Weekly Reading: Youngblood stories (pre issue #1)

Awesome Holiday Special #1A

Published by Awesome Entertainment in December 1997

The covers:

Title: Youngblood Prologue Featuring Shaft

(As always: 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.)

Awesome being Awesome took the most complicated way possible to introduce the new Youngblood. Following the end of Judgment Day: Final Judgment, the government has withdrawn its funding for Youngblood and Shaft was in discussion with Waxey "The Waxman" Doyle about finding a way to continue the team. This was Moore's way of setting aside all that came before and starting afresh.

So two months after the end of Judgment Day, Awesome released two Holiday Specials, numbering them 1A and 1B. They were both flip books with a small Youngblood story combined with a small Fighting American story and a small Kaboom story combined with a small Coven story. Obviously I'm only going to talk about the Youngblood one.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't think it'd be a great idea to put the introduction to one of your premiere series in a comic that most fans don't think of as anything more than glorified backup stories.

Here's the story:
 

Anyway, in the eight-page story, Moore and Steve Skroce tell the story of the founding of the new Youngblood told through the diary of Jeff "Shaft" Terrell. Shaft is mourning the falling apart of Youngblood, with Combat returning to outer space, and "The former Vogue returned to the Soviet Union." (Wait, what? So we're clearly in some alternate universe where the USSR still exists or it's a typo and it should have been Vogue returned to the former Soviet Union.) Badrock went to Hollywood to make a movie about Youngblood, which will become a great running gag throughout the series.

Shaft goes to visit Waxey at the House of Wax mansion, which will become Youngblood's new base. Waxey will become a running gag as well, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the fake superheroes that Moore is creating for Awesome's past. As a condition for funding Youngblood, Waxey's adopted son, Leonard, and his giant robot "Big Brothers" have to join up.

Moore tried to absolve himself of turning the African-American hero Sentinel into a villain by having African-American hero Leonard comment on it. It mostly works because Leonard will become such a well-defined character as the series continues.

So Shaft agrees to Waxey's deal and starts auditions, with the focus being on younger, teenaged heroes. Twilight and Suprema join up. Next we meet John Paneczik, known as Johnny Panic from a Sylvia Plath story, which I'll get into later. Johnny was the result of in vitro fertilization with an unnamed genius father. More on that later, too. Johnny has a holographic suit, allowing him to look like anything and a gun that shoots designer drugs.

Then comes everyone's favorite, the new Doc Rocket, granddaughter of the original Doc Rocket. She's a super speedster, too.

Of course the team has some personality issues with everyone hating Suprema's goody-two-shoes personality and Suprema wanting to replace them with heroes from her era, such as Skipper ad Roman's nephew Lamprey.

Around Christmas, a weather-controlling villain named Stormhead shows up and starts threatening Coast City. But we won't see that action until we get to our next story.

This is a fun, ironic little story, basically recreating a Teen Titans for the Awesome universe. Steve Skroce's art is busy, but a lot of fun, filling all the little details of the page so well. This was a good partnership in the making. Even from this small start, the series already shows great potential.

Judgment Day: Aftermath

Published by Awesome Entertainment in March 1998

The covers:

Title: Trial by Tempest

(Judgment Day 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.)

So, three months later and a full month after the first issue of the new Youngblood came out, in the pages of another Judgment Day book, we get that fight with Stormhead. So the fight with Stormhead that was supposed to happen before the first issue came out after the first issue. Sigh, of course it did.

This continuation of the Holiday Special story was drawn by Gil Kane in six pages. I love Gil Kane's work with Alan Moore, but after the Holiday Special, the comparison between the two artists is a little jarring, as you can see here:

Anyway, Youngblood is in Coast City. We see Shaft rescue a woman and child while Twilight flies one of Big Brother's drones to hook up with Suprema. Twilight flashes back to show Professor Night encouraging her to audition for Youngblood, which she's now second guessing. Back in the present, Suprema saves her as the drone conks out in the cold snow from Stormhead's mood swings. Apparently the weather changes with his mood, which is a cool concept for a villain.

Suprema complains for a bit about the new Youngblood members "Doesn't-wear-a-brassiere-girl" and "Thinks-it's-clever-to-swear-lad." Ha. She's about to go save some kids in the path of an avalanche when Doc Rocket beats her to it. Doc and Suprema get into it for a bit.

Doc: "You know when you fly? Well, everyone can see up your skirt!"

Suprema: "Oh! Is that so? Well your bosom goes up and down when you run..."

Moore gave himself quite the gift when he introduced Suprema in the pages of Supreme, but she's even more fun here where she can't seem to fit in with this younger generation of heroes. Again, there's so much potential.

Leonard in his Biggest Brother robot pops up to stop the avalanche and soon he's bickering with Suprema, too.

Big Brother: "What is it with you, Gidget? This is because I'm black, right?"

Suprema: "Don't be stupid! It's because you're loud and impolite!"

Suprema and Doc head on toward some monsters up ahead, but it turns out they're just holograms as Johnny's suit went on the fritz while fighting Stormhead. But the weather is changing to sunny and nice and we find out it's because Johnny popped Stormhead full of Prozac.

Um, does anyone else notice that Kane's Stormhead looks nothing like Skroce's.

Let's just assume that Johnny's suit is still acting weird and is masking Stormhead in whatever he's supposed to look like in that second one.

And that was Youngblood's first mission.  According to Moore's proposal (which I'll get into later), Moore intended to have small flashbacks for all the characters, like the one we got for Twilight here, to show how they all came to join Youngblood, but with the weird publishing of this story, I guess he decided to give up that idea.

Youngblood #1+

Published by Awesome Entertainment in February 1998

The covers:

Title: A Brief History of Twilight

(As always: 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.)

In addition to releasing Youngblood #1 in February 1998, Awesome also produced the small +1 issue, too. It was a special exclusive edition. Don't ask me where you could find it, but it's another of those rarities that few people knew about at the time. It didn't include the content from issue #1, instead it featured a small Twilight story and republished the story from the Holiday Special and a lot of stuff encouraging retailers to push the series.

The Twilight story doesn't add much, but it features beautiful Steve Skroce art and for anyone who is unfamiliar with Twilight's backstory, it fills them in.

Here it is, if you've never read it:

We see her as a baby with her parents before they died. (I love the newspaper with Detective Gorilla!) She has the same illness as her uncle, Taylor Kendall, which is similar to Porphyria's Complaint, meaning they can't stand the sun. Her uncle took her in and she soon discovered his secret identity as Professor Night.

At the age of Seven she became Twilight and joined her uncle's work, joining with Supreme to fight Fakeface, the Lounge Lizard  and Jack-A-Dandy. Then she tells about how she got frozen in suspended animation by Hulver Ramik in the '70s (back in the pages of Supreme) and eventually rescued by The Allies in the present.

She joined Youngblood, but is already having doubts about the team. "Personally, I give it six months, but you never know." Sadly, she's not far off.

As I said, it's a fun little thing, but isn't really necessary.

Here's the material for retailers if you want to see it. Of course they were even trying to sell an action figure that doesn't look anything like Shaft's new costume.

 

 

Okay, so next week it's on to issue #1.

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