Today is order cutoff for Youngblood 100. However, covers J, L, and M are still missing. They are no longer listed on Lunar, although despite being updated, J and L are still listed on the official Image site. Has Rob addressed this at all anywhere? I was really looking forward to seeing the Pérez cover.
I've been recently thinking about the early 2000s Green Arrow run. Specifically, how amazing it is that between 3 primary writers and a handful of guest writers, they were able to tell one coherent ongoing story about Ollie building himself back up from the dead all the way to getting married. It's a fantastic saga. Smith, Meltzer, and Winick pass on the battons to one another seamlessly while also maintaining a high level of quality.
I started to wonder if there are any other ongoing titles written by multiple people that are able to tell a compelling overall narrative and maintain a consistent level of quality?
The only other examples I can think of are Hellblazer and Swamp Thing. I know they both have some low points and tangents, but they also both manage to land the plane in a compelling and satisfying way.
If you can think of any, I'd like to know. Especially if you can think of better examples than what I've come up with.
We've hit the next milestone! I'm so happy to know we've secured another milestone goal with an additional horror icon in the cast. Now if only we could raise another $450,000 so we can find out what's up with that Ferris Wheel.
This tweet makes me wonder. Is he really crazy enough to try to tie all of Youngblood together in one issue. Aside from Volume 1, Team and Strikefile, none of the Youngblood titles have endings. There are 8 Youngblood series without endings. Imagine if this is the conclusion to all of them?
This rounds out all the Image partner variants. There's still 5 covers unaccounted for, But I'm sure they'll pop up eventually. My favourite of this bunch is probably Valentino. Although Kirkman's is cool and Marc is as great as ever. Definitely curious to see what Cates is cooking up. I don't know what the delay on the Pérez variant is, since I severely doubt he's still drawing it. Regardless, these are some awesome covers.
Hey, Bad-Rockers. We recorded the Bad-Rockin episode 5 today! With very special guest Joe Keatinge! Me and Chris had a blast. It was great chatting with Joe. Episode 4 is still being edited. I've hired a friend to edit it, I'm meeting them tomorrow, so hopefully, it'll be out soon.
While we want to have on more Extreme creators (and we have some very promising leads on a few big ones), we still want to have on plenty of fans as well. We have a list of guests planned for the future, but if you want to be added, please shoot me a message, we'd love to have you.
I'm going to be chatting with Joe Keatinge on an upcoming episode of Bad-Rockin. He's done a bunch of great work at image. His Glory is awesome. Anyway, I thought I'd see if anyone here had any questions you'd like me to ask him. Can't guarantee he'll answer all of them. But I'll give it a go.
The Behind the Mask 2 crowd funding has been steadily climbing, smashing the first two stretch goals. The third goal is for a surprise horror icon cameo. I currently have two ideas as to who it might be.
David Howard Thornton: He's basically the slasher equivalent of the new kid on the block. He/Art has already been referenced multiple times during the press interviews and has shared a fair amount of conventions with Nathan Baesel. I reckon it could be a ton of fun having Leslie and Art be rivals. Perhaps have Art be a smug asshole who brags about his success to Leslie. I could definitely see this happening.
Tobin Bell: While Jigsaw is not exactly a slasher, he does exist in the Leslie Vernon universe. In fact, he has a minor role in the now non-canonical Before The Mask comic. He has a great scene where he breaks down post 9/11 horror films during a therapy session. Since apparently scenes from all of the major drafts of the sequel script have made it into the current draft, it seems entirely possible that this scene could have survived.
Anyway, I'd be curious what other ideas people have for who it might be. I would have guessed Kane Hodder, but he seems like a sure thing without needing to add $100,000 to the budget.
This means the we've now hit the second stretchgoal in a week. Meaning we've unlocked even bigger kills. I am beyond excited for this film. Hopefully we can hit $300,000, because I'm dying to find out what additional horror icon they'll add to the cast. My guess is Tobin Bell or David Howard Thornton. Anyway, so glad we've hit this major milestone.
If anyone has any questions for Joe Keatinge, please put them here. You want to know more about Glory, Shutter, What if?: Age of Ultron, ect ask. You want to know what's the deal with Sharpsmooth? Ask. If he has any interest in return to Extreme. Ask. Ask whatever you like, and I'll try to get him to answer on the upcoming episode of the Bad-Rockin Podcast.
We're planning on recording on May 9th, so you're welcome to submit questions until then. After that I can't help you. Have fun.
I have a very cool announcement to make. We've booked Joe Keatinge as a guest on Bad-Rockin! I am beyond excited to have our first official Extreme Alumni on the podcast. I'll be launching a Joe Keatinge questions post soon after posting this, so if you have any Glory or non Glory related questions, comment them their once it's up.
We recorded Bad-Rockin Ep4 on Sunday. I've bitten the bullet and asked a friend to help me edit it since we went almost 3 hours on this one. I'm seeing them on Wednesday, so hopefully, they'll be a little quicker than I usually am.
If you have any suggestions on who we should have on the podcast, let me know. I plan on reaching out to as many creatives who've worked on Extreme titles as I can. Although I still plan on making this pod a space for us Extreme fans. So until next time, keep on Bad-Rockin.
With the recent launch(and fulfilment!) of the Before the Mask 2 Kickstarter, I decided it was high time that Leslie got his own sub. This is my first time starting a sub from scratch, so bear with me. If any hardcore "Vernonites" with Mod experience are interested, I would be happy to take the help. I look forward to watching this fan space grow alongside the new movie. Let's get this thing started!
In the latest episode of Robservations, Rob reconfirmed his current upcoming slate of Extreme spin-offs. Including Badrock, which has just been solicited, Blood Brothers 2, which is currently available for pre-order and Avengelyne. Apparently, Avengelyne issue 1 is pretty much done, and issue 2 is being worked on.
