system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Technical Editor rejected publication multiple times, now has his own, very similar publication. What to do?

My friend has been trying to get a paper published for about half a year now, but the technical editor of the journal kept rejecting the paper, for increasingly nonsensical reasons (while the first version of the paper definitely needed improvement, the comments on later versions were just repetitions of the comments on previous versions, even though the problems mentioned in those were long fixed).

A few months after the initial submission, the technical editor got a paper of his own published, which has large overlaps with the paper of my friend (although it goes more in-depth in many parts). Now, it is pretty obvious that the technical editor (who is apparently a pretty well-known and respected figure in the field) kept rejecting my friends paper so that he could publish first, and, sort-of to add insult to injury, now demands that my friend cites his paper.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Is this common? Is there anything that my friend can, or should, do? Or is that just something that my friend will have to accept?
gpt
Many reactions are possible, but the best thing is to get the paper published and move on. 

Your friend should not forget that his paper has been improved during the review process. A good paper will impress readers more than one published in haste. He can improve it even more by carefully studying the editor's paper, and using it to support his findings.