Trivia / Youngblood (Image Comics)

• Channel Hop: The series originated at Image Comics, but Rob Liefeld eventually left the studio and brought them over to his own publishing house, Awesome Comics (where they were ReTooled by Alan Moore). After Awesome folded, the characters (and Liefeld) returned to Image.
• Development Hell: A film adaptation had been in the works for years, with (at one point) Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand) attached as the director, and wishful thinking of Robert Pattinson starring as Shaft. In 2014, copyright issues over the original source material killed it.
• Divorced Installment: The series was originally a proposed Teen Titans spin-off, explaining Shaft's "coincidental similarities" to Green Arrow's sidekick Arsenal. In addition to Shaft being an obvious Arsenal stand-in, Diehard was supposed to have been a S.T.A.R. Labs android, and Vogue would have been a new version of the Harlequin. Additionally, the characters Brahma, Photon, Combat, and Cougar were recycled from a rejected Young Avengers pitch Rob Liefeld created with Jim Valentino during the 90's.
• Schedule Slip: One of the trope codifiers for comic books.
• Vaporware: A video game based on this series, Youngblood: Search And Destroy was announced for PlayStation and PC, and was not released, though the PC version's demo is available.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An Animated Adaptation was supposed to air on Fox Kids during the 95-96 season, along with a Cyberforce series. Rob Liefeld claims the plans fell through when Marvel signed an exclusive deal with Fox to keep comic book properties from other publishers off the network. Test footage can be seen here.
  • A movie series to be directed by Brett Ratner was announced, but updates became sparse after 2013.
  • There were actually plans for the Youngblood team to meet the Zeo Rangers. Seriously.

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