Weekly Reading: Youngblood #1

Published by Awesome Entertainment in February 1998

The covers:

Title: Occupations

(Youngblood is currently out of print. There are a number of ways to read it, which can be found on the How do I read Moore's Awesome works page.)

My goodness, that's a lot of variant covers. When you add in the ones with a metallic ink logo, you have 13 different variants! And that's not even counting the weird +1 issue!

So here we are with issue 1. Of course, unless a reader had known to grab the Awesome Holiday Special, they'd have no introduction to Doc Rocket, Big Brother or Johnny Panic, or how Suprema and Twilight joined up. And unless they had a time machine to go forward a month to March, they couldn't get the Judgment Day: Aftermath issue, which would show the team in their first mission and which gets referenced in this issue.

So really, anyone who might have picked up this issue would have no clue who half these characters are or how this all came about. Is it really surprising that most Moore fans have never given Youngblood a shot or if so, have started in the wrong place? Sigh. Well, at least we can try to rectify that.

Moving on, the issue begins with The Veil, the top secret government occult group led by Blake Baron, experimenting on travel to another dimension called the Azure. It's a weird, blue floating place. There's a naked guy with some sort of gray scales being brought back to our dimension by robotic arms.

Bishop, someone who works for Baron, tells us that the transfer is going successfully, bringing something alive back through. The "volunteer" soon wakes up and steals Knight's gun and shoots him. He then touches Bishop before collapsing. Bishop, disobeying Baron's orders, shoots the volunteer before blowing up the connection to Baron.

I like this prologue a lot, setting up The Veil and Baron as government spooks we're not supposed to sympathize with, though I can imagine a lot of Moore fans trying this issue and having no idea what's going on. Bishop heads toward some government flying ship and touches the guard before slumping over himself. The guard blasts Bishop, gets in the ship and flies off. I love the view from the hangar, showing us that The Veil's base, called Threshold, is way up high.

We're now on the ground in Star City with Twilight, reporting back to Shaft, that she's going to check out the crash of some experimental vehicle. Shaft's busy training with a giant wooden robot sparring partner named Custer, but asks Twilight to keep the camera on her motorcycle turned on while she checks out the crash. Steve Skroce, unlike most other artists, seems to love drawing lots of characters, like the panel showing Shaft flipping through the air. He's great at it, too!

Then Waxey shows up and Shaft wonders where Leonard is. Waxey expositions that his foster son (he said he was adopted in the Holiday Special - but maybe Shaft misunderstood the situation) is working on his Big Brother robots. Waxey mentions that "Suprema's off dusting the Sahara." It'll become a running gag to have a character flippantly explaining where Suprema is off to.

Then another Shaft shows up, but it's just Johnny in disguise. Shaft brushes him off as Waxey tries to talk Jeff into using trick arrows like old superheroes. This dialog is hilarious:

"The Black Bow, from the Five Footsoldiers of Freedom, he used boomerang arrows... uh, well, actually, thinking about the way Black Bow met his tragic and ironic end, that's probably not such a good choice. Now, the American Archer, back in the 'fifties, he used nuclear arrows... although again, bad example."

If there was any question I was going to enjoy Youngblood, Waxey was the answer.

Meanwhile, we can see Twilight approaching the crash on the screen behind them. She approaches a police officer who is shooting the guard. Twilight is shocked, asking him why.

"Cleaning last residence. They wake up with ideas," he says.

Twilight asks him who he thinks he is.

"Occupant."

This is our introduction to the Occupant, a being who can take control of another's body.

We're back at the House of Wax where Johnny's expositioning about his suit's abilities while we see the police officer grab Twilight on the video screen behind him. Uh oh.

Rachel (Doc Rocket) shows up and Shaft asks her if she's seen the paper about Stormhead and Coast City (what will have happened in Judgment Day: Aftermath) when she points out that Twilight has grabbed the officer's gun and is about to shoot the officer. And then we just see her hat like in a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon.

Rachel is running at superspeed while changing into her costume. I love this part so much. Is there any superpower that's more fun and interesting in comics than superspeed? Also, let's take a note to appreciate Steve Skroce - he even drew a burger and fries flying through the air on a small highway panel! If ever there was an artist who would bring out all of the background details Moore would write into his script, it was Skroce!

