Written by Rob Liefeld (with “script assistance” by Manolis Vamvounis)
Drawn by Jon Malin
Published by Image Comics

Rob Liefeld takes over as the main writer of this relaunch,  and pretty much everything John J. McLaughlin did and was setting up in the previous 6 issues is forgotten.

Badrock has recovered, something about his body regenerating, and somehow he’s said to still be 17 years old. No mention is made of Jeff Terrel, the original Shaft, who quit the team because he felt responsible for Badrock’s previous condition. Does he know Badrock has recovered? Does that make him reconsider rejoining Youngblood again? We don’t know.

This issue begins with us being introduced to Chapel’s son, a grown U.S. Secret Service agent, referred to as Agent Chapel, but I’ll just call him Chapel Jr. From his internal monologue, we learn that he never met his father, but he’s well aware of his history and reputation, and he’s disgusted by everything he knows about him and said that he only uses his name in order to redeem it. But as he’s clocking out of the White House for the day, he gets a phone call, and when he hears the mysterious voice on the phone, he becomes possessed and heads for Youngblood HQ.

At Youngblood HQ, we see Cougar taking Troll and Knightsber (both described as Youngblood reservists) to where the rest of the team is training. Badrock, Shaft, Lady Photon, Die Hard, and Vogue are working through some maneuvers against robots. Apparently, the respect that Shaft gained from the team in issue #74 is gone, as team members are calling him “Not Shaft” again. But Troll sneaks off and goes to a restricted area in the HQ, attacking a security guard who tried to stop him.

It’s unclear if Troll is also possessed or perhaps operating out of some kind of long-term blackmail, but he resumes his original blue-skinned hairy form and arrives in an area of the HQ where they keep secrets, including the preserved corpse of Chapel (when did he die? As we last saw him in Chapel (one-shot), he was still alive?). Through some supernatural shenanigans, he’s joined by Chapel Jr. and they resurrect Chapel as his demonic form, Lord Chapel, who then attacks and takes out most of the Youngblood team.

Even more so than before, this issue is aimed squarely at existing Youngblood fans, the ones who were reading the title way back in the 1990s and know the history of Chapel’s transformation into a demon; otherwise, you’d be lost and would have no idea what’s going on. That being said, I think most of the original fans would be satisfied with this story, even with Malin’s bland artwork.