Five First Issues of Youngblood

I find it fascinating how comic book concepts evolve over the years. I’m intrigued by the many possibilities and permutations. For stalwart titles from “the big two” of DC and Marvel, those changes can be slow in coming. For other companies, such as Image, those changes can be both sudden and frequent. Last week, I looked at five first issues of Jim Lee’s Wildcats. This week, I turn my attention to Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood.

Youngblood #1 (Image Comics, 1992)

By Rob Liefeld

Rob Liefeld is one of the most controversial figures in the history of comics. It’s almost impossible to mention something associated with him- a character, a title, even a company- without the subsequent conversation devolving into either insults directed at him or heated arguments with each other. Even an internet forum dedicated to Liefeld once took the measure of banning all people who were critical of him or his work so that his fans could have at least one place in which to share their fandom.

In an article like this, in which I review the many permutations of Youngblood, it’s impossible to avoid a discussion of Rob Liefeld. Or, at least, his art. So I might as well begin there. The best thing that you can say about Rob Liefeld’s art is that it has energy. Characters are constantly in motion, often running right out of the panel or off of the page. And if the characters aren’t in motion, then the perspective is (or the camera, if this was a movie instead of a comic book). Even on the first page of Youngblood #1, Liefeld creates motion and energy through his panel design- a long-shot, a close-up, and an extreme close-up. Everything is in motion, making a Rob Liefeld comic like Youngblood #1 fast-moving and exciting. The other thing that can be said about Rob Liefeld’s art is that it is powerful. Characters often tower over each other, the page and- due to the way in which Liefeld uses upward angles to look at his characters- even the reader. Plus, the characters are built powerfully, with big muscles and bigger guns. I’ts not realistic (one of the most common criticisms directed Liefeld’s way); it’s heightened, more than real, super-realistic. I described Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.s as a roller-coaster; Liefeld’s Youngblood is more like a whirlwind. A reader can get caught up and carried along by the constant motion and power.

And yet, probably the best way to defend Rob Liefeld’s art is to do so indirectly. Rob Liefeld draws action comics. They may not be technically proficient, but they at least deliver the action. That has an appeal for pre-teens and teens and even some college students. I’m not just speaking for myself. I’m speaking for cousins and college room-mates and people who would become comic book professionals like Robert Kirkman, Jay Faerber and Brandon Thomas- people who were in the right age range to appreciate Youngblood. Comparatively, it’s like watching “The A-Team” or “The Dukes of Hazzard.” The plots were ridiculous, the characters superficial. Even the action was unrealistic- nobody ever gets shot, nobody ever cracks an axle jumping over a ditch. My parents were probably rolling their eyes, but my brother and I loved it. We wanted action and those shows delivered. You could also compare Youngblood to a Vin Diesel movie. I’m on the wrong side of the age divide on this one. By the time Vin Diesel started starring in movies, I wanted more from my films than fast cars, big guns and bigger explosions. Yet I realize that there’s a generation of guys younger than me who love Vin Diesel. I’ve worked with them, taught them and talked to them. When you criticize Vin Diesel because he can’t act, they look at you as if you’re speaking in some other language. The reply is usually “He’s huge” rather than an actual defense of his acting. They don’t care about those other things. They only care that Vin Diesel has big muscles and big guns. That’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about a Youngblood comic. Rob Liefeld is the artist version of Vin Diesel. Youngblood is the comic book version of “The A-Team.” It’s not for everybody. And it’s certainly not a classic of the art form- Oscar or Emmy or Eisner material. But for young boys of a certain generation, it’s exactly what they wanted in their entertainment.

So what about Youngblood #1? It delivered exactly what its audience would have expected: big muscles, big guns, big explosions and near-constant action. Somebody is running, jumping or throwing something on nearly every page. Good guys throw haymakers and bad guys get punched out. And the story barely stops to catch its breath before racing on to the next bit of action. There’s even a decent concept under all of that action. Youngblood is a government sponsored super-hero agency divided into two teams: a “home team” to take care of threats on U.S. soil, and an “away team” to take care of threats in the rest of the world (kind of like the division between the FBI and the CIA). These aren’t just superheroes. They’re professional soldiers.

