Newsarama caught up with Liefeld over the weekend to see what’s in the offering, including a revisit to one of his most famous – or infamous – creations, this time “reconstructed” by one of the industry’s best-known writers.

We start with “something new”, however - specifically a new concept Liefeld created called Nitro Gen, illustrated by a brand new artist.

As you might be able to guess from the title, it’s a new take on the "young heroes” concept.

"Nitro Gen is a brand new concept that I created a while back featuring a new cast of young characters that reflects a different youth dynamic than what you see in Young Avengers or Teen Titans,” Liefeld told Newsarama. “It explores the concept of absolute power in the hands of reckless youth unafraid of established authority of any kind. I'm of the belief that if there were a group of super-powered teenagers that they would not necessarily act responsibly and help old ladies cross the street or aspire to fight crime. These Nitro's are more criminally minded with a more sinister agenda than we're used to seeing.”

Is Liefeld’s more cynical view of contemporary youth simply a reflection of the times, or the POV of a 30-something man with an ever-widening relationship with/understanding of teen culture?

”It's a little of both,” Liefeld said. “Our society, especially the youth culture as portrayed on MTV celebrates the sinister figures, whether they are cut from the Gangsta' Rap fabric like 50 Cent or Tupac or Eminem or the pranksters like Johnny Knoxville and his Jackass gang or athletes from Allen Iverson to Jeremy Shockey. We love the tough guys, the bad-asses much more than the good guys. Give a bunch of youth's ultimate power and chances are good they will find a way to abuse it. That's where we find the Nitro's. There's a cop on their trail, he's not intimidated but he knows the lengths they'll go to defend themselves and how powerful they appear to be. It's youth gone wild. It's a young Authority-styled team with zero noble aspirations.”

Drawing Nitro Gen is newcomer Jon Malin, who Liefeld calls, “a young budding talent.”

"I met John through a former assistant of mine, Shane Peters, who is now penciling the counter balance to Nitro Gen, the good teen with powers from God, while Jon was an office assistant at Image Comics. He penciled some samples for me and that was it. His work has great appeal. I've seen fans react to his work at recent shows and they have an instant attraction to his stuff, it's very cool, very Image style in its splash and energy. He draws great babes and dudes and action and he's fearless on the page. He just wants to draw."

”He has really provided the series with the necessary energy that a story about hostile, reckless youth desperately needs. Jon's work is very detailed, very dynamic.”

Brandon Thomas, who Liefeld has collaborated with before on Youngblood and Shatterstar provides the finished script.

”The book is really exciting with a couple of surprises to boot,” said Liefeld. “I wanted to create something new - new characters, concept and world that I hadn't played with before, Nitro Gen is the end result.”

According to Liefeld the Nitro Gen comic will be available later this week in San Diego and that there will be a series of Nitro Gen one shots that collect the story, eventually available in comic book shops.

”The shows are a great launch opportunity and then we send them through the system. Retailers see them at the show, know they are physically available and are more confident in ordering it. We've sold out of everything we've printed in the past three years, late or otherwise once they've seen it completed. Some are big orders like nearly 60,000 Bloodsports, others like Youngblood Imperial we sold through nearly 20,000.”

Speaking of Youngblood, that takes us to the “something old” portion of our admittedly imperfect analogy. Another first issue that will be available for the first time this week at Comic-Con: International is something called Youngblood Maximum. And when we say “old”, we’re being pretty literal. Let’s let Liefeld explain…

"The Youngblood Maximum edition is a reconstruction of the original five-part Youngblood mini-series. I had never collected the entire mini-series into trade paperback before despite the fact that all the other original Image series have been collected several times over.

"Youngblood was the first and remains uncollected and my fans have been requesting a collection for years. I possess all the original artwork so I had it all recolored to incorporate today's more advanced computer coloring and my intent was to rescript the series, updating it, when a pleasant surprise occurred.

"Joe Casey and I had been talking about a Youngblood project for years and at a convention last year he suggested that he contribute to the Maximum edition. My jaw dropped, I was thrilled beyond belief that Joe would consider this and of course leapt at the chance to work with him on this. Dream come true, seriously. I had given Joe his first writing assignment back at Extreme (a penciled and inked but never published Youngblood Strike File story) so it's all come very full circle.

"But Joe didn't stop at merely re-scripting the work, he re-edited it by combining storylines from the first five issues as well as pulling pages from Youngblood #0 into issue #1 and I kid you not, it streamlines the entire series and it's just amazing.

"Joe told me he wanted to incorporate all the aspects of the series I talked about when I was promoting the series back in 1992. He like so many others felt I left so much out and he was right. Well this reads completely, brand spankin' new.”

