 Alternate cover to X-Force #50 (January 1996), by Liefeld. Rob Liefeld (born March 10, 1967) is an American comic book writer, illustrator and publisher, who is one of the Modern Age’s most popular and controversial figures. Although an undeniable superstar in the 1990s, a backlash against his bombastic art style and allegations of plagiarism made him known as "The Most Hated Man in Comics."
In the early 1990s, Liefeld became a superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics’ X-Force. In 1992 he and other popular Marvel illustrators left the company to found Image Comics, which helped bring about a wave of comic books owned by their creators rather than a large publishing house. Although somewhat high-profile, Liefeld’s line of comics failed to gain much critical approval.
Fans praise Liefeld’s artwork as energetic and action-packed but it has been widely criticized for excessive flamboyance, limited versatility, and improbable anatomy. Liefeld's original creations, like many Image properties, have been panned as two-dimensional and generic. A few of his characters bear specific similarities to previously existing ones, leading some to deem Liefeld a plagiarist.
However, most readers agree that bombastic artwork and decreased focus on character development were widespread trends in mainstream comic books in the early 1990s. For this reason, some consider Liefeld merely the most vilified representative of an industry-wide fad.
Biography In 1985, at the age of 18, Liefeld completed his first published work, a mini-series featuring the superhero pair Hawk and Dove for DC Comics. He soon moved to Marvel, where in 1990 he became the regular illustrator of The New Mutants (starting with issue #86), starring a junior team of X-Men. The popularity of Liefeld's art soon allowed him to increasingly take control of the series' story. He created a new leader for the team, the heavily-muscled, heavily-armed, glowing-eyed cyborg Cable, who instantly became a popular antihero.  The issue that broke Rob Liefeld worldwide. X-Force #1 (August 1991), featuring story and art by Liefeld. Liefeld also created the wise-cracking assassin Deadpool and a group of immortal mutants called the Externals. Both were popular, but prompted Liefeld's first charges of plagiarism, as fans debated similarities between Deadpool and DC's Deathstroke the Terminator and between the Externals and the immortals from Highlander.
With The New Mutants #98, Liefeld assumed full creative control over the book, pencilling, inking, and plotting, with Fabian Nicieza writing dialogue. He then transformed The New Mutants into the platoon-like X-Force. The 1991 debut issue of X-Force sold four million copies, an industry-wide record soon broken by X-Men #1, illustrated by rival Jim Lee. In both cases, variant covers were used to sell multiple issues to single collectors.
Liefeld was one of a group of young, popular artists (including Lee) who left Marvel in 1992 to form Image Comics, in a migration sometimes called "the X-Odus" (many of these artists had worked on X-Men related titles for Marvel). Liefeld's superhero team series Youngblood was the first Image comic to hit the shelves and contained many elements that became Image stereotypes: huge muscles, huge breasts, huge guns, huge explosions, and plentiful violence. Furthermore, the characters in the series were often considered derivative of characters from Marvel's stable.
As Image developed, each founding artist created an imprint, which he operated under the larger umbrella of Image Comics. Liefeld owned both Extreme Studios and Maximum Press. Like other Image directors, Liefeld could illustrate comics only intermittently, because management responsibilities took up much of his time. He continued to plot and create properties, however, including Youngblood and its various spin-offs, the Superman-like Supreme and the femme fatale Glory. Critical approval of these characters was scarce.
In 1996, Liefeld and Lee returned to Marvel to reboot some of the company's classic series, an event that was dubbed "Heroes Reborn". Liefeld was contracted to write 12 issues of The Avengers and write (with Jeph Loeb) and illustrate 12 of Captain America, but his work met with an unenthusiastic response, and the series were given to Lee's studio.
In 1998, Liefeld left Image Comics, supposedly under pressure from his peers who felt that his often-derided work hurt the reputation of the company and that Liefeld misused his position as Image CEO to promote his line more than those of others. Liefeld then folded all of his publishing ventures into the company Awesome Comics.
Liefeld and Loeb soon attempted to resurrect his unused Captain America plots in the form of the Awesome character Agent America. This character was nearly identical in appearance and background to Captain America, perhaps so Liefeld could then re-use his art with only minor alterations. After Marvel filed a lawsuit, Liefeld acquired the rights to the Fighting American, a long-dormant, patriotic superhero invented in the 1960s by Captain America's creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Liefeld's Fighting American was also nearly identical to Captain America (his shield no longer contained a star in the center, for example: the shield logo had moved to his chest), but the lawsuit was settled, with certain stipulations. The Fighting American, for example, was prohibited from throwing his shield.
Meanwhile, Liefeld hired legendary comic book writer Alan Moore to revive many of his creations, which were dwindling in popularity. Moore wrote a few issues of Youngblood and Glory, but his most lauded work was on Supreme, which played on the character's generic traits as a means to explore the historical development of the medium of comic books. However, an erratic publishing schedule and bad financial planning resulted in the demise of Awesome Comics.
In recent years, Liefeld has returned to the X-Men franchise, penciling the occasional cover and/or interior of Cable and X-Force, which continued to be somewhat popular properties until the early 2000s, when both were cancelled.
In 2004, he reunited with Fabian Nicieza for an X-Force miniseries and illustrated the early covers for Nicieza's Cable and Deadpool. In that same year, Liefeld formed Arcade Comics and is once again attempting to revive Youngblood.
Artistic Criticism  Liefeld's cover to Glory/Avengelyne #1 (1995). Note especially the posture of the woman on the left. Below are common characteristics of Liefeld's artwork. Some are idiosyncratic, while others were fairly widespread trends in mainstream comics of the 1990s. - Limited facial expressions, generally ranging from barely-restrained anger to sheer constipation (see X-Force covers above)
- Concealment of characters' feet
- Bizarre proportions such as tiny heads, wrists, and ankles and oversized breasts and muscles (see Captain America above, who appears to be several feet thick)
- Poses that appear to be both illogical (in the context of the plot) and anatomically impossible, or at least uncomfortable
- Skewed perspective. Often a picture will be began in one perspective then be finished in another. (See Captain America again, clearly started in profile view then switched to three-fourths perspective)
Trivia
External Links - Extreme Genesis (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/extremegenesis/) - a Rob Liefeld fan site with many samples of his artwork
- Rob Liefeld (http://www.maelmill-insi.de/UHBMCC/NAML8.HTM#N734) - a list of Liefeld's work while at Marvel Comics
- Official Rob Liefeld forum (http://www.herorealm.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=37)
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