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40 MORE Of The Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings, Numbers 30 Through 21.

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By Bill Hanstock
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30.

Past14_medium

Of all the things wrong with this, what stands out the most is how the lens flare in Cable's crotch makes it look like he's cumming on Wolverine's shoulder.

If you look closely, there are six lens flares on Cable's arms (including one on his non-metal arm ... I guess that's the strap of his backpack shining. IN SPACE.). Counting the one on Wolverine, the one on Apocalypse and the ones in Cable and Cyclops' eyes, that's a whopping ten lens flares on one splash page. He's like a kid who just discovered how to do something in photoshop. The next page should be solarized.

In the background, is that ... is that ALL the planets? We get that they're in space, guy, you don't have to include ALL the planets. And if you do, consider trying harder than "green circle". Bonus points for having Cable take a dump on Apocalypse's face, though.

29.

Cdp1_medium

This one is a bit of an experiment. Would Rob Liefeld’s art somehow look even worse as a painting than as a…well, whatever the hell it is that you can call his normal shitassery? Here we have empirical evidence that, yes. Yes, it would look worse. In the original ink drawing, you have a piece of art that, while still reeking of Liefeldian problem areas (elephant foot, bendy guns, elements of the composition plainly drawn completely out of order), it’s not really THAT bad. That all goes out the window when the drawing is given the Thomas Kinkade treatment. (Heh, more like BLAH-mas Kin-LAME, am I right) (too soon?)

Gaze into painting-Cable’s grey horse-mouth, ye mighty, and despair.

28.

Prophet2_medium

Is Warchild too violent for you? Alienated by Shatterstar's polyamory and bisexuality? Try PROPHET, who is exactly the fucking same as Warchild and Shatterstar except he wears a shirt and lives an eXtremely heterosexual life of leaping through the forest at dusk with his squatting midget friend. His, uh, shirtless midget friend. In a headband.

I love when Liefeld gets lazy and stops putting detail into the guns he gives people, so they end up leap-fighting with these grey oval blobs that couldn't possibly exist or work. Just put a fucking lump of clay in their hands and make lasers come out of it. Lasers that have visible starting points in the air and are the same length no matter when and where you shot them! My favorite is the one in the upper right that is clearly coming from behind Prophet. Maybe that's incoming fire? Who cares! Prophet's got a knife longer than either of his arms! He's got his elbows in, LOOK OUT, FOREST.

Man, you'd think if Prophet put all that money into shinguards he'd put on a pair of shoes, and stop jumping through the woods in footie pajamas.

27.

Beowulf_medium

This guy, if you can believe it, is named "Beowulf," because of course he is. He’s from a comic book that Rob did called "Re: Gex" which was part of a comic book company Rob founded called "Awesome Comics." It’s all the perfect storm of the most creatively-bankrupt horseshit you’ve likely ever heard.

The worst thing about Rob Liefeld (by which I mean "one of the attributes of Rob Liefeld") is that he refuses to make any adjustments to his art. Motherfucker has never owned an eraser in his entire life. Never needed one. He draws the fist, draws the sword handle, draws the hilt, then decides he wants the blade to be pointing in a different direction. Rather than just shrug and have the blade follow the line of the shit he’s already drawn, or erase what he’s drawn and rearrange it to conform to what he wants, he rolls his eyes, repositions his backwards-facing baseball cap, and draws the blade HOWEVER THE FUCK HE WANTS. No word on whether he takes the time to say to the picture he’s drawing, "You know who the fuck I am, drawing? I’m Rob. Fucking. Liefeld. The blade goes where I say it goes."

Here is the plot of "Re:Gex" from Wikipedia:

"The world is ruled by a dictator named Lord Sharpe. Fighting against his rule are a band of mutants and cyborgs called Re:Gex. They are led by a man named Scarab. Scarab previously worked for Lord Sharpe but rebelled against his master when he encountered an angel during one of his missions."

And that’s the story of how Rob Liefeld made a billion, trillion dollars and is 20 times more successful than anyone reading (or writing) this will ever hope to be.

26.

Cdp3_medium

Ugh. This is a clear-cut example of Liefeld having no idea where to pick his battles. This cover is plainly an homage to the iconic "Death of Supergirl" cover from Crisis on Infinite Earths, but Liefeld decides to half-ass the joke piece. That’s all well and good. Half-ass the joke piece, Rob. You half-ass most other stuff.

But the issue for me is that he only half-asses the focal point of the piece: the two central characters. You know; the iconic part that is being mocked.