Asked why he wanted to re-script the project, Liefeld was pretty open about the original’s shortcomings.

"It's no secret that the first few issues written by myself and Hank Kanalz were pretty clumsy,” Liefeld admitted. “We were very young and it shows in the dialogue. Joe has completely changed that. It's pretty relevant in that the first issue finds the Youngblood team invading Iraq seeking to overthrow a terrorist despot.

"I can't tell you how different and smart it is. Character profiles and motivations abound. Joe rocks. I joked with him that the original for all intents and purposes should have had an 'Easy Reader says this comic is easy to read' blurb no different than the old Spidey Super Stories. This one is much more adult.

“Everyone who has read it is just stunned at the way he re-shuffled the book and it sings. Joe is amazing and his enthusiasm for the material really shines.”

Reached for a few comments about the project, Joe Casey recalled how he got involved in the project

"Rob told me he was recoloring the pages, that he wanted to finally do a high format collection of the original mini-series,” said Casey. “I think I said something along the lines of, ‘For the love of God, man... if you're gonna' do all that, you'd better rescript the thing!'

”My thinking was he probably already had someone in mind, or that it was already being done. Next thing I know, Rob's paying me to do it...!”

Like Liefeld himself, Casey was pretty blunt in his assessment of quality of the original series, though mixed with a healthy sense of personal responsibility for its commercial success.

"Rob's owned up to the shortcomings of those first few issues, which frankly is something he doesn't really owe anyone,” said Casey. “No one was forcing retailers to order a million copies of Youngblood, nor were readers forced to buy them. Hey, buyer beware, right? I know I bought it when it came out, because I thought Rob's original concept was cool and fairly ahead of the curve. My gripe at the time was that the actual comics were terrible reads. And, obviously, I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

"The dialogue in particular was such ass that when you coupled that with million-unit sales, it's no wonder critics were decrying Image as the end of literacy in comics. I know I was. When some of the first Image guys were saying, ‘Hey, we don't need writers!’ I'd be the first one to hold up Youngblood #1 as an example and say, ‘Hell, yes, you do!’

But that’s not to say Casey obviously didn’t find something salvageable in it.

”The thing about Rob that people forget... he's a product of late 70's/early 80's artists that were insanely popular,” continued the writer. “When Rob first hit the mainstream, I knew right away where he came from and what his influences were... Byrne, Perez, Simonson, a bit of Miller, and then he quickly started incorporating his immediate peers - mainly Jim [Lee] and Todd [McFarlane] - into his art. That's why he had so many fans so quickly.

"But look, Rob's not the first young artist to start telling his own stories without the benefit of a bona fide writer or even a qualified editor keeping him on the right path. But who's gonna fault a guy for his ambition and the ability to make it happen? Certainly not me.

"But, with Youngblood... as a piece of comicbook fiction, I don't think it's meant to be anything too deep. This ain't Watchmen II we're talking about, folks. But on the level of a bright, action-packed superhero yarn... it kinda' worked, in its own wonky way. The main thing that sucked was the dialogue. Now, I hope it reads a lot better. If you were a kid in 1992 and bought Youngblood #1... I can tell you that now it'll be a much better reading experience than you remember.”

Aiding Casey in his reconstruction is the writer’s memories of things Liefeld intended Youngblood to be, but for whatever reason never made work.

"The funny thing was... I think Rob revealed more about the concept and the characters in pre-publication interviews than was ever revealed in the actual comics,” said Casey. “I actually used an old interview he did with Comics Scene as research material for the new script.”

As far as that new script, we asked Casey to describe what he’s done to the original. What he added? Cut? Flat out changed?

"Well, I hope I'm making it into a story, rather than a bunch of somewhat disconnected action set pieces and random characters jumping out from everywhere,” Casey said of his plans. “At the very least, I hope this is closer to the story that Rob always wanted to tell, but youth and distractions and who-knows-what-else kept him from doing back in the day.

"Once I got a hold of the original issues - which I hadn't really seen since they were first released - I started to see what I could move around to make things flow better. It's like being a film editor, in a way, and I just looked at what I had as raw material.

"With Rob's blessing, I changed some scenes around. Mainly, I got rid of that weird split-book thing that Rob did with the first issue. Even back in the day, that never worked for me... especially for a first issue. So I moved some things around, tied up some plot threads so, hopefully, the entire mini-series will read a bit more seamlessly. And, if all goes according to plan, it'll finally have a real ending... an all-new ending drawn by Rob.

"He seems to like what I've been doing so far. I didn't necessarily throw anything out. I mean, c'mon... I had to keep Hassan Kussein around..! I also gave Prophet's first appearance a bit more connection to the overall plot. Originally, it just read as a left-field plot development (there's quite a few of those in the early Youngblood's) but now it actually ties in to the Iraqi invasion from the first issue.