We then see her on the video screen grabbing the cop and getting him out of the way as Twilight fires the gun at point blank range. Shaft and Johnny play back a squeal of audio recording to listen to what Doc Rocket radioed to them. Shaft gets Johnny and Leonard together and they're going to fly Biggest Brother to Star City, though Leonard complains about having to be the chauffeur.

Doc Rocket confronts Twilight, who says that she is cleaning up her tracks. She tries to attack Doc Rocket, but she's not there. "After images. I mean, come on, Linda, my grandpa used that trick in the 'forties!" Yep, Doc is great.

Twilight/Occupant says that she is "free of the Azure. I am in the consequential world." Twilight throws a blackout bomb, but Doc pushes the smoke back at her. When Twilight threatens to kill more people, a voice from above says that she will not. And then Suprema comes sweeping in.

Just a note, it's kind of weird that she has a new uniform for Youngblood but uses her old one in the pages of Supreme. Oh well.

"Did you think I wouldn't overhear you? I was only on Jupiter, for gosh sakes, not in the next galaxy or something!" I'm so glad Suprema is here.

Suprema flies into the smoke and then her conversation suddenly stops. She emerges with an unconscious Twilight.

We cut to inside Big Brother, where Leonard notes a big flash of heat and light from Star City. Uh oh. Blake Baron then cuts into Big Brother's video screens, telling Youngblood to stay away from the Occupant. Shaft refuses and he and Johnny jump out of Big Brother into the rubble of part of Star City. Doc runs up to them holding Twilight, warning of eye beams. And then Suprema turns her eye beams on them!

Shaft whispers, "Nuclear arrows. Waxey suggested nuclear arrows and I just laughed..." I love the way Moore has the characters comment on the action. It adds a level of humor that makes these stories so much fun.

Then Big Brother comes and stomps on Suprema. The rest of the team back away as Suprema and Big Brother have an awesome air battle. (Just a question - what is going on with Suprema's leg here?)

I love this line: "You know, this is weird. Just the other day I was thinking, 'Gee, I hope Suprema gets taken over by an alien or something. Then I could stamp on her head without feeling bad.'"

The antagonistic relationship between Leonard and Sally will be fun to watch, knowing what Moore has planned for them.

Meanwhile, Twilight is starting to come around while Johnny uses his holograms to go into hiding. And then Big Brother comes crashing down. Suprema comes down to finish them off.

Then Supreme shows up, sounding very strange: "Forsooth! Lo! I was watching from my...uh...from my secret place supreme, and I thought I'd come and teach you a lesson! After all, I'm much more powerful and invulnerable and...uh...supremer than you are!"

Shaft tries to warn Supreme about the Occupant, but Supreme just hands him a gun and tells Shaft to shoot him if he doesn't think Supreme is protected. Shaft realizes it's Johnny's gun as Suprema/Occupant grabs Supreme to take him over.

Supreme calls for Shaft to shoot him and as the Occupant takes over Supreme, we see that Supreme was just Johnny in disguise and the drug makes Johnny/Occupant go unconscious.

"God, that was a smart move," Doc says. "Where does a wise-ass slacker like Johnny get his brains from?" Where indeed!

Blake Baron, calling himself auto mechanic Charlie Officer, shows up and with Rook puts the Occupant in a monkey trapped in a box, and then leaves.

Youngblood brushes themselves off and is indignant about Baron. As Doc says: "What a jerk! he gave us no credit for stopping that rampage! I mean, I know it was our rampage, but that's not the point! He's just jealous because he's old and we're the ones with the youth, vitality and energy!"

Um... okay. And that was Youngblood #1. Lots of action, lot of laughs, lots of fun. Granted, it doesn't have the aim of Supreme: Story of the Year, commenting on comics while recreating them, but Moore had clearly found a way to tell modern comic stories that were fun and had a modern sensibility, without feeling trapped by the Image style.

And just as Moore was getting Awesome on its feet, Awesome lost its investor and it would all fall apart.

Drat.

Fortunately, there's a lot more Youngblood for us to get to. As we'll continue next week.

In case you want to read it, here's what Rob Liefeld had to say in the back of this issue:

 

So that's nice.

As always, please check out the Annotations Page for more details and references and be sure to let me know any that I missed.