The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1911: Youngblood #8, March 2009

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And that's it. Shaft and Cougar rescue Scion from her virtual prison, Diehard stops Stormhead's attack, and a deranged Spacehunter makes planetfall - and then nothing. The entire story disappears in favour of a Rob Liefeld helmed reboot where the team hang out with Barack Obama, and the original lineup is basically reinstated. No word on how Badrock stops from crumbling, no word on how the planet survives the impact of a crazed killer from space.

 

I honestly just can't understand Liefeld's decisions when it comes to this team. Indeed, I've just read an article in which he now reveals that the doesn't own the rights to the team anymore, which is why the most recent series simply stopped as well.

So how do I sum up Youngblood? The same way I always do - they're a crap team, a Teen Titans riff that is eventually given the chance to shine in the hands of excellent creators, until their original creator decides that they're popular enough for him to jump on the coattails, at which point the series tanks. I'm glad to see that characters like Doc Rocket, and later Suprema, have made a significant enough impact to be included in later iterations of the team. Indeed, that might be one of the motivating factors for me to have a look at the two series that follow this one, in 2012 and 2017 respectively.

But for now, I think we're done with them. I was going to read the older stuff I have kicking about, but I think I'd rather get back to my alphabetical indie creators. I think I need something a little less mainstream, and a little less inevitably disappointing. I honestly can't think of too many other forms of media where a story gets cut off in the middle like this. The occasional television series, I suppose, but this is truly one of the great drawbacks to producing serialized narratives - there's always the chance that the serial simply won't run long enough to contain the narrative.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1910: Youngblood #7, January 2009

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As we near the end of this iteration of the team, everything that's old is new again in a lot of ways. The Televillain didn't get much chance to be a villain in his initial appearances in Supreme, but Casey and Donovan are playing him to the hilt at the moment. It's cool to see some of the uses of his powers, rather than simply being able to travel through television signals and insert himself into broadcasts. In today's issue he uses his remote to actually rewind action in the real world as it's happening. He also appears to have trapped Scion in a virtual version of the Oprah show, and if she's not rescued soon she'll simply vanish into the ether. I don't recall the Televillain being quite so murderous in his other appearances, but perhaps he's realized that TV is much more violent in the modern era, and he's adapting.

I have to hand it to the creative team with regard to the number of plot threads they're keeping up in the air. At no point do things get confusing, and it never feels like too much is going on in the story. The comics from which Youngblood originally springs were not quite like this. A few of my reviews of Supreme from this era (which I re-read last night) note that entire battles sometimes took 2 or 3 issues, with no other story content to break up the fight. Or there were simply jumps from one place to another without any context or delicacy to the shift. I've read a few interviews with Liefeld, and even he admits his story-writing skills were lacking at the time of the original Youngblood series. I guess once we get to the final issue of this series, we'll find out if he's grown much. I don't recall being particularly impressed by it.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1909: Youngblood #6, November 2008

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Just to add on to a thought I had yesterday, I don't think that this current Youngblood series is delving deeply enough into the ways in which we're shaped by celebrity culture, but this is certainly not to say that writer Joe Casey isn't capable of such depth. Have a look at G0dland, for goodness' sake. So what we have in Youngblood, instead, is simply intelligent entertainment, rather, I suppose, that didactic entertainment. Though, in a lot of ways, all entertainment is didactic.

I've decided to read the rest of my Youngblood comics from the collection after I'm done this series. I'm curious as to how much of each iteration of the team is included in this later (but not latest) series. There's obviously a lot of Alan Moore's influence, with the use of the Spacehunters, the Televillain, Johnny and Doc, and the shared history that was set up in the Awesome U. But we also get characters from the older iterations, some of whom are only just now getting the proper character development one might expect of an almost 20 year old superhero. As with Prophet, the retroactive reading of various Youngblood series will be enhanced by the brilliance of the comics that follow them.

It also makes me curious, however, about the series that follow this one. I know that there was a revival of the title a few years after this one crashed, but I've no idea how much of the previous continuity is included in that revival. As part of the Extreme Studios initiative at Image Comics, the later series also takes on legacy numbering, so there's a chance it will also take on legacy aesthetic. That said, some of the other comics to come from this era, all legacy numbered, took the various Extreme heroes in some pretty interesting directions. I've waxed lyrical about them in previous posts about Youngblood, so I won't link again, but, honestly, just go read the Keatinge Glory or the Graham Prophet. Just really bloody good.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1908: Youngblood #5, September 2008

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 Seemingly out of the woodwork a new Youngblood team is assembled for network television, even as our heroes (the old Youngblood, that is) decide it's time to stop the rampage of the Televillain. I wasn't around comics for the introduction of Youngblood all those years ago, but I hadn't realized that the celebrity aspect was such a huge part of the initial idea of the team. I quite like how it's all playing out in this series, especially with the added threat of the Televillain. Though I don't think the series is delving as deeply as it could, we're getting a nice little surface commentary on the ways in which we're programmed, pun intended, by television and celebrity. It's something I've always had a difficult time understanding, the cults of celebrity that grow up around particular people in the public spotlight. And much like Shaft's Youngblood team, some public figures realize what a joke the whole celebrity industry is and step away from it. They often tend to be the ones that we respect all the more, as I'm sure the case will be for Shaft's team.

Brain's a little sleepy today. That's all I got.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1907: Youngblood #4, July 2008

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One of the things I really love about this project is that I get to go back and re-read stuff that I haven't read in, in this case, over a decade. In 2008, when this comic was coming out, I'd quit my job as a gas and hydro meter reader and was preparing to re-enter university in the coming Autumn. In fact, given comics publishing dates, there's a good chance this one came out as I was being inundated with reading from my classes. Which is probably why I don't remember it that well.

