Youngblood #1
Written by Chad Bowers and Rob Liefeld
Art by Jim Towe, Juan Manuel Rodriguez, Rob Liefeld and Shelby Robertson
Lettering by Rus Wooton
Published by Image Comics
Liefeld’s initial conceit was that if superheroes really existed, they’d be treated like movie stars and athletes – larger-than-life figures who are adored and have to balance their jobs with endorsement deals, personal scandals and the like. That was an excellent idea 25 years ago, and one that’s been riffed on in a number of ways by a number of creators since. So what’s next? Well, Bowers sets the book up by putting forth the idea of disrupting the regular superhero setup. Instead of screaming for help and hoping a hero is within earshot, citizens can use the handy Help! app and choose who’d they’d like to save them. It’s like a Taskrabbit for superheroes, and it leads to the central mystery of the debut: where has new hero Man-Up disappeared to? And as that mystery unfolds on a street level, Bowers rolls out the whereabouts of the old Youngblood team. Diehard is currently the President. Vogue is his First Lady. Shaft is in prison. And Badrock is sick. The other members don’t make an appearance, but some of the newbies have taken on their old aliases.
he plotting does get a little goofy when we get to the heroes’ fight with Crime Condor, but that’s to be expected. This is a big, bombastic superhero book in the extremely Liefeld fashion after all. But what struck me about it is that there is meaningful character work being done by Bowers across the issue. Gunner seeking out Man-Up’s family to empathize about his disappearance, Shaft and Badrock seeing each other for the first time in a while; these moments make the book more than just a superpowered beat’em up and stand as a reminder that the only way to tell stories that will resonate with people is to find those moments.
There is a short back-up from Rob Liefeld which is worth noting because it seems to reference the Book of All-Stories that was introduced by Alan Moore, which would be a really interesting way to open up Youngblood to the rest of the Extreme Universe. Liefeld’s art is pretty much what we’ve come to expect. Every character has just about the same expression (Shaft is even gritting his teeth in his sleep) and body proportions of his characters are inconsistent. But it’s a short story so there’s not really enough of a page count for it to affect the narrative.
Youngblood is off to a pretty decent start. Bowers’ app-focused idea could fall apart a little bit if you think about it too much but the script never stagnates long enough to let you do that which is a plus. Towe’s art is appropriately fun and while it’s a far cry from where this property began, that’s completely necessary for the title to move forward. You have to give Liefeld credit for putting his properties in the hands of creators who don’t want to wallow in nostalgia for too long. The creators have indicated a willingness to go beyond the stories that have already been told and the back-up story itself already drops a potentially big hint for the future. Youngblood #1 doesn’t do too much to separate itself from the pack of superhero comic books with similar conceits but it knows what it is, stays in that lane and is ultimately better for it. By Pierce Lydon
For what is it worth the first issue sold out so there still are a lot of Youngblood fans out there.