Written by John J. McLaughlin
Drawn by Jon Malin and Rob Liefeld
Published by Image Comics

Someone is killing random gamers across the country, somehow manifesting solid versions of video game weapons to use against them in real life. Youngblood is assigned to the case and tracks the killing to a very surprising lead, where they find themselves in a pitched battle against trolls armed with battle axes straight out of World of Warcraft.

That’s the main plot. A subplot has Jeff Terrell investigating a strange case in which someone has found the murdered corpse of a future version of Vogue. The issue ends with another cliffhanger involving Badrock, who’s in a coma at some hidden government research facility.

Whatever mysteries John J. McLaughlin is building toward with Jeff and Badrock are intriguing, but I hope he gets to them without wasting too much time. Three issues so far where it’s mostly Youngblood in some big battle with a bunch of random characters isn’t that compelling. We get a little more characterization from the team, Vogue is still pining over her past relationship with Die Hard, which he ended. We learn that Photon’s species switches genders every 7 years, which is why she’s now Lady Photon. And Cougar, described as the “team lothario,” keeps hitting on Gail Cook, the entertainment reporter assigned to cover the team for the press. And reporters keep calling Shaft “New Shaft”, instead of just Shaft, to his chagrin, while Cougar keeps calling him “Not Shaft.”

I continue to be unimpressed with Jon Malin’s artwork. He’s credited with Rob Liefeld in this issue, which doesn’t help it look any better.