As we did a few weeks ago, today we’re going to take a look at the Heroes Reborn CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 packaged and produced by Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios as part of the four-book deal that became known as Heroes Reborn. Liefeld’s CAPTAIN AMERICA wound up produced under a bit of a cloud within fan circles, as it led to the demise of the popular Mark Waid and Ron Garney run on the character that preceded it. But for all that, it also sold significantly better. It can’t claim the best circulation ever on the series in the way the Heroes Reborn: AVENGERS #1 could–during the Golden Age of Comics, CAPTAIN AMERICA routinely sold a lot more during the war years. But since the character’s return in the 1960s, this was about as well as his series ever moved copies.
Whereas Rob left a lot of the production of AVENGERS to other hands, providing only basic plots and doing the character heads and some inking and covers, on CAPTAIN AMERICA he was a lot more involved in the storytelling, and drew the first batch of issue entirely on his own. His approach to the character drew inspiration from then-current films such as TOTAL RECALL, with his version of Steve Rogers never having been frozen in ice but instead stripped of his memory and sent to live as an ordinary person in Pittsburgh after he refused to go along with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. He was watched over by an artificial family of Life-Model Decoy robots in case his talents were ever needed again. Steve didn’t seem to ever question the fact that he never seemed to age, somehow.
Liefeld also introduced a new, modern version of Cap’s old World War II sidekick Bucky Barnes in the person of Rikki Barnes, who seemed inspired by Carrie Kelly in Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS but who was a fun character regardless. Also, Liefeld altered Captain America’s costume, trading in the cowl’s A-insignia for a stylized eagle reminiscent of Wonder Woman’s crest. This change to the classic Joe Simon and Jack Kirby-devised uniform was divisive among fans, and even Liefeld himself now seems to regret having made this choice at the time.
To script the series, Liefeld first turned to Chuck Dixon, who was lined up to handle the project. But Dixon’s vision and Liefeld’s clashed, and so Chuck swiftly came off the project. He was replaced by Jeph Loeb, who had been working mainly within the X-Men office at Marvel on titles such as X-FORCE and CABLE, Rob’s creations. The pairing was a fruitful one, and the two would find themselves working together for several years to come. Loeb maintained Liefeld’s story while adding an additional layer of “frosting” over the top of it, giving greater insights into the characters and how they were feeling as events unfolded.
As with the Heroes Reborn AVENGERS project, Rob and Extreme Studios only produced seven issues before the rest of teh run was handed over to Jim Lee’s Wildstorm Studios to package. What we see here is a detailed early outline of Liefeld’s initial plans for the first two issues of the title.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Dealers might have ordered a lot of HR Cap and Avengers but the sell through was lacking, as demonstrated by the number of copies decorating 50¢ bins everywhere.
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Keeping in mind that Rob was hired to make changes; the eagle on Cap’s forehead is a bad call because it means he now has two sets of wings on his head. The editor dropped the ball in not getting him to fix the poorly rendered cover shield. It’s objectively wrong.
Rob’s pitch for Cap is the movie “Total Recall” pretty much.
In regards to tweaking costumes…. weird that Deadpool of all characters is the only Marvel character to get an entirely faithful movie adaptation of his costume for the big screen that isn’t played as a joke (Loki/Cap).
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“The editor dropped the ball in not getting him to fix the poorly rendered cover shield.”
Rob was the editor.
kdb
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“We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing.”
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Actually, as a Bob Harras-urged peace offering IIRC, Rob offered me the gig of scripting, though I can’t remember if it was before or after Chuck (though definitely before Jeph). But when I read this document, I graciously passed–it just wasn’t for me.
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I think you were before Chuck. Accent on _think_.
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BTW, thank you for World’s Finest and the Teen Titans spin off as well as the equally awesome Shazam series. With Shazam it’s amazing how you solved what always seemed a mistake, basically an extended Marvel Family that all had to be around all the time and found a way to return the status quo to Billy and The Captain being distinct characters without just throwing out other writer’s efforts creating those situations.
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I’d like to see all “solo books” return their focus to the title character. Or change the name to “The Batman/Flash/Superman/Wonder Woman/Ma Hunkle/ Family”. Oy vey & ay carumba.
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Total Recall inspired or not, the first document sounds like a good basis for an origin story. Too bad my Liefeld allergy kicked in around the time Image was founded.
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Bad enough that after a couple of issues, skimming through it in the store was more effort than I wanted to put in.
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I was curious about the sales on this one. Per Comichron, the direct-market orders were 274,070, which means that sales from Marvel’s perspective were probably over 300,000 copies once newsstand and other markets were taken into account. (I say Marvel’s perspective because from their standpoint, sell-through was 100% on direct-market orders; the retailers’ experience was different.) This obviously can’t compete with the reputed 900,000 copy sale of Captain America Comics #1 in 1941. But it is probably comparable to the retailer sales of the initial issues of Captain America after it transitioned from Tales of Suspense in 1968. One of those issues sold, per postal records, 315,965 copies.
Comichron published a chart showing the direct-market sales of all the Heroes Reborn issues. The numbers quickly collapsed after the first issues.
https://comichron.com/blog/2011/06/01/heroes-reborn-vs-heroes-return-tale-of/
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