s re-credit, Roy Thomas wedging himself into it. If we’re going to litigate who created what when it comes to American comics, and you agree with Bill Finger, and you agree with the Roy Thomas positioning, right? And these were These are credits that are forever

00:09:59
now. They They were changed. They were retconned. They retconned the credits. You have to now introduce all of this. So, it wasn’t just Rob Liefeld. It’s Louise Simonson. It’s the X-Office. It’s Jim Lee, as well as Portacio. It’s everyone involved with the then trending Uncanny X-Men 201. And here’s the amazing thing about this. So, as if that We got no receipts from Rob Liefeld. Uh he’ll he’ll post uh some comment by Louise Simonson from some article somewhere that says uh she liked

00:10:33
what he was doing on uh New Mutants after she left. As if that lends itself to to anything. Now, Wizard magazine, how would they know to tease Uncanny X-Men for so long? How would they know? Wizard magazine, small industry, right? People talk. People like each other. People don’t like each other, right? Uh Wizard magazine not guilty for being very clicky. Someone in the X-Office, this is my assumption. Someone in the X-Office told Wizard magazine this was going to happen. And Wizard magazine knew to pull this issue

00:11:22
and reference this, and to hype it up. And it was like going back and looking through what Wizard was doing back in the time. Uh you know, X-Men 201 was off of the hype of New Mutants 87, the first appearance of Cable. There is a little bit of like, you know, like carriage riding where that that horse for Cable was running, can we get another horse to pull that carriage and Uncanny X-Men 201 fit the bill. It also fit the bill because that’s exactly exactly what they were doing. It also fit the bill. It

00:11:57
kind of gets into the mind of comic book fans. We love that stuff. We love uh obscure obscure references in issues that have payoffs sometimes 10 years out in the road. It’s one of the best things about continuity based comic book storytelling, something that again, we don’t have today. So, there’s just a lot to consider. And the motivation of Rob Liefeld without real receipts. Let me see the sketch. I mean, he he tried to put up he tried to pull the wool over people’s eyes when it comes to

00:12:37
like his original Deadpool sketch, which anyone with a good enough eye can tell that’s a different style. That’s the later Rob Liefeld style, not the bubble style. Uh Rob Liefeld claims he’s great with receipts, so it’s time to really see all of them. I want to see original notes. I want to see original sketches. I want to see it on old looking Wizard like, you know, coffee stained paper. I want the evidence. And so far there’s no evidence other than Rob Liefeld screaming at the clouds, flaming up the

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entire internet to do what? Bury his own legacy? This dude’s nuts. Anyway, I love you guys. Rock and roll. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Yeah.

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.