Rob Liefeld Explains How the X-FORCE Comic Got Its Title

I remember walking into my local comic in the ‘90s and seeing the first issue of X-Force on the shelves, one of the first things that caught my attention was the title. As a young teen, it was just a cool title for a comic and then there was obviously that Rob Liefeld-style art.

While looking back on his career alongside Marc Silvestri, Liefeld talked to Marvel, and he talked about how the title came about. He recalled how he was “terribly jealous” of the “X” used in all of the X-Men and X-Men-adjacent comics, and that led to X-Force. He explained:

“We started discussions, I’d say, five issues in, because I really honestly, what all these guys had — that I was terribly jealous of — was an X in their title, okay. X-Men, X-Factor, even Excalibur worked an X in there, right? … And Wolverine doesn’t need an X. He rises above all of it, so it goes without saying. But in all honesty, I wanted an X in the title and so we knocked around those names and we settled on X-Force.”

The X-Force team was created by Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza and first appeared in 1991’s New Mutants #100 then received their own dedicated comic series later that year. I read and collected these comics for years. Members of the team then made their way into the Deadpool film franchise, which is awesome! We can expect some of them to show up in Deadpool 3 as well.

Marvel's X-Force is a wild superhero team known for their no-nonsense approach to protecting mutantkind. Led by the time-traveling warrior Cable, this black ops division of the X-Men takes on the darkest threats the Marvel Universe has to offer. With a mix of morally gray characters like Deadpool, Wolverine, Psylocke, and Archangel, X-Force isn't afraid to get their hands dirty or cross boundaries to ensure the safety of mutants.

Their adventures are filled with explosive action and intense battles, and were a force to be reckoned with.