The Batlord

I am starting this review before I have even read this comic. Why? Isn't that unfair? No. It is not. I know Rob Liefeld, the creator of this... thing. I have read his run on X-Force and it is an abomination of art and writing that ****s on the entire medium of comic books and I hope he feels bad.

But just look at this cover. Woof doesn't not even begin... I can't even. That black guy in the center I know is named Chapel, and while I don't know all that much about him I'm almost certain that he does not fly. Wouldn't know it from that pic though.

What's with the guy on the left? Did a witch doctor shrink his head? It's just kind of sitting in the middle of his general shoulder area and if you spun his head around 180° he wouldn't be able to see his own ass. Wikipedia tells me that the medical term for being a hunchback is "kyphosis" and I think that dude qualifies. I'm calling him Kyphoid from now on. It's probably waaaay better than whatever ****ty name Rob gave him.

I could go on, but I should probably read this thing before ripping on it anymore.

According to the introductory page the team's names are Brahma (Kyphoid), Riptide, Photon, Psi-Fire, Sentinel (I thought that was Chapel... huh), and Cougar. So we are officially shit deep in the 90s.


Oh my god this is going to go on forever. One page in and we have some Middle Eastern dictator called "Hassan Kussein" who could not possibly be mistaken for anyone other than Saddam. The pic of him looks a bit younger, but that mustache is pure Butcherer of Baghdad. Stupid, yes, but combined with the broken bits of broadcasts from various news outlets straight from a generic action movie about terrorists and/or communist meanies, this first page is just... I just... **** it. I'd be done if I wasn't intent on getting to at least page two.


Holy ****. Pages two and three. A splash page is when they take up a page or two whole pages with a single image to highlight something that's supposed to be dramatic or whatever. Splash pages can be used effectively if done right, but when used by Rob Liefeld they are reduced to making **** look cool, but in such a way that nobody above Irish drinking age could do anything but cringe.

This is a trope that is sadly still prevalent in comics today. A bunch of people jump out of some aircraft with no parachutes or ziplines (as people do) with arms held behind them in readiness for an impending act of badassness that will never be shown, mouths agape in bloodlust cause people do that. Look at that. LOOK AT IT! How in god's name will any of these people not break every bone in their body upon landing? And how will I continue reading this comic without mocking every single page in sheer exasperation and incredulousness?






My favorite bit is that the previous page was supposed to be ramping up tension with all of the myriad news broadcast snippets showing an impending and uninteresting war, while this splash page tries to be clever by switching to what is presumably the POV of one of the participants in the jump-to-death with dialogue that dashes tension's brains against a brick wall of uninteresting. This page is in no way shocking to me given my previous experience with X-Force, but it still bears mentioning.

And what the **** is that dude with the helmet on the right? Is he even in the shot or is he somewhere else and confusingly interposed on the page? Are his shoulder pads connected to his... lower shoulder pads? Why does he have a bucket with triangles on his head? Is that even a gun?

But I digress. Sentinel does have an impressive buttocks though. Alright, I'm done.


Oh wait, that guy was in the shot. His name is "Combat". Nice? Why wasn't he listed with the rest of the team? Oh, he's probably going to die. Or quit. Subtle. I'd say his ****ty name would be a dead giveaway that he's not destined for issue #2 but that would be giving credit to the rest of the team's names, and I would never do that.

OMG art so bad. If I were to post every abortion in this issue than I'd have to make at least four posts to cover this since I'm limited to ten pics per entry. There's a panel where the perspective is so horrendous that Combat looks at least three times the size of Cougar (who is so blatant a ripoff of Sabretooth from X-Men that I'm surprised Marvel didn't sue) and the only reason I know this isn't so is because... well it can't be so. I guess they might have a giant on the team though, and it shouldn't surprise me that if that is the case that Rob Liefeld wouldn't have made it in any way clear until a panel that looked like perspective had put a gun in its mouth. At this point there is absolutely no way to ascertain Combat's size.

Apparently "War is just a game" to Combat. Cause 90's.


And it gets "Coug" "pumped". Nice.


Combat still may or may not be a giant without a face, apparently Sentinel really can fly, and this is the most boring action scene since the last issue Rob Liefeld drew of X-Force.


