Comic book fans of the original 80’s animated film Heavy Metal had been looking forward to another limited series comic starring ‘Taarna’, the film’s main protagonist. But reader who expressed their disappointment with the direction the comic was taking after seeing a recently revealed cover of the publisher’s six-issue miniseries from writer Stephanie Phillips, were met with ridicule and disdain by the magazine’s social media account.

Taarna is normally suited up in a bikini armor similar to Red Sonja, but that changed in Taarna #5, where she donned a full suit of armor. Writer Stephanie Phillips chatted recently about her redesigning Taarna’s new battle armor for issues #5 and #6.

“One really cool element to the finale was getting to design new battle armor for Taarna. Al [Barrionuevo] and Bryan [Valenza] created some of the coolest armor for Taarna that I hope we get to see beyond the issues we worked on together. It’s such a cool look. Both Al and Bryan are incredibly talented and a great team to close out the story with.”

Fans were not impressed and expressed their displeasure on Instagram, where the person running Heavy Metal’s account was quick to respond with ridicule and mockery.

The insults weren’t just relegated to Instagram. When called out on Twitter, the social media director doubled-down on the salt.

Does this make you confident in the direction of Heavy Metal? Can they correct this? Will there be an opening soon for a social media director at the publisher now being run by Tim Seeley?