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Remember a while back when Netflix purchased comic book great Mark Millar’s Millarworld range of comic book characters to bring to the small screen? In a quest for even more Netflix original content, the streaming service has now knocked on the door of Rob Liefeld. Who is he? The man responsible for Deadpool, of course, with his Extreme Universe of characters snapped for a seven-figure deal, according to Deadline.

It gives Netflix quite a bit of movie/series screen time, with the deal spanning six comic books featuring more than 50 characters. That said, they are far less popular than Deadpool, instead looking at heroes such as Badrock, Vogue, Brigadge, Re-Geg and Kaboom. Netflix has bid the talents of Akiva Goldsman to the writing room, who worked on the the screenplay for A Beautiful Mind, Fringe and I am Legend.  

Liefeld himself strangely divides the industry, with a lot of critique from other creators. On the one hand he was part of the breakaway group that formed creator-owned publishers Image Comics in 1992. In fact, Liefeld’s Youngblood was the first title from Image Comics that was published.

But then on the other hand, his drawing style gave rise to some of the strange looks of comic book heroes in the late 80s and 90s, characterised by excessive weaponry, pockets on the costumes and strange out of proportion body types.

Writer and illustrator Barry Windsor-Smith isn’t very complimentary about Liefeld, noting that, "He has nothing to offer. He cannot draw. He can’t write. He is a young boy almost, I would expect, whose culture is bubble gum wrappers, Saturday morning cartoons, Marvel Comics; that’s his culture.”

Nevertheless, Liefeld must now have much more important things on his mind than criticism from other artists. For one we would think, where exactly he is going to invest this ton of money from Netflix?