#awesome comics

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

I wonder if you could fill an entire book with all the ads and previews for series Rob Liefeld never actually produced.

[wwprice1]

The Fighting American by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. Character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

[vertigoartgore]

1998's Youngblood Vol.3 #2 cover by cover artist Steve Skroce.

[famiconvideogame]

recreation of a dream i had

[chernobog13]

FIGHTING AMERICAN

Yes, I know it looks  nothing like the original Simon and Kirby character.

This is based on Rob Liefeld’s short-lived version of the character from the late 1990s.    How did this come about?  I’m glad you asked.

As some of you might remember, Liefeld was one of several people who left Marvel Comics in the 1990s and created Image Comics.  The new venture was a bit of a success.

So much so, in fact, that a few years later Marvel lured some of those same people back by giving them the opportunity to re-imagine and re-start several of Marvel’s biggest characters.  Thus was created the original Heroes Reborn.

Liefeld’s Extreme Studios took over Captain America and The Avengers.  There are numerous sites on the Interweb dedicated to just how, um...not good his Cap comic was, much of the criticism leveled at Liefeld’s dubious understanding of human anatomy (the writing wasn’t great, either).  The Avengers book was just as bad.

One story goes that Liefeld, not happy with what he was being paid for his work on the two titles, demanded more money from Marvel.  However, Marvel was in bankruptcy at the time; money was one thing they were short of.  

Another story goes that Marvel, unhappy with the low sales of Captain America and The Avengers, terminated Liefeld’s contract early.  

Either way, Liefeld ended up leaving Marvel again.

However, it appears that he still wanted to tell his Captain America stories.  So much so that he created a character called Agent America, whose costume was extremely similar to the Heroes Reborn Cap, complete with a shield with a star in the middle.  Agent America was also going to have a teenage girl sidekick, just like Liefeld had given Cap in Heroes Reborn.  Frankly, everything about Agent America, including the character background and proposed villains (i.e. Cyber Skull instead of Red Skull), were practically identical to Liefeld’s Cap run.

A solicitation ad for Liefeld’s Agent America.

Then Marvel got wind of this, succeed their lawyers on Liefeld, and a cease-and-desist order was issued.  End of Agent America!

But Liefeld was still burning with the desire to tell his Cap stories!  He went to  Joe Simon and Rob Kirby (widow of Jack Kirby, who had passed away by that time), and licensed another patriotic, star-spangled Simon and Kirby hero, the Fighting American!

Liefeld insisted on giving Fighting American a shield (even though none of the incarnations - before or since - ever used one), but this time it had a stylized eagle on it instead of a star. 

Things were finally settled in court between Marvel and Liefeld.  The judge allowed Liefeld to go ahead with his version of Fighting American - but not Agent America! - as long as additional costume modifications were made.  The judge also said that Liefeld’s Fighting America could never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever throw his shield like a weapon.

There you go.  A long-winded story to go with an action figure that, like the comic book series it’s based on, probably no one besides Rob Liefeld remembers.

I forget why I bought the figure.  I’m certainly no fan of Rob Liefeld’s work, and I never read the series.  I think I may have, at one point, been planning to modify it so it resembled Simon and Kirby’s original Fighting American.  Seeing as this is a typical 1990s action figure with minimal articulation (it swivels only at the neck, shoulders, and hips), I probably decided to wait until something better articulated came along.

[comicarthistory]

Page from Supreme: The Return #6. 2000. Art by Rick Veitch.

[jrlemar]

Rob Liefeld's FIGHTING AMERICAN

Written by Rob Liefeld and Jeph Loeb Drawn by Rob Liefeld and Stephen Platt Inked by Jon Sibal and Joe Weems V Published by Awesome Comics

PREVIOUSLY: DC Comics’ FIGHTING AMERICAN

This time The Fighting American didn’t stay in publishing limbo for long, for just three years after DC published their miniseries, the character returned in their 2-part minsieries by Rob Liefeld for his new imprint…

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