The Extreme Universe is made up of several reboots anchored to Ethan Crane, the man who invariably becomes Supreme in each revision of the world. The original Supreme was born in 1920, obtained his powers in 1930 and fought evil in Omega City until 1941, when his world was revised and he was left in a white limbo. The second iteration of the world lasted until 1945, when a second Supreme joined the original in limbo. Many others followed, such as Sally Supreme from the 'forties, Squeak the Supremouse, the 'fifties Supreme, and Scrappy Supreme and the other two Sergeants Supreme. In 1968, The Supreme Supreme was revised out of history and landed in limbo, bringing his home planet Supron with him. He rallied the others to use its raw materials to build a new dimension, the Supremacy, and became king among the Supremes. Over the next 24 years, they were joined by others like Superion in the late sixties, Sister Supreme in the seventies, Macrosupreme, Sirius the Stallion Supreme, Supreme White, Supreme Gold, Supreme-of-the-Future, Fat Supreme, Meka-Supreme, Grim 'eighties Supreme, and all their sidekicks, love interests and friends.
In 1992, the world was revised again, giving place to Rob Liefeld's original Extreme Universe. This lasted until 1996, when the Extreme Universe split from the larger Image Universe in Shattered Image, and Alan Moore wrote the new revision in Supreme #41. His new world lasted until 2012, when Erik Larsen wrote a new revision in Supreme #64. Although published several years later, Supreme Blue Rose, written by Warren Ellis, showed how Larsen's revision only lasted a few months and how it gave way to the modern Extreme Universe. In 2022, Joe Casey dealt with the loss of Youngblood's rights by replacing them with a new team called Blood Squad Seven in a new revision that saw its beginnings in Image! #5.
Timeline[]
Early years[]
The Keep
Universes are born and die a million times. One of these, far away from the Milky Way, springs forth a sea of New Planets. In time, they collide and conjoin and fuse, becoming a single monolithic sphere, larger by far than Jupiter. In this world, life evolves until it reaches its apex with a race called The Keep. In their early stages they inhabit a paradise, a peaceful and perfect balance of nature and technology, but the balance shifts and collapses. Nature falls by the wayside, reduced to raw materials in the Keep's relentless pursuit of technological perfection. Eventually, nature loses its domination over even the basic processes of life and death. The Keep take over the world. When their technology comes to function too well, when death by natural causes is just a memory, they find their enormous planet too small. The scientists become warriors, with land becoming the ultimate prize, and the powers they've developed for sustenace and creation now used for destruction with equal success. As their planet dies around them, the Keep make their final mad leap, and merge with their technology. They become living ships, and roam the galaxies in search of a new home. During this quest, they develop a virus, the Nu-Gene. It infects the environments of a dozen worlds, granting superpowers to its inhabitants. These carriers are harvested at regular intervals to act as slaves aboard the Keep's ships.[1]
The
The First Pantheon
Keep visit Earth, infecting it with the Nu-Gene and possibly creating the missing link in the evolutionary chain of humanity.[2] The Keep create a first race, The First Pantheon,[3] a set of semi-godlings who create the demons, elementals and hyperbeings of the world.[4] The Nu-Gene also creates the Amazons.[3] The monsters of legend (werewolves, witches, vampires) are all born from the Nu Gene.[5] The Keep visit Earth periodically, harvesting the dragons and fairies and trolls and lycantrophes of old that are no longer found in the 20th century.[6]
2.5 million years ago to 200,000 years ago: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives among the first evolved humans and leads the Northern Tribes across the frozen sea to new lands, to the river and prairies of the south, sweet with grain and fat with game.[7]
Around 3100 BC to 332 BC: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives as a warrior in Ancient Egypt.[8]
1200 BC: On a Greek island, Bartholomew J. Troll tricks the sorceress Circe into transforming into a sheep in order to steal her necklace.[9]
Around 1200 BC to 146 BC: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives as a warrior in Ancient Greece.[8]
1005: Troll decides to start The Wheel, a cult to make money after a four-day bender in Madagascar, Africa. It earns him his first million before he's old enough to shave.[10]
33 AD: An alien who would later end up possessing an Acuran host pays Judas to kill Jesus of Nazareth.[11] A time travelling villain named Crypt watches as Jesus bleeds and laughs.[12][13]
