Ok folks, bear with me with the comparison here. Liefield,(who should only be known from now on as the"Devil")and Mcfarlane,(who should now be refered to as "bill gates jr.") basically thought they were the Led Zepplin(the band) of the comic industry. Image was there Swann song label( for any younger folks not familiar with zepplin, they were the first rock band to start there own label for creative rights.). Devil and gates jr. "creative rights" was money, and of course control. I remember an interview with the devil right after youngblood came out, and he claimed he would never work for marvel again. In my younger rebelious days, these guys were heroes for what they were doing,( The whole #### the system, and down with the man attitude). Image was a breath of fresh air for comics,(though I would still like to slap the cr@p out of whoever came up with the varient covers idea,why do I need 4 copies of the same comic). Spawn was drawn excellent,(the whole gates jr. as a writer was covered excellently previously). I really dug Shadowhawk, until they killed him,(didn't see that one coming with him having aids). I could even put up with the devils rip-offs for the most part. My personal favorite Image series was Hellshock by Jea Lee,( it was drawn awesome, and he could write circles around gates jr.). Wetworks could have been a great series to, but it kinda fizzled after 12 issues or so. But I digress, so to get back to the point I was trying to make before I got on a tangent.
When Image started having troubles,( I think mainly cause they spread themselves to thin, to quick). The punk @$$ that liefeild is went crawling back to Marvel Like the worm that he is,(but lets not forget his HUGE CREATIVE COMEBACK IDEA.........U.S. Agent, He wanted to call it Captain America, but it was already taken). Meanwhile I think Mcfarland was to busy trying to buy Mark Mguire's home run ball's,( insert bad pun here). He also realized if he made toys, he didn't have to write stories to go with them.
I don't want to seem bitter(lol), but I was one of many comic fans who felt betrayed and hornswagled(bet you haven't seen that word in a while), By the "rebel comic company". Worst of all gates jr. changed an already established story-line for the"worst comic adaption to the big screen"(please don't bring up the fan 4 movie),ever made. I do praise and sympathise with all the people who had to work with those 2 for that period of time.
I didn't buy another comic for years, till I checked out DAWN,(Lisner at least has the b@lls to tell his fans, Don't expect him to turn out rushed cr@p for a deadline). I respect that and have no problem waiting a year or two between series,(now If he would quit doing varient covers,hehe.)
After browsing the first few chapters of my Illiad here, I'm not really sure If I made a point or not. So the moral of the story is, stay in school, and don't listen to anyone over 30. Thank you for wasting valuable time to read this.

Here, here flani. I remember first getting into comics. Image was one of my main companies I looked into. Then Leifield had to screw with everything and become blacklisted by every comic fan who's ever read the four-coloered art galleries.

My simple rule back then: When I want to see great splash pages and battle scenes - Buy Image. When I want to read about characters I'd grown to love over the years- Buy Marvel. When I wanted well written, tightly woven and integrated stories - Buy Valiant.

The heck with Silver Surfer and Galactus! I want me a SOLAR Clix!

Tarnish

Personally I think you guys are being a little hard on Image. Granted they were mostly lazy, late and sometimes sub-par (Liefield's ####py work on anything he touched) but some of the stuff Image released was good. I mean come on Gen 13, Youngblood, Prophet, Maxx, Spawn, Savage Dragon, Wild C.A.T.s and Crypt were all very cool, so was Shadowhawk (did i forget anyone?). And all of the afore mentioned characters would make great clix, no-one can really dispute that.

WHY IS EVERYONE FORGETTING ABOUT WARLANDS?????

-Warlands (the first series) was a great story told with really good art and a great story, if heroclix for it were ever made i would sell my sister for them. And cmon Pat frekin Lee made the series.

And what about BATTTLE CHASERS clix? anyone think they could ever happen couse they have some really good characters.

ok I'm not much for most of Images Characters except for David Macks book Kabuki so no matter how big that set is all I wanna see is the 7 women that make up the NoH agents :D

Someone above noted that Todd MacFarlane is an American success story.
I have met Todd's dad, and he lives in Calgary Alberta.
So we have a Canadian and American success story.
Just a bit of info.

-Valk

darnit, I want an Aria clix

I met McFarlane when he was pencilling spiderman waaaayyyy back when. He did an autograph session at a comic store "Other Realms" in Hawaii. He was very nice to everyone standing in line; and there were alot of fans in line. He took the time to talk to everyone and thank them for their nice words. I have about 10 comics signed by him and are one of the favorite pieces in my collection. I don't know McFarlane personally, but he was really nice. I have been a spiderman fan for a long time and i still regard his version as my favorite.

Ok. So, the Image founders are total sell outs (exept for Larsen and Valentino). But can anyone say it would be better if they had stayed at Marvel?

C'mon! Beyond the fact that they did some of the best comics back then, Image opened the doors for a bunch of other stuff. I mean, do you think there would even be a Crossgen, or an Oni, or any of the post-Image indy-companies?

Heck! Most people wouldn't even have read anything by Brian Michael Bendis if it weren't for Powers (published by Image).

And what about the present Marvel chief, Joe Quesada? The only reason he got the job at Marvel Knights, some years back, was because of that whole Heroes Reborn thingy (no matter how bad it was).

In conclusion, Image is one of the main reasons why we have such good stuff to read. Even Marvel should thank these guys for jumping if the boat.