Retiring From Deadpool: Rob Liefeld Explains His Marvel Exit

Yesterday, Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld revealed that he wasn’t planning to work on any more Deadpool comics, having decided to retire from the character. The Image Comics co-founder posted an update to social media this week, saying essentially that he thought it was time to move on from his best-known creation, even as the long-awaited third movie comes ever closer. That he won’t be working for Marvel anymore doesn’t mean he won’t promote Deadpool 3 — “I’m not dying,” he quipped when we pointed out the timing — but age, health, and the desire to work on other projects all play a role in his decision.

Liefeld compares the decision to move on from Deadpool to other comic creators who have separated themselves from their best known creations over the years. One common theme: a feeling that you don’t want to overstay your welcome with the audience.

“The truth of the matter is, every artist knows their expiration date,” Liefeld told ComicBook.com. “We’ve all had an artist that we liked, who you suddenly see their heads are too big. The heads on the figures, everyone’s kind of drawn short. There are telltale signs of an artist and older age. I have tried my darnedest, recognizing what happened to some of my beloved artists that I loved…I’ve gone out of my way to look for signs [in my work] and to kind of stay ahead of it.”

“Ten years ago, I would’ve told you I would’ve drawn into my seventies,” Liefeld added. “Like anything I do, I went full bore, full speed. I have produced a lot of work, that’s just a fact. That’s a lot of miles I’ve put on the board, in terms of my eyes, my eye-hand coordination, holding the pencil. Every artist has been asked, ‘Do your fingers hurt? Does your hand hurt?” Then you go, “Wow, my forearm didn’t used to bother me so long, drawing after an hour, or my eyes, I didn’t need to constantly keep refocusing.’ I’ve adjusted my glasses three times in the last about year and a half. I keep going in, and my eyes — they’re fading. I feel like the work that I have done is strong. I am really comfortable saying the work that I’ve been doing is strong. I think the audience reaction to it is strong. I wouldn’t do as much of it if I didn’t like the way it came out, but I feel like you’ve got to start planning for the end. I really can’t see beyond another project outside of this one.”

Liefeld told us that while he feels a lot of support from Marvel — CB Cebulski and Mark Basso, the editors with whom he has worked on Deadpool: Badder Blood — have been “great to me” and praise the work as fresh, according to the artist. Still, he said, “It just feels like the right time to tap out.”

As a point of comparison, Liefeld ran off some of his favorites: Jack Kirby’s last run on Captain America was when he was 57 years old, around the same time he worked on Machine Man, The Eternals, and Black Panther. Steve Ditko left The Amazing Spider-Man for the last time when he was 37 years old. Liefeld, the fresh-faced kid of the Image Comics movement, is now 56 years old.

“I feel like I’ve hung on, and I’m pretty certain I can do work at a certain level,” Liefeld said. “Really that’s what it’s about, and knowing — a year from now is this going to be harder? I don’t mind telling you, it’s harder than it’s been before. In the last year, drawing, filling a page from top to bottom, has gotten more difficult. I do a lot of little nitty-gritty details. I’m one of the few guys still who does the rendering. Not everybody does that stuff.” 

He cited a recent experience, in which someone he considers a peer was doing sketches at a convention, and Liefeld thought he was seeing those telltale signs of an aging creator. He said he would rather go out on top, citing the example of Billy Joel, who stopped writing new songs at 44, than continue on forever and end up doing a bunch of Deadpool comics that nobody likes.

“It really gets down to perspective. The reason is, I’ve got this thing, it’s cleared with Marvel, and I can’t imagine I’ll have anything in the tank to do more with this character,” Liefeld explained. “I love Deadpool, I love every single adventure, but even I’m like, ‘Hey, what’s a new shot of Deadpool I haven’t done before?’”

Liefeld told us that he plans to work with a fan to create a gallery of some of his Deadpool work. He says that Jeremy Brown, who follows his Facebook group, tallied up the numbers for him and pointed out that Liefeld has done 143 Deadpool covers, including 45 different covers for various Deadpool #1 issues. He says that, along with about a thousand pages of interior art, has him convinced that he has drawn just about every angle and interpretation of Deadpool he can think of.

“I will have done, I think, a thousand-plus pages of Deadpool,” Liefeld said. “I’ve drawn him upside down, I’ve drawn him straight on, I’ve drawn him worm’s eye view, bird’s eye view, running with guns, running with swords, jumping, leaping. I feel like, if I can maintain the quality that I gave people on Deadpool: Badder Blood, which I have every intention of doing, that’s it. No covers, no stories. Now, I’m not saying I won’t draw him on the side on my sketch pad. Jack Kirby certainly continued to draw drawings of Captain America, but he did not do published Captain America work past that 57, 58 range. He probably drew it in 57, and it got published when he was 58 and he was done. Look, so there’s precedence, but again, everybody has an artist. Some of them are musicians where you’re like, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have sung that song.’” 

