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The Liefield Age

I've been trying to work out exactly what went wrong here. Admittedly, the whole concept set my teeth on edge from the start. Hot new creators allegedly announcing that this time the book would be "done right from the start" fail to impress me as much as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as founders of robust concepts. Renumbering the comic to get the gosh-wow-fan mylar-packaging #1 buyers irritated the hell out of me. Throwing away thirty years of Avengers history appalled me. That was the year I bought less comics than any time since I started collecting around 1974.

But I want to separate out my feelings about the Heroes Reborn concept itself - a series which crystallised my growing dissatisfaction with the X-Men and its imitators and eventually led to me dropping the books - and concentrate on the actual content of the volume 2 Avengers series.

Comic series have been relaunched before, most prominently Superman back after the DC Crisis series. This generally-successful relaunch made some changes to the book's status quo - for example Lana Lang was aware of Clark's identity from their youth - but generally the whole concept was recognisable, if repackaged for a modern audience with more sophisticated demands of their comics. The main challenge of planning such a relaunch is surely to engage new readers in a new mythology whilst retaining curious readers with established loyalties to the old. One either offers new characters entirely or one uses established, albeit updated, characters which are well known, but in a modified situation.

Leifield's Avengers failed in this, falling between two stools. Insufficient information was given for new readers, with little characterisation provided to engage the casual buyer in the exploits of the protagonists. Yet the depiction of heroes familiar to long-time readers was sufficiently different and qualitatively inferior to what had gone before as to erode any remaining reader loyalty.

At the centre of this problem lay Captain America and Thor.

The Cap problem is actually typified by the minor costume change Liefield made, replacing the A on Cap's mask with a stylised winged logo. Now the original Kirby Cap had a mask whose line formed an inverted V up to the bridge of the nose, with the A forming a near-parallel chevron above it. The reader's attention was therefore focused above the maskline to what was directly below the termination of the ends of the letter A, namely Cap's eyes, with their determined, resolute, trustworthy stare. Change the A for the wings, whose downward point is an upright V above the bridge of the nose, effectively forming an X shape with the line of the mask, and the emphasis is instead on the point between Cap's eyes, making him appear beady and emphasising a trademark Liefield frown - hardly the characteristics we have come to associate with Cap.

Extrapolate this as a parable of what was off about the Liefield Captain America. The images are all there, the flags in the background, the patriotic trappings, but the focus is slightly off. The wrong characteristics are emphasised; not so much that the character is refreshingly different but close enough to be grating. And the substance is missing. We are told in the stories that Cap is really respected, that everyone likes him, that people naturally follow him - but we are never shown why. We never see a Cap we would respect, like, or follow. In fact this version of Cap is a government patsy, manipulated for decades, copulating with a Life Model Decoy wife and never realising his American Dream was a SHIELD scam. This is not a strong enough person to base a "Captain America and the Avengers" series on, which is Liefield's take of the team. Liefield's Cap leads the team because he gives the orders - he's the leader because the writer says so. Stan Lee's Cap gives the orders because he leads the team - he's the leader because both the reader and the Avengers see him to be the moral, tactical, and inspirational backbone of the group.

Then there's Thor. Taken back to Viking roots (well, he mentions looting and pillaging a lot anyway), and with the most abysmally twisted classical dialogue ever (quite an achievement in itself given the competition), the trappings are still there - hammer, speech patterns, wings on helmet - but the central nobility of the character is gone. And Thor without his nobility is just another strong guy who talks funny. No wonder Walt Simonson, surely the writer who can best be said to understand the real nature of Thor, found it necessary to establish this character as an impostor. Although not a brilliant comic, the appearance of the Simonson Thor to sort out the Liefield one around Avengers vol 2 #9 has to be one of my happiest comics reading experiences.

Whilst we're on the big three, let me just say that I found Iron Man quite palatable compared to the Tony Stark of the Crossing and afterwards.

