What is it? A comic book with a glossy cover and interior and color throughout. Alan Moore is the writer. Steve Skroce is the penciler. Lary Stucker is the inker. Richard Starkings & Comicraft did the letters. The colors were provided by a company called Awesome Colors.
Plot summary: A secret government organization is scheming to get ahold of an alien from another dimension. An alien wiht no physical form of its own that possesses people. It works.
The alien possesses a soldier guy in the secret underground base and escapes. Youngblod, a superhero team gets involved. Suprema, a Supergirl knock-off, gets possessed. There's a fight. The good guys win and Suprema gets unpossessed.
What's good about it? It's done-in-one rather than kicking off a multi-issue story arc.
For a fairly cookie cutter superhero story, it is executed well.
The attempts at witty dialogue actually made me smile.
Steve Skroce's artwork vaguely resembles Rob Liefeld's without being a slavish imitation.
Rob Liefeld's personal involvement with the book seems to be minimal. He simply owns the characters, and he drew one or two of the twelve variant covers.
What's not so good about it? You remember that cookie cutter comment? Well I meant it. This book could have been done almost as well with any of DC or Marvel's superteams, like the JLA or Fantastic Four.
In fact, I think variants on this theme have been done with the Fantastic Four.
The other problem is this is Volume 3, Issue number 1 of Youngblood. Besides being a bad example of the chromium age tendency for excessive first issues of a single property to increase after-market value, it opens with action and contains very little exposition to explain who these characters are and what they do. I have a vague memory of having reading earlier versions of Youngblood, where the team was government sponsored. Now it appears to have gone private. Only two of the team members are at all familiar to me: Shaft and Suprema.
What The...? Moment: Twelve variant covers. That's just excessive. Now aren't we all glad the 90s are over?
Who Needs It? Youngblood fans. Suprema fans. Anyone who wants to see an Alan Moore superhero comic with no obvious element of irony or deconstruction or commentary on the genre.
Rating: 2 stars (on my five-star scale)
Method of Acquisition: 79 cents from the cheap comics bins at The Outer Limits in Wyoming, Michigan
