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

Since the first issue of this latest Youngblood relaunch, we’ve just gotten brief glimpses of Badrock laying comatose in some kind of medical facility, with cracks appearing in his stone body. This issue finally reveals what happened to him.

The story is told in flashbacks; it’s not clear how long ago it was. Jeff Terrel was still leading Youngblood as Shaft, and he, Badrock, Die Hard, and Vogue were on a mission in outer space, fighting a supervillain called Starcore, who had a secret base on the moon and had built a giant laser that could destroy Earth. They defeated him and destroyed his laser, but with his last parting shot, he disabled the shuttle that the team is using to get back to Earth. They prepare for a crash landing, which they’re not sure they’ll survive, and Badrock proposes to use his body as a human shield for the shuttle, fully aware that he may not survive the impact. Shaft tries to stop him, but Die Hard stops Shaft, agreeing that Badrock is their only hope. In the end, Badrock’s plan works, the team is saved but Badrock is severely injured and that’s how he ended up in a coma. Feeling guilty that he wasn’t able to protect Badrock, Jeff resigned from Youngblood to return to the FBI.

And that’s that.

As a standalone issue, it’s satisfactory. In fact, I daresay this is the best issue of John J. McLaughlin’s run. At least it tells a complete story. Thus, it’s a shame that this is also McLaughlin’s final issue as the writer.

Overall, it’s been mediocre; I’m not sure he ever had a real handle on the characters or what made Youngblood tick in the first place. And I find fault in the slow pacing of his subplots. Who was the demonic figure behind the zombie horde in #72? And what is his connection to whatever it is that has possessed President Obama? And there’s the even bigger mystery of who or what is traveling through time, killing different versions of Vogue in the future and then transporting the corpses back in time to the present to taunt Jeff. You can add both of these to the long list of unresolved subplots in the history of Youngblood’s publication, as they will be dropped by the next wrter. It would have been better if he’d gotten to those stories sooner so he could’ve completed them.

And, again, Jon Malin was just the wrong artist for this series. At least at this point, his art is too amateurish and stiff. I guess it services the story enough, but it’s not something that would draw a reader to the title. I was reading this series despite the art, not because of it.