by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

After a couple of years of announcements and "coming soons," Shaft, Sentinel, Die-Hard, Combat, Chapel, Badrock, Photon, Vogue, Riptide, Troll and the rest of the Youngblood team finally return to comics this July when both Youngblood: Genesis and YB: Bloodsport are released. Youngblood's return also marks that of Rob Liefeld.

A quick history lesson for those who weren't around the first time - Liefeld created Youngblood in 1992, when he left Marvel Comics after a critically-acclaimed run on New Mutants and X-Force to join some of the industry's biggest and most successful names to form Image Comics. While Youngblood and its spinoffs had a run at Image, Liefeld left the publisher under pressure from other founders.

Liefeld has been something of a nomad ever since, having gone on to found and/or be involved in numerous other companies, namely Maximum Press, Extreme Studios, Awesome Comics and most recently, Arcade Comics. In between all these happenings, Liefeld returned to Marvel for a brief moment, when the publisher relaunched four of its flagship titles with Image creators at the respective helms following the Onslaught saga. Liefeld worked on the Heroes Reborn Avengers and Captain America, while former Image partner Jim Lee took on Fantastic Four and Iron Man. He also got his hands into Wolverine and Cable, and was reportedly working on Cable: First Contact before ending up in limbo once again. Nevertheless, Youngblood has always remained very special and close to his heart.

Newsarama tracked down Liefeld for a chat about the "first and last" Youngblood projects: Genesis, which shows the beginning of the team, and Bloodsport, Mark Millar's vision of the end - the first issues of both will go on sale July 18th at the San Diego Comic Con International - in the first of a three part interview with Liefeld, Mark Millar and Genesis scripter Brandon Thomas.

Newsarama: Rob, much has been said and debated and argued about you, your work, your views about the comics industry and its creators and of course, Youngblood. Even when you don't have a project out, you're still a pretty hot topic of conversation�

Rob Liefeld: Yeah, what is all that about anyway?

NRAMA: Nevertheless, what you think of the industry now, with the manga invasion, Epic, comics-related movies and the like. And what do you think could be done to boost the industry?

RL: I guess the best place to start is by saying that I love comic books. I still buy them every week with the same passion I did as a kid. Ditto for comic book toys and related merchandise. I don't have the first clue as to boost the industry. Probably a combination of everyone's ideas over the past several months would help increase comics' visibility. Nick Barucci had a lot of enthusiastic ideas; an industry ad campaign would be nice, but pretty expensive which will no doubt deter some from participating. I think comics readily available on the internet is essential to the future. CrossGen's Comics On the Web is impressive and the closest thing I've seen to the easy access I would like for my own catalogue.

That said, the incredible run of Marvel's comic movies have certainly helped give comic trades and graphic novels a much bigger section in all of the book stores, Borders, Barnes and Nobles, etc. There are some pretty impressive displays out there. If the movies stay as strong as the recent batch, Spider Man, X2, Hulk, it will continue to help build awareness. I really have no idea how to boost an entire industry. I read an article in the New York Times comparing the opening weekends of Hulk and Harry Potter's latest book. It went to great lengths to pit their performances against each other, pronouncing Potter the hands down winner while still pointing out Hulk's monster box office. This article illustrates to me that comics are indeed competing with other entertainment dollars. They just compared a book release with a movie opening. Sometimes the comparison includes the latest CD releases or DVD's, so we are competing for competitive dollars but let's not fool ourselves, there is still a lot of money being spent on comics.

NRAMA: With that out of the way, let's move on to Youngblood. Why Youngblood? Sure, it was one of the original Image flagship titles back in the day and titles like Youngblood, WildC.A.T.s, Spawn, Cyberforce sold like hot cakes. However, times have most definitely changed and most of these titles are either relaunched or selling probably less than a tenth from what they were selling during the glory days of old. What makes Youngblood relevant to today's readers who're into books like The Authority, Mark Millar's Ultimates, Grant Morrison's New X-Men, Peter Milligan/Mike Allred's X-Statix and Brian Michael Bendis' Powers?

RL: This question is by far the easiest of them all to answer. I love the Youngblood characters. They're never far from my mind. I have many unfinished stories with them and I imagine I'll keep returning to them from time to time for the rest of my life. I certainly don't see Youngblood as the most commercial project I can do, it's just the one I want to do. As for why readers who like the aforementioned titles would dig it, well truth be told, and here comes the shitstorm, Youngblood is very much a predecessor to many of those titles. Certainly The Authority, X-Statix and the Ultimates share many of the same concepts - Pop Super Heroes, Military/Government-run superheroes, publicists, politics, phot-ops - and structure.

The difference being is that the execution of those titles by and large are superior to much of the Youngblood material. There was a ton of Youngblood comics, but I would definitely put about six to seven issues I did towards the end and they would stand up favorably to some of those other titles. Anyway, it all gets skewered pretty heavily in Bloodsport as Mark combines all of those concepts with a little reality television programming thrown in for good measure. The most obvious reason that fans will dig this Youngblood is because Mark Millar, who presided over some of the best Authority comics and writes the best comic on the planet with Ultimates is writing it.