Youngblood #1 is also a seriously flawed comic book. Even Rob Liefeld would admit as much now, as he allowed Joe Casey to rearrange the pages and rewrite the dialogue from the first five issues for a new hardcover edition. The story is so busy getting to the action that it forgets to communicate the otherwise decent concept clearly. It’s not readily apparent that Youngblood works for the U.S. government or the U.N. (both of which are frequent super-hero bosses). One of the members of the home team is lent out to the away team and a member of the away team is apparently traded to the home team but is unused except for one panel so that even the two team concept is muddied in the first issue. And Liefeld tells two half-issue stories focusing on the two different teams with the result that neither team is introduced well and neither story progresses. The “away” story is particularly underdeveloped as it’s just one long fight scene from beginning to end. At least with the “home” team, we see the characters in their civilian roles before they’re called into action. The civilian vignettes might only give us character short-hand- big guy who’s really a mama’s boy, hard-case who uses women- but at least we get some sense of the characters and a reason to cheer for them, or not. And really, that’s all we want: tell us who the good guys are and let us cheer for them as they beat the bad guys up. It may not be “The Watchmen” in terms of high concept or execution, but it at least meets the level of “The A-Team” or “Knight Rider.”

Youngblood #1 (Awesome Entertainment, 1997)

By Alan Moore, Steve Skroce and Lary Stucker

When they founded Image Comics, the artists who left Marvel wanted to prove that they could make comics without writers or editors. As I’ve mentioned before, most of them proved the opposite. Though some of them proved to be good writers in their own right, for most of them the titles and concepts didn’t really shine until the Image artists hired professional writers like Kurt Busiek, Warren Ellis and Alan Moore to work on their books. After moving to his own company, Awesome Entertainment, Rob Liefeld hired Alan Moore to revamp his entire line of superheroes (Moore had already successfully revamped the Superman stand-in Supreme for him).

Alan Moore’s Youngblood #1 is actually the fourth number one for the series- there was also a Team Youngblood #1 in 1993 and another Youngblood in 1995- but the first significant change to the core concept. Moore actually introduced two new twists. First, he concentrated on the “young” in Youngblood. They weren’t teen heroes. But they were twenty-somethings in that “college and careers” stage of life. They were also clearly part of Generation X. They were slackers and gamers and goth queens (Johnny Panic, Leonard and Twilight). But they were also what Generation X’ers would think of themselves- diverse, including ambitious and virtuous characters like Doc Rocket and Suprema as well as the slackers. Even Shaft, the one holdover from earlier incarnations of Youngblood was apparently de-aged or at least drawn to look a lot younger. Alan Moore also divided Youngblood from its government agency roots. He kept the old connection as part of the team’s continuity, but he wrote the title as if the team had been fired and had tried to keep going by finding private financing.

The story starts with a scientific operation in which somebody is trying to cross inter-dimensional barriers either through or to “the azure.” Unfortunately, when he comes back, another organism has taken control of his body. The rider jumps to a scientist in a bio-suit and kills the first host, then to a security guard and does the same thing. The rider takes a small jet but crashes into the city, where Twilight witnesses the wreckage. She calls in to Youngblood, where Shaft is working out. Shaft and Wax, the team’s sponsor and a former superhero himself, watch on the local news. The rider jumps from the guard who was injured in the crash to a local police officer, once again killing the previous host. With the rest of the team now watching, the rider then notices Twilight and jumps into her. Doc Rocket runs to the scene at super-speed, changing into her costume along the way, and is able to prevent Twilight from killing the previous host. Shaft and Johnny Panic catch a ride on Biggest Brother, a huge robot from base by Leonard. Twilight and Doc Rocket battle it out. Then Supreme swoops in to save the day, only to have the rider jump into her. From headquarters, Wax and Leonard tell the team what they’ve learned about the rider organism, now known as “the Occupant.” Meanwhile, Big Brother arrives at the action. The team jumps into the fray, featuring a big fight between Biggest Brother and Suprema. The team looks to be on the ropes when Johnny Panic disappears. Suprema defeats Big Brother. Then, Supreme arrives to the chagrin of Youngblood who fear that the Occupant will jump into an even more powerful being. The Occupant does just that, only to discover that he actually jumped into Johnny Panic posing as Supreme. Johnny Panic collapses. Baron, Youngblood’s former government contact arrives, moves the Occupant out of Johnny and into a monkey, and takes custody. He leaves Youngblood to clean up the mess. And that’s the end.

