Deadpool & Wolverine Features Greatest Comic Book Easter Egg Of All Time

For you to understand this hilarious Deadpool & Wolverine reference to Liefeld, we’re going to need to do a quick breakdown of the artist and his reputation. As an artist, Rob Liefeld quickly established some particular quirks, like his tendency to put more pouches on superhero outfits than anyone thought possible. However, to his critics, the most notable thing about Liefield’s art is what he didn’t draw–namely, feet.

While the Deadpool creator is perfectly capable of drawing feet, many of Liefeld’s panels go out of their way to hide the trotters of our favorite heroes and villains. Go back and check out much of Liefeld’s work in the 90’s and you’ll quickly see how often someone’s feet are hidden off panel or hidden behind landscape features or foreground characters. In the most extreme cases, the artist would obscure characters’ feet using bizarre forced perspective, prompting fans to speculate about whether or not this world-famous comic creator understands the basics of human anatomy.

Fortunately, both the Deadpool films and Rob Liefeld himself don’t take this artistic limitation very seriously. In Deadpool 2, for example, our titular hero is explaining how Domino’s luck-based powers don’t make any sense, and he casually mentions how it’s a crazy idea from someone who “can’t draw feet.” At the time, some fans thought the movie was mercilessly mocking Liefeld, but the artist later said that Ryan Reynolds personally ran the joke by him before including it in the movie.

History ended up repeating itself when it came to the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer: the store labeled Liefeld’s Just Feet is a meta-homage to the artist’s reputation, perhaps asking us to imagine an alternate universe where Liefeld draws only feet rather than everything but feet. Once the trailer hit, fans once again thought that the Hollywood movers and shakers behind the movie were taking a swipe at the man who co-created Deadpool. 

However, Liefeld took to X to clarify that he approved the joke nine months previously, and in a follow-up post, he called Ryan Reynolds “the premiere funny man/mega-star of his age” and said that being “poked at” by him was “a thrill and an honor.” This is just more proof (not that longtime comic readers really needed it) that nobody has more of a sense of humor regarding Liefeld’s apparent shortcomings as an artist than Liefeld himself. It probably helps his attitude toward haters that the character he helped bring to life is now headlining the hottest superhero films ever made.

Having seen the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer, I must admit that my hype went through the roof: there’s just something about seeing Hugh Jackman suit up as Wolverine again, and his gruff personality is a perfect contrast to the chaotic hilarity of Reynold’s Deadpool. Should the movie end up sucking, though, I’ll be the first to put my foot down and say Marvel needs to get its collective snikt together. If Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld ends up illustrating this moment, though, I’ll forgive him if he needs to put my foot behind a smoke cloud or maybe hidden behind Kevin Fiege’s head.