Youngblood (REMASTERED Edition)
Writer: Joe Casey
Artist: Rob Liefeld
Joe Casey provides genuine effort into developing an actual story with characters, but with the crappy Liefeld artwork I love!!!
Ranking: 4 stars
This may sound weird to many, but the dark age of comics is an era that fascinates me. Whenever I used to hear people discuss about comics in the early 90’s they would always bring up how they were dominated by terrible writing and crappy artwork. For a while this baffled me as two of my all-time favorite comics BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL and THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN were written in this time period, and I wondered how the artwork could have possibly been bad if Jim Lee (quite possibly the greatest comic book artist of all-time; and my personal favorite) made his debut then. This was before I discovered that the 90’s was a time period when comics were more sought out for collector’s value than for quality stories, which eventually led to massive inflation of comic book prices and Marvel being forced to declare bankruptcy. As for the downgrade in artwork, most of that can be traced back to Rob Liefeld, who is considered by many to be one of the worst, if not the worst, artist in comic book history. Liefeld’s artwork can basically be summed up by the constant presence steroid-abusing jerks (as evidenced by their over-exaggerated musculature; even in areas where muscles don’t exist) with massive shoulder-pads, high-tech weapons, and human anatomy which defies the laws of physics. Essentially, the character’s appearances were highly unrealistic due to Rob’s inability to learn how to properly draw human body structure. While many detest Liefeld’s artwork for this reason, I find it absolutely hilarious to look at! Don’t get me wrong, the artwork is indeed garbage, but I just have fun being able to find as many flaws in the illustrations that I can, allowing me to enjoy it in a “so bad it’s good manner” (similar to watching Tommy Wiesu in THE ROOM)! And if there is one comic that stands over all others in terms of highlighting the Liefeld’s hilariously terrible artwork, it would have to be the first comic that was ever published by Image, YOUNGBLOOD!
A while back, I wrote a review of the original first issue of YOUNGBLOOD. The comic lacked any basic overall plot or character development, and while it was horrendously illustrated, it was also simultaneously hilarious to look at. There were many art flaws in the comic which were unintentionally hilarious, most notably in the scene where the android Diehard apparently attacks Strongarm with his crotch (love that scene so so much). However, despite the fact that YOUNGBLOOD received consistently bad reviews from critics at the time, the first issue sold over seven million copies, and I’ve heard about comic writers praising the series as an innovative treasure for it’s time, being one of the first comics which focused on superheroes as celebrities that experienced real-life issues. I honestly don’t understand how these writers came to that conclusion, as aside from one scene in issue three with Shaft discussing a toy-deal around his likeliness, I don’t recall anything else about the idea of celebrity superheroes being explored (also, that idea was explored in comics like WATCHMEN before YOUNGBLOOD). Nether-less, several writers have attempted to revive the series and explore this concept that YOUNGBLOOD supposedly was built around, which brings us to today’s subject. In 2008, a hardcover edition of the original first four (or technically five) issues of YOUNGBLOOD was released by Image. What’s unique about this new edition is that instead of simply reprinting the original comics, the pages were reordered, the colors were redone to appear more bright and vibrant, and the story and dialogue were completely rewritten by Joe Casey. Basically this takes the original YOUNGBLOOD comics and attempts to clean up all of its flaws in order to produce an actual story instead of random one-liners over action scenes. This was undoubtedly difficult task for Casey to pull off, as he was limited to writing a story over the panels already created by Liefeld back in 1992. For what we got however, I’m genuinely impressed. Don’t worry, the artwork is still as bad as ever (it wouldn’t be YOUNGBLOOD without it; and we still have Diehard attacking Strongarm with his crotch), and while the story still lacks some degree of characterization, there is now actual effort put into creating a plot and basis around this team, and I feel it pays off.
The book opens with a prologue that was originally a flashback for the second issue of YOUNGBLOOD, where a squad of superhumans are being led by a man named Jackson Kirby (an homage to famous comic artist Jack Kirby) to fight against a squad of alien robots. The drones are revealed to be the foot soldiers of an alien tyrant named Darkthornn (obviously a rip-off of Darkseid from the NEW GODS), who is determined to conquer all existing realities, and has now set his sights on the planet Earth. Meanwhile on Earth, the United States government has appointed Jeff Terrell, aka Shaft, as the new field leader for the superhuman team known as Youngblood. Youngblood is a group of government sponsored superheroes who are assigned to deal with meta-human affairs both within the country and internationally. After stopping an assassin who attacked him a mall in Washington DC, Shaft discovers from the presses about a classified information leak involving a Youngblood operation occurring in Iran. Determined to discover the cause of the security breach, Shaft immediately summons his fellow teammates Badrock, Diehard, Chapel, and Vogue to Youngblood headquarters. But before the team can deal with the information leak situation, they are thrust into action when a prison convoy is attacked by a the villains Strongarm and Gage (which will result in the hilarious Diehard crotch attack scene)! While this is going on, the Youngblood team in Iran (consisting of Sentinel, Cougar, Combat, Riptide, Brahma, and Psi-Fire) are raiding the compound of dictator Hassan Kussein (gee, does that sound familiar…), who is in possession of a mysterious superhuman in cryogenic suspension. After team completes it’s mission and escorts the cargo to a lab in Germany, they learn that the frozen superhuman, Johnathan Prophet, was created by German scientist Dr. Well back in WII, who had discovered the coming threat of invasion from the forces of Darkthornn. Upon learning this, Well had given Prophet the to protect humanity from the alien tyrant. After Prophet breaks free of his cryogenic sleep, Darkthornn’s deadliest minions begin to launch their attack on the planet. Will this team focused on public relations, celebrity statuses, and government be able to aid Prophet in combating the impending invasion, or will all of humanity be conquered by Darkthorrn.
