fujishig

I love the 5 years later run with Giffen and the Bierbaums so I can't be too bitter (and replacing Superman in the Legion mythos with Mon-el/Valor worked for me), but yeah, I feel kind of like Crisis halted the momentum of both LoSH and Teen Titans, titles that were once as big as Uncanny X-men but were really changed by Crisis (and by almost every single event thereafter because like the JSA they tie in so tightly to superhero legacy).

Red Hood

I feel that's the biggest impact that to this day we still see in that both LOSH and Teen Titans haven't recovered from Crisis in terms of sales or popularity. Legion is particular had decent decent runs but doesn't compare to their heyday.

PhantomStranger

What gutted the Legion was they lost both Superboy and Supergirl for years and years. I never fully accepted their supposed replacements in the Legion.

brayzie

I take back what I said about Liefeld not having anything insightful or interesting to say. I checked out this video to hear him talk about Alan Moore and ended up finding the whole thing interesting. As someone correctly mentioned in the comments, his enthusiasm is infectious.

It sounds like even early on he was very businesses-minded, so that explains why he seems to focus more on that side of things and not so much on his own art skills. In the 90s, when his artwork was getting criticized, ie "he can't draw feet", he actually went back and took his time to refine his style and it showed in Youngblood #6 and Team Youngblood #9. But soon after it was back to running Maximum Press>Awesome Comics, and whatever else.

I have to say that I'm inclined to believe his interpretation of Alan Moore's magic persona as "schtick." Apparently when Moore was writing for them he went MIA for two weeks, and later explained that it was because he was in the astral plane with Jesus and Ghandi. And Moore wanted to continue wanted to do a third year of Supreme with Awesome Comics but he was trying to convince Liefeld to have Steve Moore write the books. "Steve Moore's Supreme." I can see Liefeld's point-of-view on that, and I can even see why he says that ABC Comics is pretty much a continuation of the Awesome line. I'm a little confused at the timeline though. Did Alan Moore already cut a deal with Wildstorm when trying to get his friend Steve Moore to write Supreme? Or was Liefeld ending his working relationship over this what prompted Moore to then go to Wildstorm?

If Alan Moore wanted to ease out of writing Supreme by replacing himself with Steve Moore, yeah, that doesn't help sales for Supreme, and I can imagine Liefeld feeling like he's getting conned, but wasn't Moore just starting to write Glory and Youngblood at the time? The man can only do so many books, so he brought prestige to Supreme for two years, wanted to move on and do the same with Glory and Youngblood. Feels like a fair trade.

I don't think his view on Moore is too accurate though, at least in regards to his stance. "Alan says, I'll never work for them again, then he works for them again." That only happened with DC when Jim Lee sold Wildstorm to the company after Moore and all his collaborators had already signed on. If he left, then all those people would be out of a job, so he stuck it out. Then he let Marvel reprint some of his UK work with some small stipulation and Marvel still messed it up, so that was that. But he rightfully heaps tons of praise on Moore, and it sucks that Awesome went under. Liefeld says that was really humiliating for him. As a fan of that particular line I'm a little sad too.

Oh yeah, his interpretation of Judgment Day is also something I didn't pick up on. He says that he just gave Moore the "Judgment Day" title for a big event and said, "write something with this title." Liefeld wanted something with Kirby-like gods and Moore gave him a courtroom drama. If you've read the series...

fujishig

I thought that Awesome folded and that's why Moore took his pitches to Wildstorm (or Jim Lee recruited him), because (similar to what you said about when Wildstorm was sold to DC) he had all these creators doing work with him and he wanted that to continue. I don't remember ever hearing he left Liefeld in a lurch or anything.

Also, I'll agree that Liefeld has an enthusiasm for comics that is infectious, but I will also say you cannot completely trust his account of anything that involves him. I don't know him personally or anything but man there's so much revisionist history that he spouts. Even the claim that all of Moore's concepts are warmed over leftovers from Awesome are a little suspect to me, especially coming from someone who used his leftover Captain America pages for Fighting American, over which he was sued by Marvel and the settlement was that he could have a shield, but not throw it.

