Written by John J McLaughlin (with “script assistance” by Manolis Vamvounis)
Drawn by Jon Malin
Published by Image Comics

Gail Cook’s article on Youngblood has come out, which serves as a backdrop for this issue, giving some history on the team, as well as recaps of the current team’s most recent adventures, but not every member is happy with the way they’re portrayed. We get another battle against a random horde, in this case it’s a bunch of virtual 1920s gangsters with machine guns.

Die Hard attacks Lady Photon for her excessively violent actions, but Shaft breaks it up and then holds a team meeting where he chews them all out for their unprofessional behavior.

Jeff shows up, and Shaft is a bit uncomfortable seeing how happy the rest of the team is to see him again. Jeff informs them of the appearance of the dead versions of Vogue from the future. The team, especially Vogue, takes this much more lightly than you’d expect. Then the alarm goes off, and as the team races off for their next mission, Jeff begins to run with them before being reminded that he’s not on the team anymore. Then Handler offers Jeff the leadership of a new superhero team that the U.N. is putting together, but he declines, insisting that his superhero days are behind him.

For a big “milestone” issue like #75, this was a rather underwhelming story, especially after the buildup in recent issues about the dead Vogues from the future subplot, which just feels like an afterthought here. Nothing really happens, and nothing new or interesting is revealed in the magazine article. In fact, there’s a glaring continuity in the form of a double-page spread that is supposed to show the original Youngblood team, except it includes Troll, Knightsaber, and Masada, who weren’t founding members, while excluding characters like Battlestone and Link, who were. But we do get another Badrock cliffhanger, as it appears that something is breaking out of his stone body, with a tagline that Youngblood is “still just getting started.” But I think that’s the problem, after 5 issues, and even with some help from Manolis Vamvounis, McLaughlin feels like he’s still figuring out what he wants to do with this book.