NRAMA: What is the genesis of, well, Youngblood: Genesis? Kurt Busiek was involved in the original plot but left in 1995 before it was ever completed, and the project pretty much languished�

RL: Kurt flew into Extreme way back in the mid-nineties and we talked intensively about Youngblood: Year One. He was just coming off of Marvels and we secured him pretty fast and he turned in three issues of Year One. They are really great comics; each is 30 pages long, giving us 90 pages of Prime Busiek. Brandon Thomas came on and blew me away with his scripting. It's great, it's rich. I'll have the studios in a bidding war for Youngblood the movie after this hits the stands. It's much better suited for a tv mini-series like Taken though. I mean you'll think the same thing as you read it.

What Kurt started with in his plot, Brandon more than complimented with his own work and it reads like Youngblood the movie or the pilot for a show. It's very dark, very serious and explores the events that lead the government to implementing the Youngblood program. Brandon is scripting issue #2 now and it will follow issue #1 very shortly.

NRAMA: What makes a veteran like you handing over the Genesis project to a comics freshman but known columnist Brandon Thomas?

RL: When I didn't move on his plots, Kurt left the project, which was certainly his prerogative. There's never been anything more than that. First off, I read Brandon's column Ambidextrous every week and the reason I do is because he has a strong voice that he communicates in his writing. He has great style and attitude and passion. We'd been dancing around on a few projects for the past year and I finally threw this at him. I was prepared for him to throw this back and tell me that he didn't want to script another writer's work. Fortunately for the good of the book and everyone involved he didn't do that. He attacked it and just kicked major ass on it. He made it his own while staying loyal to Kurt's vision.

As for what distinguishes him, it's his talent and everyone deserves a shot. I had about a dozen writers, some friends of mine, tell me over the past 16 months that they would be interested in scripting over Kurt's work. I mean c'mon, it's a good gig; it makes sense that people would want the work but I just felt right about giving it to Brandon. If Brandon had fallen short, I'd pay him off and get another guy because it needed to sing. I love the book; I don't want it to fall short so it was important that I like it. Brandon delivered. Period.

I take Mark Millar's recommendations very highly and Brandon being a favorite newbie by Mark certainly didn't hurt the selection.

NRAMA: Your company, Arcade is distributing Genesis and Bloodsport this July at the San Diego and Chicago comic cons, and later on its website. Why self-distribute?

RL: Arcade is actually a partnership with me and some other investors, and as to the pratfalls of self distribution, it's too soon to say. I'm confident that we can get these comics in the hands of people who want them. We believe that hitting the San Diego and Chicago conventions hard makes sense because you're exposed to a ton of fans and retailers. We have meager goals and expectations and we feel we can hit those marks and hit profitability, but there's no get rich quick scheme here. Far from it. The advantage is simple, more control of your product.

NRAMA: Moving on to Bloodsport, personally and professionally, what do you hope to achieve or prove with this mini-series, branded as the last Youngblood project?

RL: I've said from the start that I just wanted to do one really great Youngblood book that sums up the concept and with the work that Mark has done I'm confident that I can achieve that goal. Whether I sell one or one hundred copies, it doesn't matter as long as I dig it and can collect it into an oversized hardcover when it's all said and done.

NRAMA: What was it like working with Millar, one of today's biggest and most controversial writer?

RL: He's great. His work is fantastic. He remains my favorite writer in the business and his instincts are great. He's clearly in the "Zone" right now. He has a biting wit which really comes through on Bloodsport. This book is really written on multiple levels. Part super hero romp, part scathing comic and media satire. He certainly has yet to disappoint on this or any other projects I'm aware of. It's quite a track record. And if people only knew what he was going to do to top all of this, they're heads would absolutely explode.

NRAMA: What happens after this? What would you like to sink your creative teeth into next?

RL: I'll continue to explore characters from the rest of my old catalogue. We've got a new, different Brigade comic and I'm talking to a few writers about doing something with Supreme.

NRAMA: As it always comes up, does anything, or even thr thought to seeing if the door at Marvel is still open appeal to you? Do you have any thoughts one way or the other on Epic, or have you ever thought of going back to Marvel to do X-Force, Deadpool, Cable, etc?

RL: Epic, no. I'm not sure what that's about, aside from Trouble, I'm not following it all that closely. As for the other characters, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I don't think about them all the time. I mean, they pushed my career in to the big time in a big way, so it's natural that I'd think of the characters like I do my own kids. That said, I don't anticipate doing anything with them in the foreseeable future. Maybe the next regime.

NRAMA: Catching up on your reading habits these days, what comics are you enjoy these days?

RL: Ultimates, New X-Men, Batman, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, Legion, Namor, Trinity, Wonder Woman, Powers, Invincible, Dominion. I'm looking forward to the new Teen Titans and World's Finest.

NRAMA: What other projects that you wish to tackle next? Do you have anything else in the works?

RL: I just plan on finishing Youngblood with Mark.

NRAMA: Rob Liefeld, Mark Millar and Brandon Thomas: Who'd win an Eisner first?

RL: Not me. C'mon this is a joke. No trick questions please�

Come back tomorrow for part two with Ultimates and Trouble writer Mark Millar as he discusses Youngblood: Bloodsport and his take on who would win an Eisner first.