I'm sure I mentioned it in this thread before but the earliest comic that I remember reading from him was the Hawk and Dove miniseries that introduced Dawn, and I'll never forget the story of how he drew the comic sideways then came up with some justification that the chaos dimension was always drawn sideways. Here's Karl Kesel remembering that:

https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-urban...s-revealed-36/

brayzie

That's what I read as well. Awesome folded, and then Moore went to Wildstorm and did yet another variation of those archetypes (Superman and Wonder Woman).

Liefeld makes it sounds like Jim Lee lured him away and signed him while they were still working together.

I'm guessing that Moore left after Awesome folded. It doesn't seem like he left before then. Supreme was already on it's second year when Alan Moore just started writing the first issue of the new Youngblood, Rob Liefeld's flagship title. So if Moore wanted to leave Supreme, but agreed to write Youngblood and Glory for the next year or two, why would Liefeld cut ties with him?

I do recall that during this time that Moore went to Wildstorm, Liefeld published a previously unfinished Youngblood #3 or 4 as a back up in some Awesome Comics handbook, and he later published the original Glory and Youngblood proposals, I'm assuming, without Moore's permission. But maybe not. I think things got messy when in an interview Moore criticized Liefeld for not following his instructions when illustrating portions of the Judgement Day series. Moore's scripts and details are really dense, and he admits that, but he says that Liefeld would ignore all those notes, and wouldn't even draw backgrounds for some of those panels. Liefeld got mad and said, something like I followed his script to the T, and then went on a rant pretty much slamming Moore.

I have the books, and yeah, Liefeld was especially lazy for his portions of the comic. He's supposed to draw this enormous, heavily populated courtroom for most of the scenes and the reader would be lucky if Liefeld would draw two large rectangles that represent the main entrance. It was probably Liefeld's worst work at the time, and you'd think he'd give his all since it's Alan Moore and it's his companies big event.

fujishig

It's funny you posted this right as I was editing my previous post to put my favorite anecdote about a young Rob Liefeld. And he hadn't changed, at all. And it still wasn't his fault.

brayzie

But Comic Book Urban Legends did a follow up on that, and it turns out Liefeld was right.

And here's Rob Liefeld's more in-detail account of how it happened (it's 1 of 6 tweets explaining it):



As far as ABC being Awesome Comics left overs, I wouldn't refer to them as that, but it's clear to me that Tom Strong and Promethea are very clearly Supreme and Glory fleshed out. Even the style of storytelling is similar to what was established in Awesome Comics. There's the Supremacy in Supreme, and in Tom Strong there's a similar concept with multiple versions of that character including a cartoon bunny version, just like Supreme had a cartoon mouse version. Glory had the heroine being a comic book character in real life, and Promethea was a comic book character in real life. But Top 10 being like Youngblood seems way off. Maybe some minor elements, but it's more clearly Moore's attempt at a cop drama. I do agree it's hypocritical for Liefeld to say that though when he did something far more blatant with the example you mentioned.

fujishig

Ha, now that you mention it I do remember that Larsen rebuttal. But it still stands that Liefeld didn't even ask and the writer himself states that he didn't intend for it to have any relation to the one Larsen drew in Doom Patrol, but Liefeld just decided that all on his own. Like that's a pretty big detail to talk to your writer about, I would think.

To me, while there may be similarities in storytelling, the archetypes and concepts used for Tom Strong and Promethea pretty much pre-date even Superman and Wonder Woman (who Supreme and Glory were obviously molded after). It's not odd for a writer or artist to use concepts they designed for other works they do later. For instance, while Nightcrawler was designed by Dave Cockrum as an unused Legion of Super Heroes member (which are seen in some of his original sketches, same with Storm), I don't think I recall DC ever saying that the character was ripped off from them.

Meanwhile you can look at pretty much every single Youngblood character, Supreme, Glory, the Fighting American, heck even Deadpool and say that the designs/concepts were clearly taken from other works. The Fighting American takes it to another level, though, for being actual work done for Captain America and slightly modified.

brayzie

Liefeld claims that his editor was in Florida at the time, and that the Assistant Editor was in charge and that she approved the changes.