As for the rest, we have awkward-teen-with-attitude Wanda dissing guardian Agatha Harkness, Hellcat as generic sexually aggressive fighting babe with attitude #1, a Hawkeye with all of the attitude but none of the sparkle of the original, and an all-new "hot" Swordsman with attitude. Earth's mightiest heroes? More maturity in Generation X.

The "slightly off" feeling extended to the Avengers set-up as well. Instead of a set of heroes assembled through their own initiative, through a sense of camaraderie and duty, we have a bunch of misfits brought together by SHIELD. Their first gathering is hinted at but never revealed. Apparently the Grim Reaper was one of them but fell in action in a flashback never properly explained. And these Avengers do very little except defend themselves against plots designed to take out the Avengers. Adevtures resolve around groups of villains from the book's previous publishing history queuing up to fight the Avengers simply because they're there. Again, none of the high purpose of the Avengers as the guardians of Earth against threats that no single hero could prevail against is present.

All of this might not be important if volume 2 had managed to establish its own paradigm instead of what had gone before. I quite liked the reintroduction of Don Blake and Jane Foster as archaeologists in #1, and was expecting Blake to somehow become Thor's alter ego again. Blake the archaeologist specialising in the Norsemen seemed somehow more appropriate than Blake the medical doctor as other identity for a Viking storm god. But that was another plotline that went nowhere.

Sadly, volume 2 failed to establish any new concept that was even close to the quality of that which it had swept away. By constantly drawing on a long list of watered-down versions of classic villains, by relying on reader knowledge of characterisations from before the "new start" to make up for lack of explanation or motivation in the new run, and by bastardising plots from the previous version with little new added, the reader was constantly called to make comparisons between the two versions. New readers attracted by the Liefield name must have been utterly confused. Older readers were merely appalled.

Another problem appeared to be the attempt at gaining the "Gosh wow, that's hot!" effect. This series came at the tail end of the massive fan craze for collecting comic books based on their phenomenal resale value, and based upon peer approval for collecting a particular "rad" title. Many writers were guilty of trying to pander to this market, mainly by introducing "hot new characters" which were mainly defined by having hazy and mysterious origins and motivations which would only be explained over the next seventy issues, three crossovers and twelve limited series with foil holograph covers - oh, and lots of attitude. Deathcry and Masque were two such previous attempts in the Avengers. The Liefield run seemed to rely heavily on garnering fan acclaim from the pubescent section of fandom, showing once and for all that you can underestimate the discrimination of the market.

It wasn't all bad. Loki was once again the cunning master-schemer, recognising that he was a pale imitation of the real thing but plotting to become real at the cost of all creation. Nick Fury made a reappearance, even if he was later proved to be an impostor. The Hulk fought the Avengers in an almost-OK crossover. The idea of "the Atomic Knights of the Round Table" (Richards, Pym, Stark, Banner and Doom at college together) was rather nice. But these little points of interest were overwhelmed by the gross flaws of a relaunch which surely should have taught the Marvel management "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

In retrospect, the Heroes Reborn concept was probably borne out of the desperation of the market collapse in the wake of the inflated sales of high hyped "concept" comics and the consequent weakening of the long-term reader base. In other words, it probably looked like a pretty good life line up in that executive office with the latest sales figures on the desk and only the X-Men keeping the bailiffs away.

Well, it's all over now, dismissed as an imaginary world created by a five year old. And probably Marvel simply screwed up by handing their key concepts over to creators who had insufficient substance and too much attitude - and created comics to match. Unless - say, you don't think Liefield was really, really clever, do you? Perhaps he was deliberately writing the story in the way that a five-year-old like Franklin Richards would have written it? Yeah, that's gotta be it! It all makes sense now...

Follow-up 1:

Naturally Iron Man was done by Jim Lee. His FF wasn't bad either, much better than the first season of the latest animated FF series.

