It's hard to imagine now, but before the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Captain America, Iron Man, and even the Avengers were not considered top-tier IPs. In fact, in 1999, Marvel attempted to sell the exclusive film rights to its remaining heroes to Sony Pictures for $25 million, but Sony was only willing to pay $7 million for Spider-Man because "nobody cared about the other Marvel characters."
At the turn of the millennium, freshly bankrupt and eager to reverse its fortunes, Marvel pulled out all the stops to stay afloat, including a major publishing gamble called Heroes Reborn. Marvel brought back Image Comics founders Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to reimagine the Avengers for a new generation of readers, but the final result was far from the MCU crafted by Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau, and Kevin Feige. Instead, readers got a super-soldier with absurdly broad pectorals and proportions resembling a chubby capybara.
Setting aside the criticism that Heroes Reborn suffered for moving the Avengers and Fantastic Four into a separate universe, thereby interrupting the popular Mark Waid and Ron Garney run of Captain America, its most lasting impression on the public is that promotional original artwork. Thirty years later, the image remains a popular meme, spawning countless parodies and fan creations, with some even conducting anatomical analyses to point out how Steve Rogers' skeleton would have to be distorted to support such muscular bulk. But Liefeld doesn't mind; he even stated that the original artwork sold for "more than a house."
Rob Liefeld is now very active on TikTok, frequently posting videos like "Deadpool creator goes undercover at comic cons" and playing games like "pop a balloon if you hear you can beat a character you created," while sharing insights into the comic industry. His comment sections are always flooded with memes of the broad-chested Captain America and other characters in the same style, such as Batman. Under one of his recent videos, a commenter simply wrote "'Comic Legend,'" and Liefeld ran with it.
"This piece sold for more than a house," he replied.
He wasn't lying. Rob Liefeld's run on Heroes Reborn lasted only six issues and is one of the most mocked series in Marvel's history, but the promotional original artwork, dubbed "the most controversial comic book illustration in history," sold for $132,000 at Heritage Auctions in 2023. "I'm thrilled for both the seller and the buyer," Liefeld said at the time. "It's pretty interesting."
Admittedly, the anatomy in this illustration is a mess, a product of the questionable trends in 1990s comics—when Marvel desperately cranked up the male hormones of its characters to make outdated Silver Age heroes seem relevant again. But today, it has become part of comic book history, a valuable collector's item.