You might think that mortal man cannot hope to tangle with a deity and come away the victor, but you are wrong, for you have reckoned without the awesome power of Rob Liefeld's suckage:
Here's how I imagine the conversation going in Rob Liefeld's brain as he was working on this redesign:
La la la, I am sooooooo rich, I cannot even count all my dough, ha ha! Man, these legs sure are long. And boring. I'll add some muscle-y types of things in there, that ought to be fun. Hmm, nope, still bored. Still more leg to go, jeez, how long are these suckers, anyway?! Boredom sapping my will ... got to ... break up ... monotony ... I've got it, metal bands! Made out of leather! And some glowy things, ooooooo pretty!*
Seriously, if I didn't know better I'd have said you couldn't really screw up Thor. Norse guy, silver helmet with wings, big ol' gnarly hammer aaaaaaaand scene. But no, Rob Liefeld's suckage cannot be so easily thwarted. He courageously decided to keep the silliest element of the whole original design -- the circles on the blue onesie he wears -- and extend it all the way down his legs! Which will be made out of metallic leather bands! Which will (whew!) hide his feet! Man, this is easy. Now that he's extended the bad stuff, he takes it to the next level by getting rid of the cool stuff. Neat-o cape, gone. Big ol' knee pad boot thingies, gone.
Of course then it looked too plain, so he took a step that only Rob Liefeld could take. He added ... well, let's see, how to describe this on a family blog ... he added an object in the groinal area that is, ahem, "ribbed for her pleasure."
Folks, I challenge you to name me another multi-million-dollar artist who would dare to go there. No, I won't wait, because you ain't gonna find one, only Rob Liefeld could pull off the greatest Bad Costume Redesign in history by putting one of those onto a god.
Finally, to cap it all off, you have the other trademark Rob Liefeld touches. The crazy, corona-like hair with extraneous braids flopping about. The senseless, needless lines running all over everything. The obnoxiously large and completely impractical mile-high headgear (apparently doorways in Asgard are really tall). The pinched parrot-beak mouth, gaping open in a wordless yell. The background consisting of nothing but lines and a color gradient. The hands that aren't really holding whatever it is they're supposed to be holding.
Seriously, look at Mjolnir; it's coming out of his hand at an angle to the upper right of the page, while the hand holding it is angled to the upper left. Unless Thor's developed a new grip that involves the weapon sitting cock-eyed in the hand while the handle juts out between the middle and ring fingers, that's just wrong.
The only thing missing here is some spittle and a band of pouches to really finish this sucker off in true Liefeldian fashion. Although given the pose, it's possible the newest Asgardian belt-wear is festooned with the suckers but, like whether or not the new Rob Liefeld Thor has feet, we may never know for sure.
*Not an actual transcript.
(Image and characters ©Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)