IW: I was rather impressed by the FF series and had few problems with the first few episodes of Iron Man. Had it not been for the fact that these comics were supplanting titles I regularly bought (and I had no idea that this wasn't permanent at the time) I would probably have wholeheartedly enjoyed them.

The Jim Lee FF was a very intelligent retelling of the core elements of the mythos, marred only by the necessity for a couple of cross-overs to interrupt the narrative. I thought #1 was particularly impressive, and I liked the use of Galactus to link together other disparate elements of the story such as Monster Isle, Wakanda, and Attilan. We also saw the return of a Doom of epic stature, plotting grandiose and egotistical schemes on a cosmic scale.

The test of good FF writing for me is always how the Torch is handled. There have been very few really satisfactory versions of him since the 1960's. Even an otherwise excellent run such as Simonson's have Johnny Storm somewhere in the background, part of the time under mind control. Lee's issues do actually offer a slightly more substantial characterisation than the usual clean-cut ex-teen angst-relationshiped Ben tormentor. So I'd have to rate this version of the FF up there with the good ones.

The Heroes Reborn Iron Man was also of merit, and had the additional virtue of terminating the teen Tony storyline. My main reservation about this revision was the rather unlikeable and manipulative nature of the Stark portrayed here. I know the early storyline was about his change, but due to the pace of what was effectively a limited series curtailed even more by two crossovers, we never really got a chance to see the modified, likeable Stark.

Tony was pretty smart to finally sleep with Pepper before he left the Franklinverse, though. He presumably doesn't remember this in current continuity.

Follow-up 2: I don't recall the Inhumans going into Onslaught, yet Franklin took them out into the MU. Did I miss something?

IW: One interesting (if unintended) possibility is that since the heroes placed into the Franklin universe were largely unaware of their lives before that, the Inhumans of that world could well have convinced themselves that they were the "real thing" and tried to escape with the other characters. How would they, or even the normal Marvel universe heroes, know? If that's so, then presumably they found out too late at the point of crossing that they could not exist beyond their own pocket world. How tragic to give up a world that was real for them in an attempt to return to a world from which they never came in the first place!

Follow-up 3:

I'm pleased you didn't dismiss Liefeld by simply saying "he's crap" - by being objective about it I think your opinions carry much more weight.

As a writer and columnist myself I know how much mindless and uninformed criticism can hurt. Reasoned criticism isn't fun either but at least it allows the person criticised and those who hold differing opinions to make a value judgement for themselves based upon the points being made.

The parallels with Avengers vol 1 #1 and #4 were interesting. This time it's Thor not Cap in the iceberg, and it's Thor who's the hero out of his own time, alienated in a strange world. Once again Loki seeks to set a socially-displaced (anti) hero against the Avengers, but this time its Thor not the Hulk who goes on the rampage.

There was a point when I considered that the series of seemingly unrelated set-pieces - a mess of subject and object - did give the impression of a dream-like state; something like finding yourself in a dream doing something & for no apparent reason you find yourself somewhere else doing something completely different & it's beyond your ability to control or shape the direction of the dream.

This was particularly evident when the heroes realised how stupid it was to have a nuclear furnace on Avengers Island right next to the world's biggest population centre. Someone commented (in continuity) about how absurd it seemed now, but at the time no-one had thought it odd. This is typical of a dream-state, where out minds do not challenge us on things which we would immediately react to in a lucid state.

How would you feel about having a go at analysing distinct eras of the Avengers - Lee, Thomas, Englehart, Shooter, Michelene, Stern, Byrne, Harras, Busiek...- see if there are any common threads or if it's simply down to the individual appeal of the creator?

It would be an interesting project, but it might feel too much like work! I'm relatively new to the internet and bulletin boards in general, but I do seem to be spending quite a lot of time at this (says my wife). Still, if anything occurs I'll probably jot it down. There must be plenty of other people who'd be willing to take a stab at this as well. In my admittedly limited experience this board does seem to attract a better class of correspondent.