 

Joe Casey definitely has a long game in mind while writing this series, proof of which comes from not least the proclamation that, as of next issue, "phase 2" begins. Sadly it only gets 4 issues, but what a four issues it's likely to be. The new Spacehunter has just crash-landed on Earth with a warning, Leonard and Waxey Doyle jump back in as support characters, and the team finally flips the bird to the government who have been manipulating them, and gets on with the job of being superheroes. In fact, at the end of the issue, Shaft himself says this - that superheroes are not meant to be manipulated or scripted - they're meant to stand in the front when no one else is willing to. The rest of the team seems to be on board.

 

I noted Alan Moore's command of character in his brief Youngblood series - Casey isn't quite there. Johnny seems to have virtually no personality, unfortunately, though that may be from all of the recreational pharmaceuticals he's "tested" on himself. We're getting a little bit of Doc and Cougar, but the focus is definitely on Shaft, and Badrock a little bit. Actually, Badrock's story is really fascinating - I don't remember how it turns out, but it's not the story I was expecting from him. Something is going drastically wrong with this powers.

 

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1906: Youngblood #3, April 2008

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Well, as the above cover attests, Image's oldest superhero has fallen.

Youngblood v.1 #1 is an important comic. Now, this is not because it's a good comic. In fact, it's well-known throughout the industry as being a particularly bad comic. Rob Liefeld's artwork has, of course, gotten better over the years (though it's still not my cup of tea), and I think he's finally, for the most part, acknowledged that he needs a scripter, if not a writer, to achieve some level of good story. Youngblood #1, however, suffers from what I can only imagine was an over-inflated ego that believed it could do everything. All that said, it's an important comic because it was the first Image comic published. I mean, honestly, you can grab it for less than a buck most places, as it was extremely (see what I did there?) overprinted and, as I say, was really not very good.

But what comes out of it is pretty fantastic, as I've been saying for the last few weeks now.

Today's issue deals with the aftermath of Shaft's death - not necessarily how each of the team members deals with this blow, but how it's going to be presented in the reality show. This, I think, speaks again to what I was talking about yesterday, the idea that those in charge seem to think that they know how those in their charge should be acting, thinking, and feeling. It's an attitude that sees people as cogs in a machine, rather than human beings who have an almost infinite range of experience, and reaction, to life.

(Sometimes I read back over these posts, and I think, "Y'know, Tom, you aren't really talking about comics here are you?")

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1905: Youngblood #2, February 2008

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The show continues, and Badrock discovers a problem with his usually impervious derma.

I quite like that there's an undercurrent, mostly from the heroes, of explicit knowledge that this reality show angle is going to blow up. There's a slightly more-archetypal story going on here that I really, really recognize. It's that moment when someone thinks that they have a handle on a situation because they've done all the research and tested everything with focus groups and done all the brand marketing and other bullshit...but they've never taken into account what it's actually like to work on the front lines where all of that research etc. means absolutely nothing. In a much less-superpowered milieu, I've seen it in stores and institutions I've worked at - the higher-ups think that their new ideas and initiatives will very easily be implemented and will make everything wonderful, but they have no experience of how things actually work on the sales floor or in the classroom, and they get crabby when someone who does know how things work tells them their idea is a bad one.

We are definitely seeing this in Youngblood, and it's thoroughly unsurprising that it's the U.S. government that is refusing to listen to people who, quite simply, know better. That idea that just because you're in a position of authority you somehow automatically know better than those in your charge is so frustrating. It completely discounts particular kinds of knowledge. Just as I was leaving academia, there were conversations about FanAcs, or fan academics, and how much authority such people should be afforded in discourse about fandom. To me, the only difference between myself as a fan and/or academic and a "FanAc" is that I've had the benefit of getting a language with which to have detailed conversations about the subject, whereas a FanAc has not. But a good, well-trained academic can recognize when someone is talking about something for which they don't have the words and then supply those words to the person. It's called teaching, and it's something that, in my experience, a lot of academics need to spend a lot more time thinking about and doing.

Well, that went off the rails into a rant about academia. Sorry.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1904: Youngblood #1, January 2008

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Taking a break from our alphabetical investigation of the small press, just for a week or so.

 

There's a text feature on the inside front cover of this comic that gives a brief history of Youngblood, outlining their status as government agents and celebrity superheroes. There's a brief note about a revival of the team that "collapsed under its own weight," the only real nod to the Moore/Skroce team and what happened to them. Though, later in the issue as the team fights a giant robot, Shaft notices something familiar, and I'm wondering if the tech is Big Brother-inspired. Leonard Doyle is, sadly, absent from the team.

In that vein, along with Leonard, Suprema and Twilight are also missing. I know Suprema shows up in at least one issue of Bloodstrike that I've got that came out around the same time as the relaunch of all of these Extreme Studios titles. Glory, Prophet, Supreme, and a host of others got reboots, and really good reboots around this time. Prophet, amongst the rest, went on to have a respectable run and told an absolutely amazing story. It would have been lovely to see where Youngblood under Casey and Donovan's capable hands would have gone, but, as I've noted in previous posts about the series, in issue #9, partway through a storyline, Liefeld pulls the plug and gives us a really lame issue, and then the series fizzles.

But I don't want to go into the series just waiting for it to end. There's some excellent stuff happening here, stuff that, while it owes a great deal to the previous series, charts its own directions and narratives. I'm excited to read it again, as I haven't since it was first published. The team is reassembled and the celebrity aspect is pushed - the idea is that the government wants to be able to export superheroes the same way that they do Hollywood stars. I get the sense it's just not going to work out that way.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Joe Casey is among my favourite writers - his run on Adventures of Superman is probably one of the best Superman stories I've read.