In 2015, Rob Liefeld came out with a new Bloodstrike. He wrote it and did the art for it, so it was probably the idea that he wanted to do and scrapped Tim Seeley's version of Bloodstrike for.
Moore never worked on Bloodstrike, so there aren't a ton of connections and I'm not going to go into a ton of detail on the series (all two issues of it), but some Awesome characters appeared in it, so I'll discuss them in detail.
Essentially the story is about a new Born Again operative who, while tangling with an old Liefeld villain, Tragedy Ann (yeah, really), has his penis cut off. He then spends the rest of the series trying to track it down. Ann has given it to a mysterious teenage villain, who is putting together body parts to construct an ultimate weapon.
The story is Liefeld at his most funny. It's all really lowbrow stuff, but when he starts calling out his own original early-Image characters as being "Wolverine ripoffs," you can tell he's having fun. Whether you think it's funny or just dumb is up to you.
Anyway, where this blog is concerned is where Professor Night shows up in issue #2. Apparently the villain wants his brain to put into Supreme's body. And she used a kidnapped Twilight to lure Professor Night out of retirement:
Twilight is one of my favorite characters and this is kind of tacky and gross, but of course, none of it really mattered because there was no issue #3 and none of this was ever mentioned again.
This was shaping up to be a fun series. But, unfortunately, just ending up one of many, many, many comics that Rob Liefeld would start and never finish. Particularly his creator-owned stuff. Speaking as a lontime fan of his work, it can frustrating.
ReplyDeleteRight? I get the sense that after a certain point, it was hard to motivate himself to do the creator-owned work. Lately, he seems to have such a stronger output from other companies' comics.
DeleteYeah, he couldn't finish this series, but then went on to do a couple of Deadpool projects and a series introducing a new character, Major X, for Marvel, and now is doing a Snake Eyes miniseries for IDW. Again it's frustrating for me, as I discovered Rob with the original debut of Youngblood, and so I've always been a bigger fan of his creator-owned characters. But they always seem to get the short end of the stick compared to doing WFH projects.
DeleteI mean, sure, on one hand I can understand him coming back to Deadpool when the movies are coming out, as that's the perfect time to capitalize on their success. But by that same token he's made a big announcement of a Prophet movie being in development again, so if he's ready to write and draw a series, why not Prophet instead of Snake Eyes?
I’d say it’s because he has an incredibly hard time self motivating: when he’s the boss and there’s no outside driver on deadlines etc, it’s just a bad combination. Plus no guaranteed money and weaker sales on his own books.
DeleteYeah, I think you nailed it Luke.
DeleteHere's my "version" of that issue and its place in the overall Supreme / Awesome timeline. I took the Liefeld-ness out of the events and made them more Awesome...
ReplyDelete2015
Having spent over a year recovering as his severed arm regrows, Supreme ventures out into the world to continue to monitor for villains and evil; While investigating a mystery in Australia, Supreme disappears, captured by the evil villainess, The Lady; The Lady’s plan is to construct the ultimate evil warrior using Supreme’s body and the resurrection techniques of Project Born Again from her base at Beachum Lunatic Asylum in Australia; With Supreme subdued, The Lady prepares a trap for her next target, Professor Night
While investigating the disappearance of Supreme, Twilight (37) is captured by the deranged villain, The Lady; Twilight is “brainwashed” into doing The Lady’s bidding; With Twilight missing, Taylor Kendall (70) comes out of his retirement in The Halls of Night to once again become Professor Night to track down and rescue her; Taylor allows himself to get captured by The Lady to get close to where she’s keeping Twilight captive;
Taylor easily frees himself and strikes back against The Lady, engaging in a brutal fight;
Although Professor Night gains the upper hand, he is distracted by the appearance of an apparently mind-controlled Twilight;
Enraged by the appearance of Twilight, Professor Night battles The Lady with all his strength and fury, battling to near death; Finally defeating the villainess, Professor Night rescues Twilight, breaking the mind-control, and finds and frees Supreme; The three heroes return to Star City to recover
Following the battle, Taylor recovers with Linda in The Halls of Night; After weeks pass, fully healing himself and Linda, and bolstering his nearly broken body with exoskeleton supports, Professor Night decides to remain active and assist Twilight in battling evil and injustice in Star City
Supreme withdraws to a place of solitude to once again recover after his ordeal
That's already much better than what we got!
DeleteSince you covered Bloodstrike despite Moore never working on it, would you also consider giving some love to the 2000s restart of Avengelyne by chance? I know it sounds crazy but I thought this book was really well done. In additon, it was, to me, the perfect kind of arrangement where you had two newbie creators (Mark Poulton and Owen Gieni) who were mega Extreme fans and basically wrote and drew the series as a love letter to that universe. They were so into it they even had a podcast going where they discussed each issue and every bit of Extreme lore the were trying to cram in. While they were still getting their creative legs underneath them, their enthusiasm was infectious; I highly recommend you give it a look if you haven't!