Brahma's shoulders are officially taller than his head, none of the defending soldiers have guns for no apparent reason, and I just realized I have no idea what Youngblood (that's the team's name) are actually doing, but I've read enough Liefeld to know that attacking random bases for reasons vaguely stated in the first page to think to much about that.


Brahma and Riptide (the designated chick) also have nice asses, Sentinel's prominent crotch is way too crosshatched for my liking, and those are some tiny tanks.


If they're in a desert then why is the crosshatched background green?

Oh hey, giant robots. Just like the real Gulf War.


On the plus side the giant robots have made me suspect that combat is not in fact the size of a bus, but I have no idea why there are two curtains hanging in midair in the middle of the desert. I think it's the desert. But those are ****ing curtains hanging in midair when there have been absolutely no curtains anywhere else in the book.






I'm serious. Nobody in this comic has a cape. Nobody. There is absolutely no reason for those curtains.


**** me. I don't know whether I want to mock Combat's assertion that "I'm built for this! I'm built for combat!" or the fact that he now appears to be the same size as the giant robots. What the **** is perspective in this comic?!

But seriously, a character named "Combat" just said he was "built for combat". What the **** is that ****ing ****?


LOL. Combat is now my favorite character in this series. "I want the satisfaction of kill-" and then he interrupts himself. And both he and Cougar have pointy ears like Vulcans. Cougar I get, cause I guess he's a cat dude cause his name's Cougar, but why does Combat have pointy ears? It takes away from the majesty of Cougar's pointy ears.

And this comic is now almost half over and aside from the first page with all the news reports about not-Saddam Hussein there is absolutely no context or story to this comic. I know that Youngblood is attacking some enemy of America (there's a single panel in the beginning that implies that the team is an arm of the US military) but not yet have I been given a reason to care. This is just one, long, unbroken action scene that gives absolutely no scale as to the size of the engagement.

Just realized this issue isn't even half over. FML.


One thing I'd like to point out is that Rob Liefeld doesn't draw eyes. He's famous for being iffy on feet, but the man does not do eyes. Occasionally he'll show the whites of someone's eyes, but almost never their pupils. There are two extreme closeups of two guys' faces and only one has even a hint of pupils.

And Psi-Fire apparently appreciates a good dictatorship, but not as much as moolah. Cause anti-hero. I'm not even really leaving any plot out cause so far what I've described is the entirety of the plot. Big Middle Eastern meanie meets American superhuman dudes (and dudette) and unintentional hilarity ensues.


I have no idea what Psi-Fire's powers are, but they should come with a seizure warning.




I guess his powers include producing spaghetti sauce from your eyeballs or some **** with his glowy, green eyes, but whatever the case Rob's attempt to make Psi-Fire look like a psychopath who enjoys killing people is just goofy. And we also see Rob's propensity for adding way too many same-sized teeth to somebody screaming. Another of his trademarks.

For some reason screaming face also tends to be unconscious face, which is one of two of Rob's stock faces, and has the same amount of teeth sans comically gaping maw.


Oh look, Combat and Cougar, previously shown to be battle fiends, are grossed out by Psi-Fire's spaghetti powers. That's how you know Psi-Fire is not to be trifled with.


And now the rest of the team weighs in on Psi-Fire turning not-Saddam Hussein's brains into marinara sauce and we see that though they are grossed out it's all routine and Rob Liefeld's version of quips are exchanged, so that you know it's all good. I only know that these are quips because I have read other Rob Liefeld comics. If you didn't pick up on them then don't feel ashamed; that's for Rob Liefeld alone.

The real ****show is that Psi-Fire previously stated (in the curtains panel) that he could have done this "from the states". So unless the US government is unaware of his range then they knowingly spent the money on a pointless strike force to dispatch a threat that could have been dealt with without any of this. The first half of this issue is therefore entirely pointless. WTF?

Such was Liefeld and Image Comics in the 90's.


"US Today" article about Hussein's apparent suicide. I guess Youngblood is public but their activities are classified? Makes sense. And apparently there's some guy called "Battlestone" at large. Should make for good comics.


