Youngblood: Bloodsport #1
By Mark Millar and Rob Liefeld
Published by Arcade Comics
It's hard to tell if Mark Millar is laughing with -- or at -- Rob Liefeld. His script makes a complete and utter mockery of Liefeld's 1990s Image work -- and you couldn't ask for a more deserving target. Youngblood and dozens of other forgotten Image titles crammed the stands with poorly-drawn spandex-fests with plots that seemed like they were generated by a particularly verbose and enthusiastic 4-year-old. If Millar is indeed "taking the piss," Liefeld seems game to play along. The end result is a grim, profane and surprisingly readable (if not entirely original) post-ironic sooperhero saga definitely not intended for children.
Mark Millar has aggravated Marvel purists with such shocking conceits in The Ultimates as Captain America hitting a man when he's down. A lot of comics readers -- most, perhaps -- will be outraged, offended and repulsed, then, by such moments in Bloodsport as Cyclops and Wolverine fellating former Youngblood members while dressed as Marvel Girl. If you don't mind that, well, how do you feel about a zombified Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other '60s civil rights leaders battling one of the team's heroes? Disgusted yet?
Millar certainly loves to push the envelope of what is acceptable in superhero comics, and there's never been a better example of that than this issue. But he brings a story with the hijinks, a variation on the theme of Battle Royale that sees the members of Youngblood required to kill or be killed until only one is left standing and can join an interdimensional iteration of the supergroup. Despite the derivitive nature of the tale, there's more story here than in just about any previous incarnation of Youngblood (Alan Moore notwithstanding, of course), and Liefeld clearly put much more effort into the artwork than is usual for his projects. As superhero comics go, the art here isn't beautiful and it certainly isn't really Art with a capital A, but it's dynamic and it more than gets the job done. Liefeld fans will be pleased with how the book looks, and his legions of detractors may be surprised at how well the visuals hold up.
I suppose it's beside the point to bring up continuity issues, but this first issue seems to contradict Alan Moore's Judgement Day mini-series, with Sentinel showing up as just another former team-member despite his being outed as a murderer at the end of Judgement Day (the best thing ever to be done with Liefeld's characters). Since that story is recently back in print from Checker Publishing, I thought I'd bring it up. I don't know if it was a genuine oversight or a deliberate disregard for the continuity of the series, but a nod to that story might have provided a bit more resonance for readers.
I think it's likely that Liefeld is aware that this book represents something of a last chance for his career -- he's managed to burn a lot of bridges since he first rose to prominence over a decade ago, mainly through shoddy work and probably dozens of books that were solicited and never shipped or shipped unforgivably late. His art here ranges from competent to problematic, with the usual weaknesses in the areas of composition, anatomy and detail -- but there's an audience for this sort of hyperactive artwork, and I imagine a good many readers will be genuinely excited to read this book.
But the potential audience, I think, is broader than simply Liefeld loyalists and simple-minded superhero fanatics (if there's a difference); Millar's snarky, evil script can be seen as much as a criticism of Liefeld and early Image as it is a comment on trends in superhero comics since 1986. So love or hate Liefeld, there's probably something for you here -- and most comics readers have an opinion on Rob one way or the other. I'd venture to guess that if this had been published in a more traditional manner and distributed through Diamond, given Millar's popularity and Liefeld's bona fides as one of the true freakshows of the comics industry, it would probably be one of the biggest hits of the year.
It remains to be seen if there will ever even be a second issue; Diamond is not distributing the book, and the best way to get it is to pay ten bucks on eBay or hope your retailer goes out of his way to order it from the publisher. It's certainly a must-read for hardcore fans of Millar or Liefeld, and as a perverse mockery of superhero tropes, it delivers the goods and I'd like to read the rest of it. Grade: 4/5