@...HoChunk: All that’s true, but don’t forget that, except for McFarlane, there weren’t many artists at the time with his style. John Byrne was still considered “standard” with every woman having one of two hairstyles and few characters having modernized or stylized looks. I remember buy New Mutants #87 (I think that’s the one) and thinking “Wow this is awesome”—but I wasn’t look at anatomy or critiquing the way we do today, which is a luxury. The pouches and giant shoulder pads look wasn’t yet a motif. It was just cool to look at, the colors were bolder, and the characters didn’t conform to type—after years of sitting still, the plots of many comics (X-Men especially) finally seemed to be moving forward. Years later, yeah, it sucks, but think about all the trends that we’ve loved that eventually “sucked.” Also I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but Liefeld appeared in a Levi’s buttonfly 501 jeans commercial just as he was making his big break (the old “Is your fly buttoned?” “My fly’s buttoned!” commercials) which probably helped.