Ah, dammit, I probably will post something fairly soon about Jim Shooter's Avengers. Just as soon as I get them out and read them again...

Follow-up 4:

The Brown Claw has posted before in support of Liefield's work, and I had at first assumed it was some kind of wind up. However, since this particular posting gives some reasons for his/her views, I believe it deserves some proper discussion.

(1) They resurrected some great older heroes like Hellcat and Swordsman, updating them enough to make them contemporary. Also Falcon was well-done.

I wasn't too impressed with the retread of Hellcat and Swordsman. As others have commented in this strand, Hellcat came across as just too generic. Her personality appeared to be an amalgam of Tigra, Feral, and any number of other furry athletic aggressive women. It felt all too one-dimensional and gave us no reason to care about her. The fact she was never given any background or origin didn't help either.

Swordsman was slightly more interesting, given his zeal to succeed, a swashbuckling attitude, and a rudimentary rivalry with Hawkeye. However, he was not developed very well and never seemed to be much more than a less interesting, skin-coloured, unfunny Nightcrawler. In fairness, the original and replacement Swordsmen in the mainstream Universe never had that much character either.

I did think there was something interesting happening with the Falcon, and the career military officer seemed to better fit the volume 2 milieu than old Social Worker Sam would have. Apart from anything else, having a military professional sidekicking Cap actually meant that Cap (who is not a regular member of the armed forces) had to fill some other role than old solider. There might well have been something good come out of this revision if it had been allowed to proceed.

(2) A country dominated by SHIELD? That's interesting--much better than the old Get Smart/Man from Uncle ripoff it started out as.

I believe that SHIELD has transcended it's origins as an UNCLE clone long ago. Nick Fury remains one of the more interesting supporting characters in the Marvel Universe (although less strong perhaps in a lead role). And the "sinister SHIELD" plotline had been done to death in the mainstream Marvel timeline long before the volume 2 "trust no-one" storylines. In fact it is now a refreshing change to find a government department - especially a secret government agency - you can trust in comics or any fictional medium.

The weakness in SHIELD in Heroes Reborn for me was really around Nick Fury himself being untrustworthy, manipulative, and basically horrible. Fury's character is a fine balance of likeable and ruthless traits, and the good writer is able to blend the two into a mix which makes him full of both grit and integrity. Fury's portrayal here, like so much of the Liefield revision, reduces this careful blend to primary colours - even to black and white. (By the way, I'm aware that this Fury later turned out to be an imposter after Liefield left writing Cap, but I don't believe that was the original intention)

(3) Hydra was great as a revolutionary movement (against the fascist SHIELD), as opposed to just mafia people.

There is an interesting take to do on HYDRA, or the Sons of the Serpent, or whatever, as espousing a different social agenda to a SHIELD that is so clearly pulling the strings. However, in the form it was depicted in these stories HYDRA is clearly the greater of the two evils, effectively giving SHIELD an excuse for the bad things it does - after all, if they didn't do them then the much worse things HYDRA planned would have happened. Still, Claw is right in saying that it offered at least the foundations for a new dynamic.

(4) Hulk and Iron Man made great enemies. Hulk was always good smashing machinery designed to beat him, while IM needed a strong enemy like that. Hulk should be a villain, and his personality (and revamped origin) were perfect in HR. Oh, and Stark's goatee! Much better than the old moustache. And the armor was good too.

I have no problem with Stark's appearance or Iron Man's armour in this version. The Hulk made a formidable villain. It was only in comparison with the erudite and enjoyable Peter David version that was then available that I found this version of the Hulk rather uninteresting - for much the reasons I suspect I won't like the current Byrne Hulk. There are only so many interesting ways that the Hulk can get mad and smash something. Fortunately, the Heroes Reborn series ended before those ways were exhausted.

