This site is a labour of love dedicated to Rob Liefeld and the creator-owned comics he has shared with the world over the last three decades.
As a teenager in the ’90s I started collecting comics after Liefeld had already left Marvel. Right after I started collecting, Image Comics launched. A fan of Marvel’s Fantastic Four and X-Men, I found myself gravitating towards Image’s Youngblood/Extreme Studios, WildC.A.T.s, and Cyberforce. A few years later I left comic books behind when I got my driver’s license and my money was better spent elsewhere. My collection ended right as Maximum Press was starting-up.
Everything I knew about “the comics scene” came from magazines like Wizard, Hero Illustrated, and Overstreet’s Fan. My knowledge stalled when I stopped collecting. I didn’t read any comics and I didn’t follow any comic book news sites or collector communities online. It was a clean break.
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Flash-forward to 2011. A comic book store opened in my local mall and I started collecting again. Fantastic Four and X-Men to start (of course), but then I got word that Rob Liefeld was re-launching five titles with legacy numbering in 2012! I was all in.
The legacy numbering really caught my attention. Had I really missed dozens of issues of Youngblood since I last collected them? What if I collected the legacy issues from all of the re-launched titles? What other issues would I need for a truly “complete” reading order?
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Ten years later, a constantly growing/changing definition of the word “complete” has resulted in a collection filling more than eleven long comic storage boxes and the reading order I have outlined on this site.
Now that I have a v1 reading order established I plan to start a read-through with regular site updates.
Truth be told, I know very little about the creators of these works. I have vague memories about things I read in the comic book magazines of the ’90s, but even while building this reading order I didn’t dive into the biographies of these artists. This project is about the collective art and not the artists.
I have come to view Rob Liefeld as akin to George Lucas. Both repackage what they loved as children wrapped in their own style. Both enjoyed early success that allowed them to blaze their own trails for the rest of their careers. Both have detailed knowledge of the histories of their respective fields. Both started their careers as fans and remain fans for life. Neither care about their critics because they don’t have to. Both are great at character creation and while purists may scoff, some of the best work in their creative universes arguably came when they gave their toys to curated creators and acted in more of a producer/editor role.
During my read-through I know all these comics will fall onto a spectrum of quality, but I will not be picking apart art for flaws. I may comment about a particular style, but I will not be ridiculing the hard work of anyone. If I catch discrepancies in story I will call them out, but I will not be going negative in my read. I am a fan. I am approaching this as a fan. This site is a love-letter to a creative universe that MANY people contributed to over MANY years. Some people lifted more and some people lifted higher, but they all had a hand in elevating and I’m admiring the overall height.
Chris
Extreme Excursus 