Deadpool: Badder Blood has taken Rob Liefeld on a long road. The writer and artist crafted the opening pages in late 2017 — but then he and Marvel agreed to detour to other things — including work celebrating anniversaries of Deadpool and X-Force.

All along, Liefeld has kept the ideas for Badder Blood alive. And nearly six years later, the first of five issues is finally in comic book shops.

Badder Blood is a sequel to Deadpool: Bad Blood, which broke ground by showing Wade Wilson (AKA Deapdool) as a middle schooler, setting up a friendship between Wade and a boy who eventually would become the antagonist Thumper later in life.

The series heavily features Thumper, who gained his powers by attempting to follow in Wade Wilson’s footsteps in the Weapon X program. In Badder Blood, he has become such a big threat that it will require an assortment of characters to help contain him.

“The first Bad Blood was grounded, and now we are getting a little crazy. It’s like our budget got bigger. I treat it like any sequel. I can do more. I can put more on the page,” Liefeld tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Indeed, the new book gives Liefeld a chance to play with a number of Marvel heroes, including Wolverine and Spider-Man. The series has also allowed Marvel to experiment with different formats for presenting the story.

Bad Blood was originally published as a graphic novel in 2013 and was a success for Marvel. Years later, Liefeld found himself at dinner with Marvel editor in chief C. B. Cebulski, who pitched the idea of taking Bad Blood and repackaging it as individual, monthly comics — with new material and covers from Liefeld. Then, the company would collect that material as a soft-cover trade paperback. Badder Blood will follow its own trajectory, first launching as individuals issues, before being collected.

“It maximizes Deadpool and gives him more exposure at all different price points,” says Liefeld, who notes some fans may not pay $25 for a hardcover graphic novel, but will shell out for individual issues or trade paperbacks.

Much has happened in the larger world of Deadpool since Liefeld began those first Badder Blood pages in 2017. Deadpool 2 hit theaters, Disney purchased 20th Century Fox, bringing the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Hugh Jackman came out of retirement as Wolverine for the upcoming Deapdool 3.

“It felt very fortuitous — it’s nice to have this adventure already happening with the two of them now in this movie,” says Liefeld.

As for the future, he could see a third installment. Baddest Blood has a nice ring to it.

Courtesy of Marvel/Rob Liefeld

Courtesy of Marvel/Rob Liefeld

Courtesy of Marvel/Rob Liefeld