(5) The FF's origin was suitably updated--instead of the Cold War, we had Galactus. Instead of thirty years of family life, we got fresh starts on characters like Johnny who are better off young. Also the roles of Dr. Doom, Silver Surfer (and the other heralds), the Inhumans, the Black Panther, and the Skrulls were well cast.

I agree. I've posted something elsewhere in this strand on this issue. That said, I'm not entirely sure that even now the FF needs "suitably updating" - certainly not in so radical a manner as to write off all continuity to date.

(6) The characters of Thor and Hercules got merged, which makes a lot more sense than trying to explain why there are two (or more) supreme pantheons of gods. And we learned something interesting about Mjolnir!

I thought that Thor was the major failure of the Avengers Reborn series. The nobility and grandeur of the character was absent. Instead of his teammates being in awe of him they had to treat him like some kind of retarded infant, and that seriously changed the dynamic. Without the "big three" Avengers, Thor, Iron Man, and Cap in their regular personas at the formation of the team the Avengers lacked a good deal of the "pageantry" - the sheer epic essence - of the Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

What was the interesting thing we learned about Mjolnir? Other than its ability to change handle lengths, I mean?

(7) The "A" on Cap's head now looks stupid! Like Sesame Street! Actually they should have used the eagle, but left off the little wings--because this way they had four wings.

I disagree with everything you say here, but I will fight to the death to preserve your right to say it. So would Cap (but only the one with an A on his head).

(8) Ant-Man makes more sense as *just* a cyberneticist rather than a cyberneticist *and* an entomologist *and* a physicist. Plus he gets to fly while ant-sized, which makes more sense than the way it is now. (Why would he give up that ability?)

A comic book convention appears to be that it is still possible for brilliant scientists to master massive fields of science. Hence Reed Richards can design super-computers, rocket engineer, create time-cubes, analyse alien life forms, create unstable molecules, and still find time to fight the frightful Four before lunch. Hank Pym and Tony Stark are two more scientists in the same tradition.

(9) Wanda was one hot babe! If she's gonna be a witch, make her a naughty witch! Also the Vision didn't have thirty years of varying characterizations behind him--he was just a machine.

Wanda's character appeared to be that of a middle-aged writer's view of what a pubescent teenager would think of as a really cool teenage female character. Perhaps he succeeded. If however Liefield was seeking to offer a more rounded redefinition of the Scarlet Witch he could have put more substance into her characterisation than "flirty", "naughty", and "rebellious".

The more interesting aspect of this Scarlet Witch was her tutelage under Agatha Harkness and her family relationship to the Enchantress. Sadly this was never exploited by Liefield, and written off by later retrospective continuity.

My view of the Vision is that it is those thirty years of varying characterisations which make him interesting. Why should I bother to read about a machine that is effectively a density-shifting toaster?

(10) The return of lots of great old villains--Radioactive Man, Enchantress and Executioner, Klaw, etc. But they shouldn't have killed off Living Laser, or changed Whirlwind into the Japanese costume.

I didn't see the return of these great old villains, merely two-dimensional, easily dismissed caricatures crammed in to fill up the spaces between full-page pin up shots. Why start up a whole new storyline and then fill it with the same old fights anyway? And if that is what the writer wants to do, why simply go down the old rogues gallery picking a villain of the month and doing nothing with them except sending them to fight the Avengers for no apparent reason? The Jim Lee work on FF showed that it was possible to reintroduce old villains and plotlines in refreshing new ways. I didn't see that in the Avengers.

If it's any comfort, I think the Mantis here was slightly less irritating than the one from the Crossing.

I think they should have let HR continue for another year to develop, then made it the main universe. Maybe they could have put in Captain Marvel and the Kree/Skrull war for the second season.

Certainly the truncation of the Heroes Reborn concept seemed to damage the pacing of the last half-dozen issues of each book. I don't know how these things were selling, but I might have been willing to watch some of the more interesting bits develop AS WELL AS supporting the characters I know in a continuity I am relatively comfortable with back in the mainstream Marvel Universe.