It’s Alan Moore, so obviously it’s good. Each of the characters has a distinct personality and a clearly defined set of powers. Moore even manages to find time to show a little of the relationships between them. Yet he manages all of that without having this issue feel like an introductory issue. He throws you right into the action, with murders on page 3 and 4, a jet plane crash on page 6 and a superhero fight throughout the entire second half. Artist Steve Skroce also does his part. He does a great job with body posture, communicating as much about the characters of Johnny Panic and Supreme as Moore does with words. And he does a great job with the action, using after images to great effect to show Doc Rocket’s speed and Shaft’s agility. This isn’t just one of the best issues of Youngblood I’ve ever read. It’s not even one of the best first issues I’ve ever read. It’s one of the best comics I’ve ever read. Period. My only complaint is that this volume lasted only two issues before the financing fell through for Liefeld’s latest company.

Youngblood Genesis #1 (Arcade Comics, 2003)

By Brandon Thomas, Chad Walker, Eric Walker and Rob Liefeld

In 2003, Rob Liefeld tried to revive Youngblood with yet another company, Arcade Comics. He launched two new series. One, set in the present day, was written by Mark Millar and called Youngblood Bloodsport. I would have included a review of that issue in this column except that I don’t actually have a copy, and a re-release that was scheduled for this October failed to ship on time. The other, set in the past, focused on the untold origins of the team and was called Youngblood Genesis. However, even the credits for this issue are laced with controversy. The series is based on a plot by Kurt Busiek that he had submitted many years earlier when he was actively doing work for Image. For a variety of reasons (lapse of time, changes to the plot, and possibly lack of payment), Busiek asked to have his name removed from any connection to the comic. Liefeld declined and Busiek is still listed on the cover and in the credits as the plotter. Newcomers Brandon Thomas and the Walker brothers were brought in to script and pencil the story respectively. Rob Liefeld contributed inks himself (a curious choice since that’s never been his strength).

The story opens with two different but overlapping elements. The dialogue is from a news report telling of a possible terrorist attack against the U.S. The visuals are a montage of super-heroes in different situations- breaking down a door, working out, and even washing the dishes. A meteor crashes in the mountains outside of Boston (you read that right). The army then checks out a crashed alien aircraft outside of Washington, D.C. I think the meteor and the aircraft are supposed to be the same thing. A Mr. Graves arrives at the scene, takes over and enters the spacecraft. Two days later, Graves reports to a Pentagon conference room. They’re worried that a Pentagon-sponsored covert operation in Guatemaula has been exposed. Even worse, there’s film of the operatives killing unarmed men and even somebody who had already surrendered. The other officials want to shut down the operation. Graves wants to keep it. He meets with an alien that he found in the spaceship and has now imprisoned. He hires a marksman out of the FBI academy. He avoids generals and the president while working on his side project. One of his co-workers complains about superheroes like Supreme and Graves has an idea. He’ll recreate his covert group as a government-sanctioned superhero team. He hires both of the crashed aliens and procures an armored exoskeleton. The president threatens to shut him down. Graves keeps going. When a superhuman terrorist cell attacks a U.S. facility, the president calls Graves again. Necessity overrides principles. Graves officially creates a new team of superheroes. As he leaves the office, he hears the name Youngblood on the radio. And that’s the end.