A new Avengelyne series has been teased for a good while now. I remember Rob originally said it would be stand-alone from the Extreme universe, but no word if that's still the case. It's probably going to be connected or at least inspired by the upcoming movie. I also remember Mark Poulton of Avengelyne Volume 4 fame, hinting he was involved in a new Avengelyne project, but that was also a while ago.
Has Rob recently put out any hints or mentioned anything about this series recently? Also, what do you all want from a new Avengelyne series? Personally, I want more Volume 4. Although, I'd love to see the stuff from Volume 3 explored further.
Marat has officially announced Blood Brothers 2. Rob mentioned this series a few months ago. It's available for pre-order on Rob's website. Can't wait to read the future adventures of Cabot and Battlestone. I hope they pick up some of the threads for the 2015 series.
I got the last of the Brothers Arc delivered today. I want to have the whole run before I start reading. I've got a good way to go, but I'm sure it'll be worth it.
Rob said a couple of interesting things on the new episode of Robservations.
Firstly, he mentioned that Kirkman wrote multiple issues of Youngblood Imperial, which most people assumed. However, he also mentioned that issue 0 is 90% drawn and that he'd be open to finishing and releasing it in the future.
Another thing he said was that Kurt Busiek wrote two and a half issues of Youngblood: Year None. Rob has gone back and forth on how much Busiek wrote. Hopefully the half of the plot for issue three gets put in the back of a collection one day.
Lastly, Rob revealed that Diehard's original name when he conceived of the character as a child was The Mighty Ion. I feel like he's probably mentioned it before, but it was news to me. It makes me appreciate old red Diehard a little more.
I was going to wait until Youngblood 5 was out in the mass market version, but I couldn't keep this to myself anymore.
Rob finally used the pages from that image dump he did in like 2012. I've always hoped he would because ever since I discovered them, I've thought they were some of his best work. I get that they don't exactly match his modern work. But his decision to have them re-inked and recoloured was a terrible mistake, in my opinion. Like, they were so lushes and textured before. And now they just look muddy and bland in comparison. It makes me wonder if all his pages could look as good as those earlier pages if he hired better collaborators.
Rob just posted this announcement on Twitter and Instagram. What with the release of A.C.R.O.Bats, Youngblood issue 5, and now this, I feel like Rob is burning through a lot of his unreleased material. Fingers crossed for the full version of Bloodsport 2 and Giffen's Doom's IV.
I just listened to the latest episode of Robservations. He mentioned that he had some sort of YouTube show back in 2016 talking about comics. Does anyone know what he's talking about?
Also, he mentioned that he's been watching Fiffe's great series, The Fiffe Files, which recently did a six part epic covering every comic Keith Giffen ever worked on. Great series, I recommend it for fans of Giffen. But I wanted to ask, has Rob posted an update anywhere regarding Giffen's Doom's IV issue? I'd really love to see it published, but he's been very quiet about it.
Over the last few months, I've heard people discussing the legitimacy of the upcoming Youngblood 100. People asking, have there really been 100 issues? The short answer is, actually, there's been more than 100. However, it's a little more complicated than that.
To start with, how do we define legacy numbering? What counts? What doesn't? I remember reading about Marvels controversial legacy numbering initiative from 2017. A lot of people complained about pumping up numbering with team-up titles, one-shots, and mini-series. So what if we stuck to just the ongoing titles? All main volume Youngblood issues add up to 51. I've not included Youngblood 0 because I think it should occupy the 0 issue spot. However, Youngblood Volume 3 had a third issue, released as Awesome Adventures 1. Even though it's not called Youngblood, it is an issue for all intents and purposes. Which takes us to 52. While that number contains all the adjectiveless Youngblood titles, it doesn't contain all the ongoings. Team Youngblood was the primary Youngblood title multiple times in the early days of Extreme. Adding it to the pot takes us to 74. There's also Youngblood Strikefile. Which was also ongoing. Adding it takes us to 85. Ten issues below the 94 issues that would be required to have issues 1-6 of Volume 7 take us to 100. But we'll come back to those missing issues later.
I want to touch on the last time this happened. Because back in 2012, Youngblood 71 released. The legacy numbered Youngblood ran till issue 78. Followed by 11 issues of Volume 6. Which would add up to 89. Which is still five issues away from 94.
So, so far, Youngblood 100 is:
issue 58 (all volumes combined)
issue 91 (all Youngblood Ongoings combined)
issue 95 (according to the previous legacy numbering)
So, how did Rob come to the conclusion that issue 6 of Volume 7 was legacy 100. Well, he took all the ongoings, which is 85 issues. Added Youngblood Battlezone, which takes us to 87. Youngblood Yearbook, which takes us to 88. Youngblood Bloodsport 1 and Youngblood Bloodsport Bootleg issue 2, which takes us to 90. Youngblood Genisis 1-2, which takes us to 92 plus Youngblood Imperial 0, which takes us to 93. You may have noticed we're one issue short. Something Rob himself clearly didn't notice. Even I somehow didn't realise that I'd included Youngblood 0 when I was adding everything up on my Youngblood Legacy numbering list over on League of Comic Geeks. But according to Rob's official count, it counts as issue 0. By his logic, issue 100 is actually issue 99. But threat not, because there's more than enough scraps to fill the gap. He acknowledges the Youngblood Super Special and Extremely Youngblood in his post, but he decided not to count them. He likely didn't even think of Youngblood Volume 3 1+, which contains its own material. Or take into consideration how Giant-size Youngblood affects the numbers. With those included, Youngblood 100 is actually Youngblood 103.
All that to say, yes, Youngblood has at least 100 issues.