I understand that, and if Liefeld was really going in on Moore for that, that's just dumb. But from what I remember of his comments, it was just him trying to save face and brag that Awesome Comics is where Alan Moore got his juice back. But as much I enjoyed that first #0 issue of Glory, Promethea is light years ahead of it in terms of execution.

The funny thing is that nearly everyone, including myself, was criticizing and mocking Liefeld for his blatant copying of characters and yet, Moore did the exact same thing. For Awesome Comics he has ZanTar-White God of the Congo (Tarzan), Bram the Berserk (Conan the Barbarian), John Prophet the Man of Marble (Doc Savage Man of Bronze), Battlin' Baron and his Roarin' Roughnecks (Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos) and so on.

Alan Moore even copied crucial elements of an Asimov story for Mr. Majestic without even crediting the author.

I definitely got a newfound appreciation for Rob Liefeld after this interview. Not that he's a good guy or or that some of his behavior is justified, but it provides more context to his relationship and place in the industry.

As a creator, if he had someone to reign him in, I think he would have produced better work. But he was wearing multiple hats, as an artist, creator, publisher, brand, etc. Even though so much of his Extreme Studios stuff is unreadable, imo, I actually like collecting the really early stuff because of how slick it all looks. His version of Glory is no good, but she always had a better visual look to DC's Wonder Woman at the time. There's a surface level of excitement to those books that DC was lacking at the time.

Red Hood

I'm pretty sure Rob isn't getting the right nuances and messages from Cobra Kai.

Red Hood

A good write up about what went down with Liefeld's IPs and the whole Terrific Productions debacle

whotony

He’s nutty. I think he called me a fool on twitter for calling him out on his belly aching about calls in the first couple of games in the NBA finals.

Why So Blu?

Red Hood

On day 1 of the Marvel Deadpool 30th Anniversary Celebration, Rob is throwing a fit and having a meltdown on Twitter cause Fabian Nicieza rightfully took credit as co-creator of the character. Liefeld thinks he’s the only one that deserves credit for Deadpool and once again he’s coming across like a dick

whotony

I tuned in to his latest podcast.
I think it was supposed to be focused on the latest ep of WandaVision


Focus it turns out is the last word to use to describe his show.

For about an hour he rambled on about just about everything and finally for about 2 minutes mentioned something about WandaVision.

He’s nutty.

Also, how old is he? He went on about collecting comics in 1975.

whotony

Btw, I wouldn’t say he’s throwing a fit.

He just seems to be trying to defend his belief that he alone created DP.

I have no idea what is true so I don’t care if he did it on his own or not.

Red Hood

Is not true and he's throwing a hissy fit about it. Anytime that Nicieza publicly acknowledges that he co-created Deadpool, Liefeld goes on this Twitter rants. Several years ago, he once again became a pariah after saying this while promoting the Deadpool film


This type of shit is not only petty, but simply not true and makes him come across once again as an asshole. The thing is that he's a very big keyboard warrior that doesn't have the balls to tell this in person.

Obi-Wanma

Joe Kelly deserves some kind of credit too. Without the work he did on Deadpool's first ongoing title, Deadpool would not have the popularity he does today and the movie would not exist. So much of what he established is what you see on film.

fujishig

That's the weird thing about work for hire superhero comics. So many people contribute to the story, and often the original character is nothing like the current or popular character. I agree that Kelly deserves a ton of credit, even if he doesn't get "creator" credit.

Why So Blu?

Rob is 53.

Red Hood

Exactly. By the end of 1991, Liefeld was gone from Marvel and he was credited until issue 12 of X-Force, which he had co-written with Nicieza. His last cover was issue 11 and his last interior work was issue 9. Deadpool only had 7 appearances by then, mostly cameos and several full issues where he was mostly just a mercenary. The person who truly developed more personality to the character was Nicieza, Joe Kelly and Mark Waid. Liefeld taking full credit for the character is just wrong.

rocket1312

This is the same argument Ditko/Kirby defenders use to minimize Stan Lee's authorship of certain characters. It's a valid argument, but it's Liefeld and he's being kind of a dick about it, so...

stingermck

Rob should get credit for the costume and that's it.

fujishig

I mean really that should go to Ditko/Lee and Wolfman/Perez