In...attempted fairness to Heavy Metal, it could be their new ownerships attempt at publicity. Make a big change to an iconic character, get an intern to throw shade on twitter that gets the attention of someone, bim-bam your company maybe gets a boost in sales and a brief feature-refernece in, like, Vox or somewhere's art editorials section (is...that even a thing? I admit I don't pay much attention to any of that space and even clicking on the YT vid for a brief instant came close to giving me a cringe-induced coronary just because 'YT vidoe reading tweets and expressing outrage' is just...such an aggravating and MASSIVE genre).
Basically, 'No such thing as bad press' writ into the comics industry, I suppose might be the defense?
Which seems easily beaten by the opposing 'Just let the character whose premise was rockin' boobage have rockin' boobage."