mamylon-deactivated20160506 asked:

Were Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato hired on Thunderbolts to set up for Dark Reign, or did Dark Reign come about from the response to Ellis and Deodato's Thunderbolts?

brevoortformspring answered:

Neither.

Warren and Deo did THUNDERBOLTS. That’s all that was—the two of them pairing up to do that series for a year.

Thereafter, Brian had the idea for DARK REIGN, and when we hit on doing DARK AVENGERS, he was interested in working with Deo on it based on the work he’d seen Deo do on THUNDERBOLTS with Warren. Brian had previously worked with Deo on an arc of NEW AVENGERS, but in looking at  what Warren had done with him on THUNDERBOLTS, Brian felt that he’d cracked the code on how to write for Deo effectively.

And so they did DARK AVENGERS together. And a lot of people liked it.