Liefeld gets a lot of shit everywhere you look for his art, writing etc. Am I the only who liked his earliest work on New Mutants and X-force? Also, when he came on as artist on New Mutants, it was the lowest selling X-title, probably because it didn't have an X in it, so re-naming it X-Force was kind of smart.
The vast majority of his later stuff in the 90's and 00's got progressively shittier though.
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I'm a Liefled fan, I don't know the exact point I thought his art really turned to shit. Certainly by the time he was on Heroes Reborn for Marvel
I did a full read through of new mutants volume 1 and Rob's energy was really needed by the time he came on. After Inferno the book became such a slog
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Rob was pretty good on Hawk and Dove.
While I don't like a lot of Liefeld's work he doesn't deserve as much shit as he gets
Nrama: You’ve been quoted in the past as saying that Rob is “the modern-day equivalent of Jack Kirby”. Can you tell us how that notion came to you, and what things you’re doing in The Infinite to take advantage of that?
Kirkman: I’m aware that my comment has been a polarizing one for fans. Jack Kirby is Jack Kirby, and comparing anyone to him is controversial. But what I was trying to say was that when Rob came to Marvel, he re-imagined everything he did – just as Kirby brought new ideas to everything he did. When he signed on to do New Mutants, he added new characters, changed the focus and turned it into X-Force. He improved what was there before by adding new ideas.
You can’t dispute the fact that Cable and Deadpool are the only complete new iconic characters created in the last 20 years there. I don’t see anyone else with that lasting power. And aside from those two, he’s created over 150 characters for Marvel – he’s always doing something new. When he did a stint on Wolverine, he created an entire group of characters that hasn’t been used since. That’s thing Rob does, and Rob is the only guy qualified to be compared to Jack Kirby in that aspect. I can’t name any one person that fits the bill better than him.
I’m not saying that he’s more important to comics as Kirby; I don’t think anyone, even Rob, would say that. But looking at the pure creativity and volume of characters, no one comes close to him in creating new things.
And that’s without mentioning rob’s art style, which became one of the most copied styles in the medium. He art style became a movement.
Nrama: When his first issues of New Mutants came out I remember tracing those illustrations as a teen.
Kirkman: [laughs] I did the same thing.
You know what's funny? When Liefeld turned Bucky into a girl, he got nothing but shat upon for it.
Nowadays, you can't go a week without these same people taking an established character and changing their gender or race or sexual orientation. That's all they have. Hypocrites.
He created THAT many characters for Marvel? Holy shit.
But yeah, have there been any other characters created as iconic as Deadpool and Cable since, shit I don't know even know when.
Only ones at the top of my head are Harley Quinn and Spawn maybe.
Harley Quinn now, but she's more of a cartoon/video game character who happens to be featured in comic books.
does anyone believe Ms. Marvel will be around in 5 years? 20? she has a chance.
nailed it why Rob was great, every time you picked a book by him, you were seeing something new and fresh, not the same retreads over and over.
I'd say X-23 and Magic are iconic now, I think it's mainly thanks to the bendis push. Magic's redesign has gotten a lot fo art
*magik
Liefeld is just insanely creative, it's like he says himself his mind is just constantly coming up with stuff based off of visual impressions he gets in everyday life.
That said, he isn't the best writer or artist. But people do give him way too much shit.
Magik was a Chris Claremont creation, though, and he has a long list of iconic characters to his name - Rogue, Kitty, Emma, Mystique, just to scratch the surface.
If you want to get technical Illyana's first appeared in Giant Size so she's not a claremont character although like everyone else from that book (including wolverine) he defined everything important about the character including her name
The problem a lot of people had was that they failed to accept that his art is stylized like Samurai Jack or Batman ToS. I think a big reason he isn't so fondly remembered now is because a lot of people were copying and taking elements of his style during the 90s and it became associated with the comic bubble. The current PC bullshit against strong heroes and sexy heroines doesn't help since this is his bread and butter.
liefeld art has energy, shit explodes off the page
its retarded energy but it's still energy
Sort of like retard strength, but for art.