Amazonian Lady Demeter is enchanted by a token of love and raped by Lord Silverfall of the underworld, siring a baby named Gloriana Demeter. Her birth causes a rift between the factions, as both know Glory belongs in neither of them, although the Amazonians train her.[14]
Around
Jonathan Prophet
33 AD to 476 AD: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet fights and dies in the colosseum for refusing to renounce his Christian faith to the Roman Emperor.[15]
453: The time-travelling villain Crypt steals a hexed axe from Attila the Hun's corpse.[12]
Roughly 5th to 15th century AD: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives as a warrior in Medieval Europe.[16]
Late 8th to early 11th century AD: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives as a viking under the name Siegfried. Alongside his lover, Margda, they repel the Gundarmen, led by the mystical Drakmordrid. Prophet loses to Drakmordrid, so, to spare his life, Margda agrees to become Drakmordrid's lover. As Drakmordrid is a lord of dreams, he kills Margda's body to possess her spirit. Prophet mourns his lover's corpse.[17]
10th Century: Queen Faith of Amazonia, another dimension, riles up her people to kill all men for having enslaved them and then kill God for having sired men. A young Gloriana Demeter follows her queen worshipfully. They're interrupted by the entrance of Avengelyne, an angel from God who banishes Faith to Purgatory.[18]
1096 CE to 1291 AD: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives as a warrior in the Crusades.[16]
1412
Prophet as Joan of Arc
AD to 1431 AD: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives and dies as a woman under the name of Joan of Arc.[15]
1658 AD: A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives in Japan under the name War-Raven. He passes a test to become the leader of a clan of assassins, and is warned that he'll eventually face his "ghost-spirit".[19] Years later, War-Raven faces another time-travelling, amnesiac incarnation of himself.[16]
A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet lives as a warrior in the times of the American Frontier.[8]
During the American Revolutionary War, Troll's presence becomes known to the American Government and he becomes a trusted advisor to Ben Franklin and many successive American Presidents.[20]
June, 1815: The time-travelling villain known as Crypt battles the time-travelling hero known as Link at the battle of Waterloo. Crypt pisses down Napoleon's throat and takes Link for dead.[21]
November 1888: Bartholomew J. Troll investigates the Jack the Ripper killings, aided by the Maxx and his friend Julie Winters, who are visiting from the year 1994 via Julie's unconscious. In reality, Jack the Ripper is the Maxx's enemy, Mr. Gone.[22]
Around 1920: Michael Stone, an activist for the rights of those with the Nu-Gene, has two children, John and Cabbot. Michael had some peculiar ideas about the way 'real men' should be raised, and encouraged violence between Johnny and his smaller brother Cabbot. Though this stance horrified their mother, Michael thought it would make John an alpha male and toughen Cabbot up.[24]
Ethan Crane overhears some men saying they're going to rape a fifteen year old girl named Sophie Miles, but he's too frightened to stop them. After they've committed the crime, Ethan walks into a bar and shoots them. He's sentenced to a life in prison.[27]
In Germany, Jonathan Taylor Prophet's father is killed by Hitler's men. Needing money to support his mother, younger brother, and fiancee Mary, Jonathan agrees to be experimented on by Doctor Horatio Wells,[28] who turns him into a Super-Soldier by connecting his mind to a satellite called D.O.C.C.[29] Well's assistant, Jackson Kirby, befriends Prophet and helps calm his anxieties. Wells, and possibly Kirby too, are actually time travelers from fifty years into the future, where Earth has been conquered by the tyrant Darkthornn from planet D'khay.[28] The Doctor engineers Prophet under duress, forced to by Darkthornn's human agent, Philip Omen, who wants a soldier for Darkthornn. When Omen realizes Wells plans to betray him, he reprograms Prophet to kill Wells. Kirby and the Doctor take Prophet back in time to the pre-cambrian period, where they wipe Prophet's mind. Wells begins sending him through time to different eras so that with each lifetime lived Prophet can gain experience that allows his mind to re-develop. However, a genetic flaw causes Prophet to have a shortened life span, so every time he dies, Wells brings back Prophet via a resurrection machine. To shape his moral psyche, Wells uses the one thing he knows can give Prophet all the answers he would require: the Bible.[16] This way, Prophet chooses the life of a warrior among the first evolved humans,[7], in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece[8], ancient Rome[15], medieval Europe[16], the time of the Vikings.[17], the Crusades,[16], as Joan of Arc[15], 1658's[19] Japan[16], the American Frontier, World War II[8], the Vietnam war and 2167's future Earth.[17] Eventually, Prophet's real body ends up in Germany.