The original version of the YOUNGBLOOD comics were plagued by a complete lack of story or characterization, focusing instead on laughably bad artwork which focused solely on steroid-abusing jerks with bad anatomy punching each other. With this remastered edition however, I have to say that I’m fairly impressed. While it’s not perfect, Joe Casey goes out of his way to provide an entertaining story with a sufficient amount of characterization by completely rewriting the original dialogue and reordering some of the pages to properly suit the plot. Many other reviewers have said that because it the rewrites are constrained to images drawn back in 1992, it limits the author’s ability to fully immerse the reader with it’s plot and story. While I can understand where they’re coming from, I honestly felt that Casey’s writing flowed naturally, and that he put genuine effort into telling his story. Instead of immediately throwing the reader into the action like Liefeld did in the original, Casey establishes the plot and setting right from the start. Whereas in the original version it was unclear what Youngblood’s function as a team was, here it is immediately established that Youngblood is a superhero team that directly answers to the government. Because Casey establishes the premise early on, the reader is able to avoid confusion and become more easily invested into the plot, instead of being taken out of it. The plot itself is fairly straightforward, as it’s a simple story about a group of superheroes fighting off an alien invasion while dealing with their issues as celebrities. As such, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this new story anything Oscar-worthy (or in the case of comics, Eisner-worthy), but I feel it is definitely commendable if viewed as a short and relaxing read after a long day. Casey provides a comprehensible and straightforward story, and sometimes, that’s all a book needs to be in order to be a good read.
One thing in particular that caught my attention about this new renditioning of YOUNGBLOOD was it’s intense focus on the whole concept of celebrity superheroes. As I stated earlier, several comic creators have praised Liefeld’s work on YOUNGBLOOD for being the first comic to embrace this idea, when in reality it was rarely present amongst the constant action scenes (which was the focus of every bad 90’s comic). With this new version however, Casey heavily incorporates the celebrity superhero concept into the plot, making it a driving force of the story. Not only are the members of Youngblood well-recognized by the public for their status as government superheroes, but the characters each discuss the individual things that they deal with as celebrities. This is evident through Shaft dating a swimsuit model and holding a press-conference with paparazzi’s, Badrock being concerned with the development of video games based on his likeliness, as well as the teams overall concern with public relations while dealing with the information leak about their involvement in Iraq. The intense focus on the character’s concerns about relations with the public and celebrity issues reminded me of Mark Millar’s work in THE ULTIMATES (who ironically does the introduction for this volume), as whenever the heroes in that book were not concerned about super villains, they were focused on their popularity polls and toy-deals. Overall, Joe Casey explores the concept of celebrity superheroes well, establishing it as the driving force of YOUNGBLOOD’s originally promised premise.
The final aspect that I feel I should elaborate on is the characterization. While being restricted to previously drawn pages prevents Casey from fully developing a cast of well-fleshed characters, the characters still feel like actual characters. This is a huge improvement over the original version of YOUNGBLOOD, as there was no attempt to distinguish any of the Youngblood from one another, and they all came across as the same character-type. All of them were steroid-abusing jerks with bad human anatomy, snarling faces, and angry attitudes. Even the artwork still conveys them as such here, the characters are given actual personalities that help the reader distinguish them from other characters. In this version of YOUNBLOOD, Shaft comes across as a competent field-leader, Badrock acts like a teenage boy with superpowers would, Diehard acts like a robot programed to follow orders and make logical decisions, Combat comes across as an experienced and wise alien warrior, and Psi-Fire and Brahma are more disobedient and rude than the rest of the team. While Casey isn’t able to provide sufficient characterization to all of these previously established characters, he is able to develop enough of them to the point that the cast is distinguishable and varied, unlike the under-developed rip-off “characters” that Liefeld originally created. These characters aren’t the strongest that comics have to offer, but at least in this new version they feel like actual characters.
As for the artwork, it’s just as poorly drawn and awful as it was before, but in my opinion, YOUNGBLOOD wouldn’t be as memorable or enjoyable without the crappy artwork! Overall, while I consider the original version of YOUNBLOOD to be “so bad it’s good” because of the bad artwork, this remastered edition is a considerable improvement as Casey provides an actual story with characters despite the limitations he was faced with, and takes the time to provide an in-depth exploration of the celebrity superhero concept. So while YOUNGBLOOD “REMASTERED” isn’t perfect, Joe Casey definitely deserves praise for being able to create a good story out of a previously crappy comic drawn by Rob Liefeld. It’s not the next WATCHMEN or TDKR, but for those looking for a simple and relaxing read, or are simply curious about the nature of 90’s comics in general, I’d recommend checking out this edition over the original as you’ll get a decent story along with the laughably bad Liefeldian artwork. (The artwork which gave us of the famous DIEHARD CROTCH ATTACK!!!)
“Creativity can release you from the limitations that the world has constructed around you; the everyday, mundane, 9-5 jail cell where everybody is waiting for the weekend to party so they can get outside of their head.”
-Robert LaSardo
