>This comic was so bad, that it killed Mark Gruenwald

>>This comic was so bad, that it killed Mark Gruenwald

Is this true?

Mark was killed by cancer.
Cancer that was given to him by Loeb and Liefeld.

Nah that's bullshit, Gruenwald was the one that got Liefeld some of his first work in the industry after looking at his portfolio at a con.

That anecdote comes from an anonymous person in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story where the author had a heavy bias against both Jim Shooter and the Image Founders

That story had been around forever before Untold Story

He died the day this issue came out, right? I'm not saying they're directly related, but it is suspicious...

So, was Heroes Reborn the New 52 for Marvel?

Readng Greunwald's letter where he admits, seemingly without a hint of self awareness, to driving Stern away from the Avengers, a book he wrote better than anyone before or since, makes it hard for me to like him.
Squadron Supreme is badass, though.

Not as bad as Tom Defalco using his power as EiC to force Walt Simonson off Thor and Fantastic Four so he could write them both

It's interesting that John Byrne complained that Grunewald was too much of a fan

It was an attempt at rebooting their Avengers and Fantastic Four books, but it was such a failure that the whole thing was scrapped and none of the stuff from Heroes Reborn was ever brought into 616 canon other than Tony Stark no longer being a teenager.

Are...are those *feet*...?

Liefield has drawn plenty of feet. Just not well.

The rumor is that Mark grabbed the preview copy when he went home for the weekwnd, and that Monday morning he died of a heart attack

Daily reminder, that Rob Liefield was constantly not meeting deadlines.

it's more like a nasty joke

He died August 12 1996, this issue was dated Nov '96. Even if it came out October of that year (which is a newsstand publishing convention that I'm not sure the direct comics market retains), knowing Liefeld it probably wasn't even drawn until September of that year, so no.

Mark Gruenwald in fact died of an undiagnosed and unsuspected congenital heart defect. I knew a kid at school died the same way - just fell down and never got up again. Teacher was right next to him, started CPR immediately while they waited for the ambulance - still pronounced dead at the scene.

It happens. I mean I get why you're retelling this unfunny story, it's because Rob Liefeld is such a shitbag, but honestly - Gruenwald was in publishing a long time and with Marvel right up until his death. He knew the Avengers weren't selling copies any more and needed a relaunch. At worst he would have gritted his teeth and said "it's just for a couple of years". He would never have let something as trivial as this get to him - artists get rotated out all the time.

Marvel must have been INSANE to work for in the 80s & 90s.

How is Liefeld a shitbag again?

What was some of the heroes reborn retcons?

>Be Gruenwald
>be at home taking it easy after survivng cancer treatment
>decide to read the new Cap comic Bob Harras sent you as a get well gift
>open issue #1
>witness the extent of the top artist in the industry Rob Liefeld
>suffer massive heart attack
>die

This comic was pretty shit.
Not just Liefeld, the whole story was bad.

Just generally. Let's see. There was the time he embezzled money from Image, the fact that he literally draws two-handed while driving his truck, films it and puts it on the internet, the fact that he shit-talks people around the office so bad he can't keep a job for twelve straight issues, the fact that when he decided Heroes Reborn was too hard - having specifically set up a company which would contract his own services to produce the Heroes Reborn line on Marvel's behalf - he just literally walked out of it all after six months, leaving them to pick up from his mess, the fact that the unused "art" from his own Avengers issues later got re-used with just the worst fucking alterations, I mean you think it's bad already, wait until you see this shit; there's all kinds of shit.

In the Heroes Reborn universe, Cap was married to a robot.

Basically it's like any other alt universe, there are changes that are good and changes that are just plain bad. As with any alternate, it's still canon in its own universe, as are events in 616 leading up to and away from it. For example, it's canon that Steve lost a lot of his memory after he returned - I think Baron Zemo did that to him when he got back. So he doesn't really remember it.

It's canon, it's just canon in the way that War Machine's 1990s book is canon. Nobody's ever going to base a story on it again, though there have been numerous crossovers from the Heroes Reborn universe into 616, and Onslaught is definitely still canon. As indeed are the FF, whose son created Heroes Reborn and the basic mechanisms of which underpinned most of Hickman's boring FF/Avengers run.

The story's fine, the art is shitty. The fact that they discovered halfway through that they had to wrap up and bring it all back into main universe clearly didn't help either.

Say what you want about this series, Rikki was a great daughterfu.

Mistakes happen and Gruenwald was still, IIRC, a very well-liked person and a damn good writer. I'd almost say it's a shame he's gone but I think he'd die if he saw the state of Marvel currently.

Killing her off was so fucking pointless. Her and Anya had great chemistry and maybe having a great superhero pal for her to bounce off of would've been the better way to "Spider her up" instead of just killing her dad.

I wonder if his work would have been accepted today, cause it's kinda intense at times.

i always forget she has two other fans