Written out like that, the plot summary actually sounds decent. Unfortunately, this issue of Youngblood is not a decent read. The plot moves in fits and starts. Graves is a thoroughly unlikable protagonist. And all of the other characters are ciphers, there to disagree with Graves or stand in his way but devoid of any actual personality. The issue does a little better in introducing some of the team members. Three of them have speaking roles- one of the aliens, the FBI recruit and one of covert operatives who will become Youngblood agents Combat, Shaft and Chapel. Yet the team that’s constituted at the end of the issue includes two characters that haven’t spoken a single line while moving around in the background and two others who we haven’t met at all. That makes it hard to like this particular version of Youngblood. They’re complete unknowns, pawns or outright villains (in the case of the covert ops guys) who are working for a manipulative, egotistical jerk. Youngblood has had to overcome such problems in execution before. But, this time, neither the art nor the action are up to the task. There’s not much action in this issue at all. The covert operation is depicted indirectly through video screens. There are a couple of different training sessions, but the action shots are too static and usually presented from a fairly standard side-angle shot. One two-page training session includes only one panel of action while focusing on talking heads in the others. Even when a character is jumping over a wall, there’s no sense of movement. Without larger than life action to distract us, the many other flaws are readily apparent. I can understand why Kurt Busiek wanted his name disassociated from it.

Youngblood Imperial #1 (Arcade, 2004)

By Robert Kirkman and Marat Mychaels

Last week, I wrote about the creative flexibility that is available on an independent comic. The writer doesn’t have to pretend that his book takes place in our world if he doesn’t want to. For Wildcats, that meant that Christos Gage could have an Armageddon and write about the heroes after the end of the world. For Youngblood, that meant that Robert Kirkman could take aspects of the concept to their logical conclusion. The original Youngblood was a government-sponsored super-hero agency. They were involved in putting down threats of both a domestic and an international nature. In the very first issue, the “away team” even took out a Saddam Hussein stand-in. An America that sponsors a super-hero team and uses it as a form of international policy is an America that could easily become expansionistic. And an expansionistic America could just start a modern arms race in which nations race to develop not ships or tanks or guns but costumed heroes. This is the world of Youngblood Imperial. The US of A and China are involved in a rapid race of expansion, gobbling up smaller countries on the American and Asian continents and using super-human agents to do it.

The first scene is of a patient receiving an injection from a doctor. The two of them are in Montreal and they’re discussing what it’s like for them now that Quebec has become part of the US of A. We soon learn that the doctor injected the patient with a serum that will give him superpowers for the next 48 hours. At that point, Youngblood breaks down the wall. The doctor turns on his own Hulk-like powers. In the ensuing fight, they come across a scene of another doctor drawing blood from a superhuman for use in the serum. They stop the first doctor and arrest the rest. Back at the base, Shaft pleads with Graves to allow them to add the superhuman donor they just arrested to the team. Graves turns him down. Die-Hard and Vogue return from an operation in South America. A team of villains returns from another mission. Shaft is surprised but Die-Hard explains that they’re all being controlled by Youngblood’s telepath Psi-Fire. Meanwhile, Graves gives another team their mission. China has been expanding as quickly as the US. Graves wants to avoid direct confrontation, so he sends them on a mission to assassinate the person heading up China’s superhero program. Shaft and his squad respond to a call and get into a fight with the Gamma Grenadiers. A second squad led by Free Agent quickly arrives as back-up. The bad guys are blown up and Free Agent helps Shaft back to his feet. Across the ocean, a team of British agents watches. And that’s the end.

The concept is outstanding. I love the idea of an expansionistic America squaring off against an equally expansionistic China. I like that the United Kingdom, despite being a traditional ally of the US, doesn’t like the rapid expansion anymore than China does. And I love that all of the countries are using super-humans to pursue their aims rather than traditional military forces. It seems completely plausible yet still unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It’s like reading a really good Harry Turtledove alternate history novel, but set in the present day and featuring super-heroes.