Take a look at those background characters. There are a ton of them. Despite the fact that the vast majority of them are hilariously off-model (a Liefeld drawing, by rule, is off-model by default, never moreso than when he is drawing a character that he invented, whole cloth), he clearly put a ton of work and effort into the background, making every character recognizable, distinct, and detailed. Then he gets to the foreground and says, "Eeeensh, SO TIRED."

Rather than take a nap, or wait til the next day, or call the publisher and tell them the cover will not be ready on time (which is probably one of the things that Liefeld is the very best at in the world), he just goes FAAAAAART and sprints through Cable and Deadpool. He forgot to draw a second leg for Cable, so he quickly added in a second kneepad and Foot-Type Leg Ending ™, didn’t bother drawing a second arm for Cable, didn’t bother drawing arms for Deadpool, added in some Lil’ Archie-style tear drops, made it so Deadpool’s legs go straight up to his navel, and went with the merest of Jack O’Lantern faces on Cable. He made sure to get his patented WIDE-THE-FUCK-OPEN mouth that he thinks is associated with unconscious or dead people. Can’t forget that.

25.

Past19_medium

At some point Rob decided to fight back against people saying he drew tiny feet by drawing the biggest feet ever. Here we see Shaft, played by 2012 Clint Eastwood, preparing to either cut off his legs at the knee to escape those ridiculous robo-bootz or slice open his guts to escape the shame of being Rob Liefeld's signature independent creation for 20 years. Yes, Rob's best idea ever was "red Hawkeye".

But no, what the hell am I supposed to say about this? The guy's head is the size of his fist, he's carrying three swords that go to nowhere and each of his shoes is bigger than his body. I guess he was playin' with his knife on a bench in a dark room when somebody opened the door and found him. Is that why they call him Shaft?

24.

Liefeld1_medium

Blech, GROSS.

Okay, I know that superheroes don’t actually exist. I know that. But if they did exist, and unrealistically-proportioned women chose to enter into superheroing, there’s no way – just no way – that they would ever choose any outfit even approaching this. What in the fuck, seriously. Even Power Girl’s notorious boob window seems utilitarian next to swaddling your gazongas in saran-wrap and flopping them out over your bondage harness. That ain’t practical, fellas. And good god, we are already aware they’re ladies, Rob. You don’t need to highlight the exact place at which the mons pubis becomes the vaginal opening. Go to hell.

23.

Xf47_medium

Fucker storyboarded this with Colorform stick-ons, didn't he.

This is probably the worst fight in the history of comics. I can barely figure out what's happening. Shatterstar does his best Todd McFarlane mouth, and about halfway down the red guy dodges a sword jab by shrinking his body and turning sideways, independent of space and time. Either that or we're seeing it from an angle and Shatterstar just tripped. Anyway, they strike the least researched poses possible, and the fight culminates with Shatterstar walking into a jumping karate kick I might throw. Look at him, it looks like he's clicking his heels at the end of a dance number. AND SHATTERSTAR IS CUT. HE GOT SLICED IN THE FACE BY THE GUY'S FOOT.

Oh, and by the way, I thought padded headgear that randomly changed his haircut was the worst thing Shatterstar ever wore. Nice collar on your shoulderpads, nerd.

22.

Cdp11_medium

Oh good, more boob-floppery. I’m rolling these two pages from the introduction to "Lady Deadpool" into one entry because they’re inseparably bad and we all need to experience the pain together. The tiny panel in the upper left is perhaps the debut of the OPS, or "over-the-pouch shot." Now that’s how you do a fuckin’ ROB LIEFELD REVEAL, chumps. Jesus, get a load of that woman’s dimensions. Is your left calf supposed to be slightly thicker than your waist? I submit to you that probably not.

Cdp12_medium

On this second Lady Deadpool page, it’s important to pay attention to the bottom-right-hand panel. You know how Rob Liefeld thinks someone would take a mask off? By grasping one side in a fist and steadying the other side against the face with the fingers of your other hand. Perhaps he thinks that a mask is removed by slowly worrying it upwards on the face, because that is what is happening here.

21.

Xf49_medium

IIIII HAAAVE THE POWERRRRRRR

I've been staring at this for 20 minutes trying to figure out why Cable, a guy born with telepathic abilities, couldn't figure out that he should take off his white-ass dinner glove before cutting open his hand. I guess then he'd have to redo his wristbands and that'd just be too much trouble.

Numbers 40 through 31
Numbers 30 through 21 (you are here)
Numbers 20 through 11
The 10 worst!
The 2007 "Worst Liefeld Drawings" List


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