Youngblood #1 // Review
There’s an alarm sounding. A group of heroes are going to respond to it. There’s a crisis on the Pacific Coast. Heros shoot out to meet that crisis in a jet that quickly shoots from the Potomac. It’s moving from one coast to the other to possibly save the country in Youngblood #1. Writer/artist Rob Liefeld returns to an old hit with a whole new series. Color comes to the page courtesy of Juan Manuel Rodriguez. It’s a bit weird to see a dated early 1990s superhero format brought to the page once more without any new, novel insight.
Vogue outlines the threat to the team along the way: there’s this mega-yacht that has found its way to the Pacific coast. The man operating the yacht is a mystery figure who refers to himself as Xerxes. He’s warned all governments against interfering with his mission. Vogue doesn’t go into HOW he contacted them or what his mission is, but it must be pretty evil if it’s got the attention of Youngblood. Xerxes’ ship...called The Megalodon has already taken out two patrols that went to investigate. Now it’s Youngblood’s turn to strike. There’s no telling what they’ll find.
The whole thing feels very awkward. The premise is very silly. The execution feels very simplistic. And the dialogue is truly awful for the most part. That being said, there does seem to have been some level of evolution in Liefeld’s writing that's, about over the years. And it's really apparent that he's really, really trying to make this feel like a high gravity action story. The fact that it doesn't really have any substance to it is only a small technicality. Clearly he's trying to do something here. And clearly he's failing miserably. It just feels kind of awkward.
Liefeld’s art style hasn't really evolved all that much either. Some of his framing of the action almost looks like it could almost be compelling in a way. But there's so little in the way of actual depth with what he's bringing to the page. Again: it's a lot of generic superhero-looking people doing generic superhero-looking stuff. None of it feels terribly original. None of the characters, across it being terribly interesting. Which is really awkward considering the fact that he's clearly trying to frame them in a way. That's introducing them dynamically. But much like the artwork it's not really going in a direction that feels all that interesting.
Theoretically, the current series could really evolve into something. But it's not really set up to do so. There isn't much set up behind the premise that really makes it feel like it's addressing anything larger than a simple slugfest between heroes and villains. Theoretically, that would be OK if it were done in a way that felt compelling enough. There are ways to execute action on the page that really feel like they're explosive and compelling in and of themselves. There are ways to bring that to the page that could be really spectacular. Even without any kind of depth or anything like that. Even without any central theme or central complex complexity to a story, it can come across with a great deal of impact if it's brought to the page in the right way. Liefeld simply isn’t doing that here.