Liefeld, who has averaged over 100 pages drawn per year for the last few years, also told ComicBook.com that for the first time in his life, he had a real health scare, and it altered his perspective a little bit — and made it impossible to work for the last few weeks.

“It pisses my family off that I have always defied with my terrible diet,” Liefeld admitted. “I don’t eat well. My son says, ‘You eat like an 8-year-old.’ I eat chocolate and chips. For an insurance policy, I had to go…there’s no higher rating than Platinum Health. I got Platinum Health, and I could see they all groaned. He was a friend of the family and was like, ‘Oh, I cannot believe I’m going to tell, I’m going to give this to Liefeld, he’s got Platinum Health.’ About two weeks ago, in the middle of dinner with just Joy and I, I felt like I had something ripped in my head and staples in my head. Suddenly I felt this giant…I thought there was a vine growing on my head, back down my neck, underneath my hair. A good friend of mine told me that night, ‘You probably have shingles.’”

A trip to the doctor confirmed that suspicion, and Liefeld was struggling through both the actual pain of the illness, and his first experience with serious medication, making his history of great health a bit of a liability for his ability to manage the pain.

“Let me tell you something, between the medication, and the actual nasty pain discomfort of shingles, you go, ‘Oh shit, I have health issues now, I have had my first health issue,’” he said. “I was not able to draw the last two weeks. This thing knocks you on your ass. What I’m telling you is, I’m over 50. It hits people over 50, so here I am. I had a nasty, nasty bout….It’s nasty, man. First thing they said too, they’re like, ‘Are your eyes okay?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, so far.’ I have been so blessed, I’ve had a long career. I just feel like here’s the deal, I want you to come along with this ride with me knowing this is it.”

Liefeld told us that he still plans to hit his current deadlines on Last Blood, the series he sold out through Whatnot last month. That series had two issues in the can before Liefeld started to have serious concerns about his health, but he admits that he plans to slow down this year, and that he will likely reevaluate his priorities at the end of the year.

“Whether that’s Snake Eyes, Major X, Badder Blood, Last Blood, a million covers, whatever the stuff that I’m leaving out, Blood Strike…from June to right now, from June to January, because Last Blood came out, that’s like 180 pages worth of work that came out from June to January,” Liefeld said. “There’s not a lot of guys my age who are giving you this level. There’s Dan Jurgens, there’s Adam Kubert, I’m guessing, Mark Bagley, kudos to these guys. You really take your hats off to the guys who are doing regular work, or around what I’m talking about, which is about six issues a year. Also, today’s art, you see it all the time, I don’t think there’s as much rendering. It’s a different style of art for the most part, that’s being put out there. You don’t get a lot of guys my age who have gone as hard. Literally if we could, we just can’t get to that. John Romita Jr. as well. But I’m going to tell you right now, John Romita Jr. loved his Spider-Man stuff, but he does a form of a breakdown. I pencil ink my own work. I pencil and ink it, and it’s the inking and the squinting and the details. I used to be the guy — even in the studio, and for other people… I won’t reveal the one artist who called me up one time, it was for a DC comic. He said, ‘You draw really good tiny figures.’ This is in the 90s. ‘Could you draw this group shot of tiny figures for me?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll be happy to, I’ll have fun, I’ll have a great story.’ Nowadays, you’re like, ‘Shit, this tiny figure is a lot harder.’ It’s just a byproduct.”

Liefeld says that he intends to complete anything he has committed to, and he isn’t retiring from comics as a whole. He said that even in his Snake Eyes work for IDW, where he had a number of other artists come in to work with him on an epic jam issue, he saw these kinds of issues rearing their heads.

“When I was doing Snake Eyes for IDW, the G.I. Joe project I did with them, my last issue, I had a whole bunch of people ink pages over me,” Liefeld remembered. “Two people I contacted said, ‘Rob, I can’t, my hand’s too shaky, I can’t. I’d love to do this for you, but I can’t.’ Look, father time is undefeated, right?”

“So, I’m just anticipating this, and I figured this is the time,” he addd. “And time to let people know, because I want you to enjoy it. I want to take this ride. You mentioned Last Blood. Why did I do Last Blood? I want to tell the end of my own characters. I want to tell the end of their story before I suck. The audience has reacted great. Audience reactions produce sequels in Hollywood. Audience reaction can push an artist to keep going. So, they’re going to help me get me over the finish line. Who knows what else? Like I said, I’ll get my senior discount here soon, and I’ll know that it was the right thing to do. The idea of me doing this in my 60’s…I used to fantasize that I was going to kick all sorts of ass, and I won’t be. So, that’s the journey.”