Written by Joe Casey
Drawn by Nathan Fox
Published by Image Comics

I picked up this book, which was published back in November, for two reasons. First, it’s a curiosity due to this being an old character from Rob Liefeld’s Extreme Studios, of which I was a big fan of back in the 1990s. And second, it was cheap.

Seriously, it was just $1.99, which is damn cheap for mainstream comic books these days.

Dutch was introduced in Team Youngblood, which was a spin-off series from Liefeld’s main Youngblood title, this one focused on the “Away Team”, who usually handled international threats, as opposed to the “Home Team,” which faced domestic threats. Since Liefeld wasn’t exactly known for his ability to get a regular title finished on time, Team Youngblood was a decent substitute for us Extreme fans who wanted to see more of these characters.

That being said, as a character, Dutch never really stood out to me. Superficially he was just another Big Guy With Big Guns And Fancy Armor that was a popular archetype during that period (starting sit Liefeld’s famous creation at Marvel Comics: Cable). Every other new team had to have one of those guys. I’d have to go back and reread my old Team Youngblood comics to remind myself if he had any major storylines outside of his debut.

The gist of it is that a man named Giger was a recurring villain in the Extreme Studios Universe. He was a cyborg and leader of a terrorist organization called Cybernet, full of cyborg soldiers, whose goal was to rule the world in favor of cybernetically enhanced humans…or something. I don’t know. Back then a character’s motivation took a backseat to how badass he looked.

In the opening Team Youngblood story, Giger takes command of some powerful communications satellite, and Team Youngblood is assigned to retake control. Dutch was a former soldier for Cybernet, who was recruited by Sentinel, the team leader, to join Team Youngblood because they were under-staffed at the moment and needed someone with his inside information about Cybernet to help him. And that’s all I really remember at the moment.

But the thing that was notable about is that Liefeld didn’t create or own him. Dutch was a new creation by Chap Yaep, who was the young artist hired to draw Team Youngblood, and Yaep maintained full ownership of the character. I recall Liefeld emphasizing this fact in several interviews at the time, as it was practically revolutionary at the time and symbolized everything Image Comics stood for, which was creator-ownership. Unlike when Liefeld worked for Marvel Comics, and everything he created there was owned by them, at Image Comics, you got to retain ownership of anything you created. So Rob let Yaep keep the rights to his character even as he appeared on a team where Liefeld created and owned everything else.

After the series ended, and Extreme Studios dissolved, Yaep did some work at Marvel but mostly went into working in Hollywood on animated movies and TV shows, and didn’t do anything with Dutch. That is, until now, with this new story by Joe Casey, who has some experience working on old Extreme Studios characters.

In this story, Dutch is now an older man, it’s been 30 years (just like in real life) since his superhero days. He’s now living alone in a remote house in the Utah desert. Through internal narration and flashbacks, we’re filled in on his backstory. An interesting thing is that since the old days, Rob Liefeld lost control of Youngblood and those characters. Which means that none of that can be used or directly referenced in this book. So Casey cleverly rewrites things a bit.

Now, Dutch used to work for a terrorist organization called Cybertech, which was led by a man (well, he’s described as a “reptile”) named Gerig. To avoid jail time, he was eventually recruited by someone named Ripcord (which totally sounds like a 1990s superhero), to join the U.S. government’s team of “celebrity superheroes”…BLOOD SQUAD 7.

Hey, it works for me

It’s said that Dutch eventually retired from the superhero business, and Cybertech was finally destroyed, with Gerig believed to be dead. However, in the aftermath random lost Cybertech cyborg assassins, carrying out their old orders, would track him down and try to kill him. Each time Dutch survived and killed the cyborg and buried them in the desert. Now, suddenly, those old cyborgs somehow get reactivated and rise en mass from their graves and launch an attack on Dutch’s home, causing Dutch to use all of his old skills and what’s left of his equipment to save himself, if he can.

The story has an old-school 1990s action film feel too, but it also feels modern. It’s like the last couple of Rambo movies, the old soldier called back into duty, whether he likes it or not. I liked it better than I expected I would. And with the background revealed her, it’s accessible to new fans as much as older ones. Nathan Fox’s artwork is a little rough for me, but doesn’t distract from my enjoyment of the story too much. I can recommend that you check this out

Again, at least it’s cheap!

DUTCH #0