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Friday 14 September 2012

A Few Words About Rob Liefelds Deathstroke Run

I was actually enjoying the new 52 relaunch of Deathstroke. Sure it wasn't a masterpiece but it still had great artwork, set up the character of Deathstroke and how he works, and had some good action too.

And then DC went all colonel Kurtz on us and went batshit insane by deciding to hire Rob Liefeld. He was hired as the artist and writer which means we get shat on twice while we read it, or at least while we try to figure out why Liefeld cant draw people holding stuff.

Look at the hand holding the sword, absolute lunacy.

While reading issues 9 to 12 of Liefelds run I found myself beginning to wonder if this was even the same series. The writing was so cliche and bland that it made it feel like a completely different comic compared to issues 1-8. Liefeld added this whole new "my wife is dead so im going to be a massive prick from now on" style back story to the character. It doesn't fit at all because it makes it harder to believe that Deathstroke "The  Terminator" is this lethal killing machine that does what he does because he is good at it and people know he is good at it. 
Liefeld has never really had much of a full on writing duty (usually he just comes up with the plots) so why 
DC would trust him with the writing stage is one hell of a mystery.
SO TRUSTWORTHY!!!

The artwork is these issues ranges from passable to lazy, with a lack of detailed backgrounds being prominent (A Liefeld trademark, along with bad anatomy and hair cuts straight out of the 90s.). Also Lobo appears and barely resembles the Lobo people love, he isn't funny or anything. Also some of the panels raise a few eye brows. One features Deathstroke lunging at someone with a knife and then in the next panel he is delivering a flying kick instead. The dialogue mentions that Deathstroke doesn't want to kill him, but then why did he lunge at him with a knife?

Once Liefelds run is over things should get back to normal again, with actual good writing this time, not 80s action movie fan fiction.