Weekly Reading: Youngblood #4

Never published by Awesome Entertainment

The covers:

Title: Young Guns

(Later issues of Youngblood were never in print. The only way to read them can be found through scripts or fan-drawn issues found online. Obvious pseudo-lawyer language: If anyone who owns the rights to these issues/scripts has a problem with me linking to them or posting pages from them, let me know and I'll remove them.)

So, after 20 years, we get Youngblood #4, the continuation of the story that was published as Awesome Adventures (my weekly reading on that issue is here) way back in the 1990s.

In his proposal, Moore said that he wanted to mainly keep the stories self contained, with few stories running over into a second issue, unless the story really dictated it. As a result, we had an investigation that probably stretched on a little too long last issue and an adventure that will get wrapped up a little early in this issue. But this is still the better of the two and I like the way Moore handles the parallel stories, with three pages for each story going back and forth.

Let's dig in shall we?

Leonard and the others wake up in a desert. They're no longer inside the Clock Tower and it's day time. The entrance to the Clock Tower is all sealed and there's evidence of a campfire and horse droppings. That's because Youngblood has traveled back in time to the Old West of Omegaville (population 519).

Johnny uses his holograms to disguise them in Old West garb, which is kind of awesome, mostly because they look cool, but also because it's filtered through Johnny's sense of humor. So Big Brother becomes a medicine show wagon and Suprema becomes an old woman from an old painting (at first I thought it was Whistler's Mother but from the script, it's the woman from American Gothic.

Twilight deduces that if Dr. Clock's Time-Trader sent them back here, something of equal mass was sent back to 1998.

And cut to 1998, where we see five of Moore's Awesome cowboys wandering around modern Omegapolis. We know Kid Thunder, Nighteagle, the Brimstone Kid and young Bill Hickok. The girl is Lady Lash, who was mentioned in Judgment Day.

Hickok, being in the League of Infinity, recognizes this future America, which appeals to Kid Thunder, who sees the colored folk all dressed up fine. That's such a nice little throw away line from Moore for the disguised escaped slave character to make.

Nighteagle thinks it was the sorcery of Jericho Faust and Stooping Shadow, two villains from their time, who were working dark magic, and which this band of heroes were going to confront. They come across the Jackettes breaking into the Omega Bank, who think they'll have free reign without Youngblood around.

Brimstone Kid: "Tarnation! I guess that bank robbers got purtier since our day... but it looks like they're just as ornery!" What a great line.

And then we're back to the Old West. Youngblood is heading into town as everyone else is fleeing from Faust and Stooping Shadow. They're planning on summoning some sort of devil creature. There on the outskirts they see the two villains outside a time door, where they're planning on summoning an H.P. Lovecraft-style elder one up from a long stairs.

Youngblood decides to stop them as the elder thing emerges, looking like a blobby slug thing with too many faces. I like Twilight talking about how she hates supernatural stuff.

And it makes sense that they would be fighting a lot of supernatural villains. When you have someone with Suprema's powers, you need to find a way to level the playing field and make the conflict interesting. And sure enough, when Stooping Shadow attacks Suprema, she is surprised when she feels the pain.

Back in the '90s, the cowboys are in an all-out brawl with the Jackettes, which is really awesome. I loved the cowboy characters in Judgment Day, and the addition of Lady Lash--I guess she's like a Texan Zorro-like character?--makes for a fun group.

Nighteagle suspects that the Jackettes are just the braves and they need to take down the chief. He grabs one of the Jackettes and forces her to confess to Jack-A-Dandy ordering the attack. Then Nighteagle sends out his spirit self to confront the Dandy. I love the art effect of Nighteagle's powers. Good job fan-creators!

Nighteagle's spirit self soon confronts Jack, who is terrified of the demonic appearance. He calls off the Jackettes, but explains that he can't switch the two teams back to their right times because Dr. Clock's machine worked at random.

Meanwhile, the fight continues back in the Old West. Johnny drops his disguises, which helps, as Big Brother explains: "I was just trying to imagine a medicine wagon getting in a fight, and it didn't really work, y'know?"

Jack Faust yells that Youngblood is doomed because he controls the elder one with the Book of Dyzan in his hands. So Shaft shoots it out of his hands, just like from Judgment Day, which is a really funny touch. The elder one then turns on the two villains, swallowing them up. I think their faces become two more in the massive thing. And then it returns through the time door.

Youngblood then thinks about how to get back to their proper time when Suprema realizes that the time door is from the League of Infinity's Time Tower, and she escorts them through. They head up the stairs to their own time.

Back in the future, the cowboys make sure the authorities keep a closer watch on Jack and then try to decide how to get back to their own time. Bill Hickok calls Ethan Crane... Supreme. Supreme flies them all to his Citadel and let's them use his access to the Time Tower to go back to their own time. He also offers to fly their horses down later, since horses can't walk down stairs!

And then the two groups finally run into each other on the stairs. Suprema and Youngblood are caught off guard when Bill Hickok is ticked off at them for the "big fight you guys had with the League!" It turns out he's thinking of a fight in September 1998 that hasn't happened yet (I guess this issue was supposed to be in July 1998.)

The two groups go their way, with the cowboys returning to the Old West and Youngblood back in the Citadel. They fill Supreme in on their adventure and then head back to the House of Wax. Doesn't it feel like Moore is taking a long time wrapping this story up? I think he must have had a few extra pages. Anyway, Doc Rocket makes a stray remark about wanting to go have an outer space adventure, but Twilight wonders what could happen out there that would affect them.

And we cut to Combat, from the old Youngblood, out in space, where he finds out that something is eating the stars. Something called the Goat! But we'll have to wait until next issue to find out what that is.

Man, what a fun issue! Anytime there's a League of Infinity twist, you know it's going to be a good one. And Moore has one more of those in store for us in "September 1998."

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