Todd McFarlane Reveals Banned Marvel Comics Art, His Unused Wolverine Redesign, and Why He Quit Marvel

Todd McFarlane recently offered a tour of his studio for ComicBook’s The Collectibles Show, and while he was showing off all of his cool stuff there were a couple of things he revealed that I thought were really interesting because we’ve never seen them before.

At one point McFarlane showed off a page from his Spider-Man/X-Force crossover that he was working on with Rob Liefeld. When Marvel saw the page they threw a fit over it and cut it, so it was never published, because of the Comics Code Authority's guidelines. The art sees Juggernaut being brutally stabbed in the face.

It was this censorship that caused McFarlane to quit Marvel Comics and start his own company, which ended up being Image Comics. He explained in the video:

"You would have thought I killed a baby or something like that. All of a sudden I'm on the phone with like five editors, and a bunch of people going, 'Todd, you can't do it, you can't do it?' and it's like, why? And they said, 'Becuase it's in the Comics Code.' I said, 'The Comics Code? I've been asking for the Comics Code for three years. Why didn't somebody send me the Comics Code? What is the Comics Code? Is there even a copy, or are you guys just making this up?' And they were like, 'Well, we just don't think it'll work,' and then the absurd conversation I had...they just went, 'Todd, you can't stab people.' I can't stab people? What are you talking about? I just bought an issue of Frank Miller, and the cover is Bullsyee gutting Elektra through the gut. 'Ohh, well, you can do it in the stomach, you're doing it in the eye.'

"So, I go, 'Here's what's going to happen -- I'm a couple of days from having the baby. I'm going to be a father; I don't know how much that's goign to eat my time....I'm done. I'm done."

So, this is the reason why he quit Marvel Comics. It makes sense, it was a time where comic books really needed to evolve.

McFarlane also shared a look at a redesign of Wolverine that Marvel Comics asked him to do. Ultimately they never used it, but here is what McFarlane’s vision of Wolverine was at that time. As you’ll see, he went full punk.