Even though it’s a great concept, the execution of it leaves a little to be desired. Marat Mychaels wasn’t quite ready for this kind of an assignment. His art style varies widely from page to page, often disconcertingly so. He does a good job with the heroes’ entrance in the final battle scene though so it’s not all bad. Kirkman does a great job of establishing the concept using conversations rather than exposition. The doctor chats about things with his patient like they were sitting in the barbershop; Shaft finds out what his friends have been up to as he welcomes them back to the agency; Graves gives us the rest through a military briefing. Unfortunately, he doesn’t do quite as good a job with the individual characters. With several dozen characters appearing in the book, there’s no way he could introduce all of them. And he shouldn’t. The scope of this Youngblood is supposed to be overwhelming- Graves mentions to Shaft that they have hundreds on the payroll- and having numerous unnamed characters in the background or even in the foreground of action scenes adds to that feeling. However, he should at least introduce us to the characters with speaking roles. Die-Hard and Vogue mention their kids’ names but not their own. The Gamma Grenadiers mention their own name and complain about “stupid Americans” but don’t mention their country of origin. I assume its China because of the main story but there’s no mention of it and the art isn’t clear enough to convey it on its own. You wouldn’t want too many details. But you do need a few more than you’re given.

Youngblood #1 (Image, 2008)

By Joe Casey, Derec Donovan and Bill Crabtree

Finally, we arrive at this year’s Youngblood. Joe Casey brings Youngblood back to its original concept, though he does keep some of the intervening history and adds a few new twists of his own. Kirkman’s Imperial is ignored, but a text piece on the history of the team refers to Alan Moore’s short run as an in-continuity attempt of an honest loyalist that ultimately collapsed. This team, however, is back to being a government sponsored superhero agency in a world that closely resembles our own. The twist is that an unpopular government is hoping that sponsoring a superhero team will raise their approval ratings. This isn’t just about stopping domestic and international terrorists. This is about looking good while doing it. This is about being popular.

The story opens at the Mall of America in Minnesota. There’s a hostage situation inside. An NSC operative named Douglas McGarry arrives in a helicopter. The hostages are walking out of the mall freely. One of them is Jeff Terrell, aka Shaft. He defeated the terrorists single-handedly. McGarry flies him back to New York and introduces him to the new Youngblood headquarters at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Badrock, Cougar, Doc Rocket and Johnny Panic are already there. McGarry presents his plan for the team. They sign on the dotted line. They tour the facility and see a partially rebuilt Die-Hard who will be added to the team when he’s mobile. Shaft has a strange vision. The team does press conferences, talk shows, advertisements and photo ops. They have action figures and a kids’ cartoon. Shaft and Cougar are ready to quit when a call comes in for the team. They fight a giant robot. Die-Hard joins them. They put the robot out of commission. Shaft thinks he recognizes the robot’s design. Back at the base, McGarry calls the agent for Mayhem, Inc. and arranges a fight. And that’s the end.

Of the previous volumes, there were a couple that I would recommend (Moore and Kirkman’s versions) and a couple I wouldn’t (Liefeld’s original and the origin story credited to Busiek). This volume falls in the middle. There’s a lot going on. And a lot of it is good. But it’s also just “a lot.” This version of Youngblood is trying to be two things at once. On the one hand, it’s the government run agency- like StormWatch or the Avengers when they were being run by Henry Gyrich. On the other hand, it’s a celebrity title- like X-Statix or Zeb Wells’ New Warriors. They’re simultaneously being manipulated and worried about their image. We’ve seen both of these approaches before but never together and I’m not entirely sure it works.

At the same time, Joe Casey gives us a well-constructed first issue. We get a very clear sense of Shaft as a character. We get very clear introductions to the rest of the team, thanks to Agent McGarry. Shaft may know who they are, but it’s still helpful to the readers. We also get the great introduction to Die-Hard as he’s hanging in a lab half-assembled. It’s a little creepy and unsettling, and helps set the mood that this team isn’t all it appears to be. Casey and Donovan also make good use of montages, moving quickly through several weeks’ worth of promotional appearances. We even get a big fight at the end, even if some of us realize that it was set up by McGarry for the heroes’ benefit. Shaft may not have been sure but the robot looked like one of the Big Brothers from Alan Moore’s run to me. Also, Shaft’s vision shows that they may get to face some real threats in the future. There’s promise here, even if there’s too much going on.

And that’s Youngblood and some of the many different approaches that have been taken with the team. It’s a spotty record, to say the least, but it’s still interesting to see how the team and the title have morphed over the years.

The End.