(ambient music)
- [Voiceover] Hello and welcome, one and all,
to a brand new all star installment of Super Suits,
the internet comic book show where we run down
some of the most famous legal cases
in the history of superheroes and comic books.
And on today's show we're going to be looking
at this man right here, Rob Liefeld.
I'm gonna guess plenty of you out there watching
right now already know who this man is,
or at the very least have seen some of his famous,
or infamous, depending on where you stand, comic artwork.
But for those of you who don't know, Mister Liefeld is,
perhaps, and this is by his own admission, too, one of
the most controversial figures in the world of comics.
He's a self-taught artist who got his big break working
on such titles as The New Mutants,
where he famously co-created the character
of Deadpool, and later even X-Force.
Liefeld would have a falling out with Marvel in the 90s,
which led to him becoming one of the co-founders
of creator-owned Image Comics, along with
the likes of Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen.
During the 1990s, Image would have a metoric rise
to prominence, and it's that success that helps
make up the backbone for this super suit.
You see, while Liefeld and the guys at Image
were on the rise, Marvel was taking
a beating at this point in time.
Bankruptcy was looming and things were looking bad.
How bad, you might be asking?
Well, Marvel decided to outsource some of their
biggest heroes to the Image writers, most of whom
famously exited the company because
they felt they were being treated poorly.
The line would be called Heroes Reborn, and Liefeld,
along with Jeph Loeb would helm Captain America.
How was the actual book?
Well, a popular story told in certain comic circles
is that it was so bad it was a contributing factor
in the death of Marvel bet former editor in chief
and lifelong Cap fan and writer Mark Gruenwald.
The legend goes that the stressful and unsure environment
of the comic industry, and especially Marvel
at that time had begun to have adverse effects
on the man's health, and this book was
the metaphorical last nail in his coffin.
Overdramatic? Almost certainly,
but it does tell one heck of a tale, doesn't it?
Liefeld's Cap only lasted a handful of issues,
about half as long as it was supposed to,
and the Heroes Reborn line, being a real dud,
all things considered, was pretty much swept under the rug.
But Liefeld and Loeb still had Captain America stories
left to tell, in fact, they had written a bunch,
so they figured they might as well tell them
even if it wasn't with Captain America.
They would instead look to purchasing
the rights to Fighting American.
Who was Fighting American? you might be asking yourself.
Well, I'll tell you, he was an original hero invented
by Captain America creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
at a time when they, too, had become
disillusioned with their work at Marvel,
and I mean, it all makes sense, doesn't it,
if Liefeld and Loeb had unfinished Captain America scripts,
better to use an established character from beloved creators
than create their own out of thin air, right?
Just as a quick side note, it's important to bring up
the fact that the Image founding fathers all
loved Jack Kirby, and I mean, why not, he's the king, right?
Image even released Jack's own Phantom Force,
his first original superhero work in many years.
It's because of all this you might be
shocked to learn what happened next.
You see, when Liefeld attempted to buy the rights
for Fighting American for his own comic book company,
Awesome Comics, from the still alive Joe Simon
and Jack Kirby's widow, Jack having sadly
passed away not long before, he couldn't reach a price
that he liked with the widow, so instead
he decided to prove he didn't even need Fighting American
by inventing a whole new character anyway
to help compel the Fighting American owners to sell to him.
Was this petty, or just good business?
I'll leave that up to you to decide.
Liefeld's new character would be called Agent America,
and just by looking at him you can tell
he shares more than a few similarities
with both Fighting American and Captain America.
It's also at this point, right here,
things start to get very confusing,
as you have multiple people telling multiple different
versions of events that have changed over the years.
The way I've always had it told to me,
and the way that I read it is that the Kirby-Simon camp
had attempted to sue Liefeld for copyright infringement,
but they never got a chance to because big papa Marvel
was already looming with a lawsuit for Liefeld,
also claiming copyright infringement,
this time of Captain America, saying that Agent America
shared far too many similarities.
What we know for sure, though, is that Rob Liefeld
would eventually, one way or another,
get ahold of the rights to Fighting American,
and not a moment too soon, as it helped
strengthen his own case against Marvel.
Liefeld's own lawsuit with Marvel
would end on something of a compromise.
He could write the character, the character could look
the way he did, but they would have to downplay
the similarities with Captain America as much as possible,
the biggest one being that Fighting American
could not throw his shield.
And yeah, that's pretty much the long and short of it.
Here you have a case where red, white and blue
became very red, white and screwed.
Oh, badum tish, thank you, thank you, thank you,
I stayed up all night writing that one,
I hope you appreciated it.
And to think, now when you're all standing in line
to see Captain America Civil War, you can bust out
this little piece of trivia to all your line mates,
and won't that just make you feel great?
And there you have it, another episode
of Super Suits on the books.
As always, for more educational comic book and superhero
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