And now we're apparently in a shopping mall with two people whose hair is so feathered I'm surprised they don't also fly. Rob Liefeld doesn't know how to draw hair either. Holy ****, the chick has eyes! They look like unintentional robot eyes, but she ****ing has pupils. Progress. Unfortunately I also forgot that his wimin only ever have blowup doll lips. Good god. The guy's eyes are black blobs however, even though we have the same closeup of him. Like, why? Are eyes really that hard?

They're boyfriend and girlfriend too btw.


First thing's first. Guy decides to chase some guy who is presumably a thief and we have a shot of him vaulting over something or other, which gives us yet another of Rob Liefeld's calling cards: asterisk crotch.






Secondly, just from the brilliant internal dialogue I'm going to assume that this dude is participating in a staged event to make him look like a hero. I know from previous research into this series that these heroes are also marketable celebrities, so I'm guessing that this is all a publicity stunt. I could be wrong but I'm calling it.


Nope. Wrong. Just some asshat on a balcony trying to trick "Shaft" into... letting his guard down by putting him on guard so he could kill him? Or something? Either way Shaft threw a pen at him. Got him good too. I'm not sure if he's a ripoff of Hawkeye or Green Arrow (he's apparently an archer) or Bullseye (who can use any object as a projectile weapon cause comics), but I'm assuming it's all of the above.


Damn. Pens are lethal weapons in the hands of a trained archer. The press is eating this **** up. I guess throwing a pen at a guy and killing him in a mall is actually pretty newsworthy though.

"No I.D. No pulse. No answers." is a pretty amazing line, btw. I'm surprised David Caruso didn't put his sunglasses on.


"eepBeep" calls Shaft to HQ while we see some grey dude who I know to be "Badrock" eating something prepared by his lily white "mom". Even his eyebrows are a ripoff of the Thing. If he doesn't mention Yancy St. or say "It's clobberin' time" I'll be flummoxed.

As much as I know I'm still confused but vaguely interested how the grey Thing has a cracker for a mom.


Apparently Hannah Barbara has not yet sued Image as his name is still "Bedrock", there's some generic superhero with a full-body leotard, and we finally see Chapel, who looks exactly like Sentinel, making me think that Wesley Snipes is the only black person that Rob Liefeld has ever seen.

I'd make more fun of the scene with Chapel but somebody else has already done it way better than I ever could, so read that. It's the very first entry and it's the best article on Rob Liefeld ever created and I'm merely a tryhard trying to mimic it.

The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings, Part 2 Of 4

I suppose it's worth mentioning that Shaft, Bedrock, and nameless leotard dude were not mentioned in the opening Youngblood member rollcall. Not cool.


Uninteresting page introducing an unnamed chick member of Youngblood fighting some other chick who looks exactly like her and I suspect that's more out of artistic laziness than any foreshadowing about an evil twin enemy.

There are still way too many pages of this crap.


Group shot of new members who are apparently also a Youngblood team. Don't know if they're a separate team or if all of these yahoos are just the guys who got stuck at home while the other dudes were killing not-Sadam. There's some sort of ruckus but who cares.

Oh hey, Shaft has blues eyes.


Boring page of what I assume to be boring supervillains robbing something or other. I ain't even got **** to say other than that there's a random foot that isn't even worth posting a pic of to mock. Just know there's an incongruous foot.

I guess the other Youngblood team is gonna fight these dudes in the next few pages. Apparently their names are Cage, Strongarm, Deadlock, and Starbright. I know this was the 90's, but is "Starbright" really necessary?


What the **** even is this shot? Like, the baddies are rescuing a Wolverine wannabe with a ten-foot-long topknot, but then that leotard dude who's name I don't know/don't remember does this...







It's pretty much the perfect Rob Liefeld action shot. Notice the obnoxious movement lines on leotard dude, how his legs are clearly in an anatomically impossible position, and the dude getting hit's mouth is gaping open ridiculously. That's Rob Liefeld. Assuming he has a wife she married this picture.


Same ****. Who cares.


Oh... that's it. Issue ends on leotard dude pummeling that dude. So, Youngblood kills Saddam Hussein and then some other Youngblood dudes try to foil an escape attempt by some supervillains. That's it. No character drama whatsoever. Even the action scenes are boring. Like, as in totally uninteresting and I'm not being mean, they just suck, every last panel is lame.

If I continue this there is no way I am putting this much time and effort into this ****. This sucked. Hard. And I still don't know why two characters have pointy ears.

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