ReplyDeleteIs that the one put out by Avatar? Or before that? Anyway, I'll check it out. Thanks!
DeletePoulton's AVENGELYN was published by Image in 2011. It was pretty good, but only lasted 8 issues. Kid Supreme had a cameo in one issue. Poulton said his next major storyarc was going to be "Supreme Father, where Supreme declares himself God and the alternate Supremes his angels."
DeleteHe posted some of the unfinished artwork from that storyline here:
https://markpoulton.tumblr.com/post/106037018725/i-got-an-email-earlier-in-the-week-asking-if-i
Wow thanks for that link and info - never saw that!
DeleteAnd Professor Night also made a one panel cameo in that series. By the way, I don't know if you mentioned it, but that Bloodstrike series continued as a back-up feature for 2 issues in that year's Youngblood. No continuation of the Professor Night / Twilight story, but some wrap up of the Bloodstrike story
ReplyDeleteDid it? What happened? Did he get his dick back?
DeleteIt was in issue 4 and 5 of the Youngblood 2017 series that you just reviewed in the facebook group. At the end of each of the issues is a few pages from what would've been issue 3 of the 2012 Bloodstrike
ReplyDeleteYeah... I vaguely remember that. I also remembering that I had no clue what was going on and that it didn't look all that interesting. Was it?
Deletethe material that "finished" the issue in YB #4 wasn't interesting in the least and I was super bummed that they didn't advance the Prof Night stuff at all. Issue 5 which had the next "piece" of the lost Bloodstrike #3 had a strange "Interlude" that was obviously gearing up for a Liefeld "dream project" that never happened. Pieces of the project ended up being used a couple of years ago in Liefeld's crowdfunded Bloodstrike series, but contained panesl and pages that were originally a fight between Supreme and Prof Night
DeleteI placed it in the timeline in the following way to makes some sort of sense of Youngblood's Imperial time and Bloodsport:
2004
A new “Imperial” version of Youngblood forms, including Die Hard (91) and Doc Rocket, Rachel Richards (26); Twilight (26) turns down the offer to join, preferring to continue to work as Professor Night (59)’s close partner; With Die Hard battling rebel forces in South America, and the rest of the team spread throughout the world, the Youngblood program is spread too thin and the government decides to halt the program
2005
Suprema, feeling she needs to “catch up with the times” changes her costume to something “more modern”
2006
A cosmic shift creates access to the Supremacy on Earth and a number of alternate versions of Suprema and Supreme appear. Suprema is contacted by the government to participate in a “unique audition” for a newly-planned Youngblood team. On her way to the audition location, Suprema is confronted by the newly freed Surpema’s from the Supremacy.
Suprema rejects their offer and speeds away to warn Supreme. Moments after trying to recruit Suprema, The Supremes enact their plan to take over the world. Their leader, the evil alternate version of Supreme from his adventures before returning to his proper Earth in 1996, captures Supreme and holds him prisoner. Suprema, racing to the Citadel Supreme, learns of her brother’s fate, but before she can help him, she’s shunted to an alternate dimension where she’s forced to battle and kill alternate versions of her friends and teammates.
With Suprema and Supreme both out of the picture, The Supremes begin their takeover of the world. Seeing the need to once again defend the Earth, Professor Night (61) and Twilight (28) form a group of heroes, including Shaft, to oppose The Supremes. Professor Night alters his costume, adding more light-weight armor, altering his helmet and forsaking his cape. Professor Night, calling himself simply “Night”, and his team, tackle each of The Supremes one at a time, striking at them using his extensive knowledge of his longtime friend and his weaknesses.
Eventually, Night comes face to face with the evil Supreme and, after a fierce battle is able to defeat him, exiling The Supremes back to The Supremacy dimension and locking the evil Supreme in a prison inside The Citadel Supreme. With The Supremes defeated, Night and Twilight are able to retrieve the original Supreme and Suprema from their prison dimensions. Reunited and recovered and trying to forget the trauma from her time in the other dimension, Suprema decides to adopt her original costume once again as Taylor Kendall returns to his identity of “Professor” Night. Professor Night and Twilight return to their quiet time in the Halls of Night beneath Kendall Manor.
here's the panel:
https://afghanant.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/the-authorityv2.jpg
Yeah, I vaguely remember that. God, what a stupid way to run a comicbook company.
DeleteSorry, that was Liefeld's BRIGADE via Kickstarter (which took 6 years to publish)
ReplyDeleteSo that book DID eventually come out? I remember Bleeding Cool would post updates with all the various Rob false promises and angry non apologies but I never knew if finally ever went out. I wondered if part of the delay was that he had to excise characters he no longer had rights to. If it did indeed release, could we get an in-depth review of this one Mike?
DeleteHa ha ha ha ha ha...woo! Good one! I wouldn't touch that thing with a ten-foot pole.
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