u/GrantGoodmanArt

Compendium vol 1 should be easier to put together… hopefully

Badrock is back with his first solo book in like 30 years !

Overall the book is pretty fun. Seth Damoose’s art is the real draw here, it reminds of older Ryan Ottley and Tony Moore art from the early 2000s. He can draw a fun action scene and a cute Polar Bear. Looking forward to see more of his work in the future,

The story itself recycles plot points from previously unfinished storylines where one of Badrock’s parent gets kidnapped (this case his mom who was kidnapped in Badrock/Grifter #1) , he fights Girth the bounty hunter character from New Man and Badrock! #1 (from 1995) and loses his powers at the very end (like he does in in the 2017 Youngblood series). I don’t mind since I doubt we will ever see those storylines resolved in their previous titles.

Though I’m pretty sure Badrock resolves the end of the “the white house is missing” story line setup in Youngblood #9 (2007) in a bit of dialogue. Which is pretty funny.

The plot itself is fine and I’m interested where it goes. the dialogue is okay. cute in parts but some jokes don’t land particularly well. I think it’s a fun book and it is a nice change of pace from the usually grim and gritty Extreme fare and reminds me of early Invincible.

The book is designed to have a rotating artist lineup and not to be tool callous but the median age of the Terminal art team is 60 so we might see a few other people jump in if the series gets some traction and is successful. Considering Skybound’s track record of stockpiling issue but giving their artists cover work to stay in the public eye and additional income I suspect these two guys likely have Skybound projects in the works and maybe have a Terminal arc in their future.

Joshua Cassara, former X-Force and Wolverine artist who has been doing covers for Skybound including the Invincible month cover of Transformers. he’s been doing a lot of Invincible sketches lately so I’m inclined to see him doman Invincible project but he would be a nice fit for Terminal considering his X-men affiliation.

J. Scott Campbell, the Gen13 artist and Danger Girl creator who has been doing variants for MASK. He was also one of the top artists of the 90s and despite never drawing the interior of an X-book, has done a lot of covers. Having him join the book at so,e point would be a big get.

We finally made it to the 6th issue of the relaunch and the 100th issue (give or take) of Youngblood overall.

Youngblood faces off against the Keep, a generic alien horde led by the Shepard and a group of Celestial like beings. Despite the big reveal in issue #5 with Re: Gex and other Youngblood members most of the action is focused on the core four male Youngblood members (C’mon Rob give Vogue more to do) and John Prophet who made a last minute appearance in #5. It was fun to see Shaft rock his new gigantic gold bow and Diehard battle the feral and Gollumesque Vandal but my big highlights were Badrock rocking Thor’s (Extreme version) Hammer and Lord Chapel facing off those giant Keep being. Prophet throw downs with the New Men who curious had little to do in this story. but they basically embraced their roles as alien overlords. hope more is done with these characters.

There’s a handful of Extreme cameos. minor Youngblood members like Cougar pop in. We see young and old Bowen from the Infinite (the long abandoned Kirkman Liefeld series from 16 years ago. It’s a fun messy story in the vein of the old Extreme crossovers. I enjoyed the over the top nature of relaunching the series this way and it fits the need for an anniversary issue but I’m hoping to see more focus on specific characters again like we did in the Baptism of Fire days. There’s also a lot of loose threads from previous issues. The Supremes are missing from action, no Battlestone, Brigade, Xerexes and Col. Bravo. Rob is working 101 so we’ll see if any of those characters get followed up on in upcoming issues

Overall I dug it but was left wanting a little more. I’m going to keep reading because I have an affection for these characters and the Extreme universe as a whole.

*Note My review is of the collectors edition that was released two weeks before retail.

Rob just posted this. Shaft with members of Blood Cell from Giant Size Youngblood #1.

I’m kind of wondering if this will finish that story (which originally took place before the relaunch but I could see it being altered to fit after 100).

Rob’s been showing this off on instagram

Todd McFarlane inked another 100 cover featuring the remaining partner/founder characters. Still doing the New Mutants Cable pose

Let’s address the elephant in the room… or the Tazmanian Rhino in the room. A good chunk of this issue recycled from abandoned Youngblood projects from the past twenty years. I count at least 8 pages I’ve seen in preview art from Rob. The most recent of which is the opening three pages where Roman faces the Diehard bots from the 2017 Youngblood series. This was intended for the Blood Wars mini that was scrapped in 2018 or 2019. The later two sequences were part of aborted Youngblood projects and dome around the same time as Bloodsport. The first works effectively as part of the Diehard rescue subplot and the later feels forced in as we are expect to go with the idea that Shaft and Badrock go on a safari adventure while the rest of their teammates are facing off an aloen invasion from the keep. Also no mention of Lord Chapel, Tyrax and the other villains we saw congregate in issue #4. I suspect this issue was cobbled together to help get the book on track and while it has some fun stuff going on it kills the momentum of the previous four issues. The final few pages do bring everything back together where we see a new Youngblood team assembled featuring Cougar, Photon, Combat, Sundance, Extreme Warrior, Prophet, Big Brother, and Doc Rocket along with the Re: Gex making their Image Comics debut.

Overall an okay issue with a few cool moments. We shall see what Rob does with issue #100.

The ACROBats bit at the end is fun. Rob writes a goofy little song as we see these ugly little critters tear through people. Seth Damoose as some nice black and white textures to “mangaify” Rob’s work. I wouldn’t mind more back ups like this in Youngblood. It served Savage Dragon well over the years.