"And, like I said, if all goes according to plan, when the final collection comes out, it'll have a new ending written by me and drawn by Rob (as opposed to the original ending, which was drawn I think by Chap Yaep). I figured since this is Rob Liefeld's Youngblood, the artwork should be an All-Rob affair.

"Fingers crossed...”

"It's been fun to do so far,” Casey continued, “It's kind of a break from the heavier stuff I've been writing, the denser stuff like The Intimates and Gødland and my upcoming Marvel work (including Fantastic Four: First Family with artist Chris Weston]. It's flexing some different creative muscles, that's for sure.

"Besides, on a personal level, if there were no Youngblood, then there probably wouldn't have been an Extreme Studios, which eventually gave me my first writing gig (unpublished), which in turn, gave me a bit of professional legitimacy that allowed me to get work elsewhere. So, I figure this is kind of a ‘full circle’ situation for me."

On the “full circle” note and back to Liefeld, this “reconstruction” of the original Youngblood could also be viewed as another example of criticism that sometimes dogs the creator - his "re-use" of part artwork in new projects. How does he respond?

"The artwork issue is interesting in that in reality I have incorporated existing artwork into other projects on two occasions, totaling around 10 pages, but since I wrote both stories utilizing existing pages, I was able to maintain the flow so that it was flawless,” claims the creator. “There has not been a case where I incorporated a Marvel page into a DC page or an Image page. If I drew a good page that can find a home elsewhere, I'll do it every time. I don't like to waste artwork, especially something that could be applied to another project. In every case, I've re-drawn the pages to reflect the current storyline. I can't just stuff a Wolverine page into an X-Force story unless it reflects the same atmosphere.”

Like Nitro Gen, a Youngblood Maximum edition album featuring the entire first issue as well as 12 pages of bonus material, covers, pin-ups will available in San Diego.

"The album is bigger than a standard comic and than the eventual trade collection of the entire mini-series, I wanted to make the whole thing bigger,” said Liefeld. “I love European albums and Treasury editions so I created one for myself and the fans. A hardcover album will be available in WizardWorld: Chicago. The entire collection will be available in November.”

Speaking of availability, we also took this opportunity to ask Liefeld about the status of uncompleted projects like Youngblood: Bloodsport.

"Youngblood Imperial is being completed by Marat Mychaels and Fabian Nicieza, we'll re-solicit it when it's done,” said Liefeld. “After Robert Kirkman left the project we had to re-group and catch up. Kirkman's Imperial #0 will be released with the second issue, and I think it's my best work to date.

"Youngblood Bloodsport #2 is complete and will be released soon, near the Imperial stuff. As soon as I get a script for Bloodsport #3 I'll finish the series. I delayed the book a year or so while Mark [Millar] is on sabbatical I plan on hijacking him for a few days to squeeze the last portion of Bloodsport out of him. Expect many Albums, treasury size Bloodsport editions as well.”

While on the subject, we asked Liefeld why these projects are continually very late to continue and complete. His response?

"Why is anything late? It's usually because someone screwed up, in this case, that would be me.”

Like we asked Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada a few months back, we pressed the subject to ask Liefeld why - for projects and creators with a history of lateness (which includes himself) - he just doesn’t wait until a project is completely in the can before soliciting it..?

"Because we sincerely believe we can get it done despite failing before,” Liefeld replied. “It's not so much out of arrogance but out of blind excitement. To those of us who are plagued by this virus, yes Joe and Kevin, it's a hard habit to break. Sometimes an injury or a death in the family can slow you down, a personal issue can creep up on you, illness, you name it. These can all be contributing factors. I know for myself, I've attended three funerals since the middle of April, none of them were easy, they just crush you, it's hard to get focused and get the work done. We're all humans and subject to mistakes and errors in judgment.

"I should have completed all three issues of Bloodsport absolutely. Now I can just hope the trade is as good as I imagine it will be. I came back into comics to build more trades of my work, period. That is the number one reason I continue to work in comics, to create collected editions, hence the Youngblood Maximum collection, the upcoming Youngblood Genesis collection, and the eventual Youngblood Bloodsport trade."

Finally, on the subject of “something borrowed”, we have already spoken to Liefeld and previewed artwork from his upcoming two-issue stint on DC’s Teen Titans, so we wrapped on hints Liefeld has been dropping that his next work-for-hire project will be a revisit to the teen superteam…

"I've been discussing several possible DC projects with Dan Didio, most are Titans related but they're all preliminary and subject to Geoff John's and Dan's approval,” said Liefeld. “A couple are really exciting but it's probably premature to talk about them at this time." Newsarama will check back when the time is right...