by Kurt Busiek", Busiek accused him of not honoring their agreement and eventually asked that his fans not buy the series. Youngblood: Genesis officially ended after two issues, as the third and fourth issues would have used Image Comics characters for which Liefeld did not have the appropriate permissions. According to Liefeld: "I have the original issues #3 and #4 that Kurt wrote, [but] they can't be produced as is simply from the standpoint that they heavily feature prominent supporting cast members from Spawn and Wildcats, as well as Lynch from Gen¹³ and Team 7". 2004–present A number of projects were announced in 2003 including reprinting older material and providing the art for two Youngblood series. The two new comic books involved Mark Millar writing new issues of Youngblood: Bloodsport and Youngblood: Genesis written by Brandon Thomas. However, only one issue of the Youngblood: Bloodsport was published, but in June 2008, Liefeld announced that issue #2 would appear in September. In 2004, Robert Kirkman began writing a new series, Youngblood: Imperial, with artist Marat Mychaels but left after one issue due to his busy schedule. Fabian Nicieza was slated to take over. In 2005, Liefeld announced that Joe Casey would be re-assembling and re-scripting the original Youngblood mini-series into a more coherent and sophisticated story to be titled Maximum Youngblood. On July 12, 2007, it was announced that Liefeld would return to Image Comics to publish a collected "definitive version" of Maximum Youngblood with a new ending written by Joe Casey, illustrated by Liefeld himself. This was followed in January 2008 by a new ongoing series (Youngblood Volume 4) written by Casey and illustrated by Derec Donovan, with covers by Liefeld. Liefeld was slated to begin writing and art duties on Youngblood beginning in May 2009. No new issues have come out since then, with Youngblood Volume 4 ending with only nine issues. In late 2011, it was announced that screenwriter John McLaughlin would write a revival of Youngblood with artist Jon Malin and series creator Rob Liefeld for a May 2012 release, starting with Youngblood #71, as the series reverts to its original legacy numbering. The series ran for 8 issues, concluding with #78 in July 2013. For the 25th anniversary of both Youngblood and Image Comics, in May 2017 a new ongoing series (Youngblood Volume 5) was launched, written by Chad Bowers with art by Jim Towe. It