World War II[]
While sparring with her fellow Amazons, Glory unleashes a savage violence. Lady Demeter admits it's because of her demon father's blood. Not feeling at home at Amazonia nor the Underworld, Glory leaves for the world of men.[14]
A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet fights in World War II.[8]
1939: Ethan Crane is allowed leave prison in exchange for being used in scientific experiments by the military. Horatio Wells exposes his cells to radiation, which kills him after three days, as it did the six previous test subjects.[27] A day later, Ethan comes back to life with stronger cells. Wells tortures him for a week and kills him again to make him even stronger. This process goes on for months.[30] With each awakening, Ethan feels smarter, until he considers himself smarter than his scientists and escapes the facility.[31] He seeks asylum in a church, where he's taken in by Father Beam. Over the following three days, Ethan discovers he possesses super-strength and listens to news of the war, desiring to help. On the third day, he learns to fly.[32] Ethan joins the war efforts, operating nameless for many months until he's dubbed Supreme by the press because of his feats.[31] Supreme takes delight in the war, and actively takes measures to prolong it, committing several war crimes that require cover ups.[27]
Flying
Supreme meets his arch-nemesis, Grizlock
over Washington, Supreme notices a bullet coming out of the G-Corp Chemical company window. He finds a group of spies from foreign shores holding company head Zachariah Grizlock hostage after they triggered a silent alarm when looking for secret documents important to the war effort. The criminals warn Supreme that if he moves they'll trigger a bomb inside the building, and Zachariah begs him not to do it, but Supreme ignores them, grabs everyone, and flies them out of the building as the bomb goes off and Zachariah's life work is destroyed. Once everyone is on the ground and with the authorities, Zachariah refuses to hand over his case filled with the stolen contents of his safe, but Supreme tells him they need the evidence to convict the spies. Zachariah offers to drop all charges in exchange for his case, but he's told it's an international matter and they take it from him. The case contains plans for heavy water, used in the manufacture of atomic bombs intended for the government and so secret not even domestic law enforcements officials could see it. Once it is exposed, the FBI deems the case reveals illegal activities and arrests Zachariah, who swears revenge against Supreme and would escape prison again and again in battles against the hero.[33]
Summer 1942:[25]Loki, the Norse God, tricks his brother Thor into allying himself with Hitler. He also convinces Hitler to adopt Thor's rune symbol, the swastika, as his own. Jealous of his fellow Gods out of loyalty to his Titan forebears, Loki wishes to bring about Ragnarok by having the Nazis harness the atomic bomb at the same time as the Allies.[34] Supreme rises to fight Thor, who is working for Erwin Rommel.[35] Thor manages to see he's on the wrong side, but before he can strike against Hitler, he imprisons Thor in a mountain, where he spends the next fifty year with no idea that time is passing.[36] With Loki's plans ruined, he becomes obsessed with Supreme and discovers that he and his heirs are so pivotal to all future centuries that to destroy the hero before he could sire his line would be an alternative way of bringing about Ragnarok. Loki continues watching Supreme for the moment.[34]
Supreme fights against Vergessen, a Nazi official. Supreme incinerates him with his heat vision and leaves, but unbeknownst to him, Vergessen survives and, capable of shape-shifting, escapes into space, becoming a hired killer for aliens.[37]
1943: Glory, Roman, Diehard and SuperPatriot form The Allies.[38][39] Roman asks a young John Stone to join them, and he becomes Battlestone.[40] Stone quickly develops a crush for Glory. During an attack against The Baron, Battlestone fails to provide cover for SuperPatriot for an attack he couldn't have predicted, Diehard scolds him intensely, although Roman comes to the boy's defense.[24]
While Battlestone joins the Allies, John's brother Cabbot becomes an adventurer[41] named the Sling Stone.[42]
On a mission, Glory, Roman and SuperPatriot take down a death camp. When they arrive, Glory is horrified and she understands for the first time what inhumanity is. A man there, Gunnar Weber, is a scientist who is being threatened into helping "Nazi Frankenstein" Franz Bauer's experiments for the life of Weber's child. Even after freeing the camp, Bauer's usefulness spares him from being brought to trial.[43]
The top brass asks the Allies to recruit Supreme's help in liberating the town of L'Fontaine, France. Supreme responds by destroying a Nazi plane and dropping its bombs on the town, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children. When Glory becomes outraged at this, Supreme kisses her to make her shut up and flies away.[39]
Eventually, tensions between Roman and SuperPatriot erupt too many times and Roman leaves the team and the surface world, returning to his underwater city of Neuport.[40]
1944: June: Bartholomew J. Troll works as a groundskeeper at a ball park in Florida. When the owner, Jim Jeffries, leaves to fight in the war, Troll becomes the coach of a woman's baseball league. They become successful enough to go to New York, where Troll is contacted by president Franklin Roosevelt, who forcefully pulls him away from the series to stop Hitler's right-hand man, Otto Weicker, from developing an atomic warhead. Troll destroys Otto's facility in Northeim, earning him a parade and his face carved on Mount Rushmore. However, Otto reappears and destroys the carving before being stopped for good.[44]
Major Bartholomew J. Troll fights for the Allied forces alongside The Jack, a British commando he hand-trained. They help the Allies in Paris, but something The Jack does embarrasses Troll in front of Glory. Later, Churchill asks the duo to retrieve a secret weapon cooked up by Nazi Franz Volger in Berlin. Troll and The Jack destroy Volger's Ubernaut Project.[45]
Supreme rescues his other girlfriend, Louise, from the Chicago underworld after they get wind they're in a relationship. Supreme realizes Louise has become a liability, and stops himself from caring for her again. He cleans up the mob's rackets, but within weeks a new group has taken their place.[47][note 1]
August 6th and 9th: Supreme drops two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. His sidekick, Kid Supreme, tags along and records the event.[48]
December:[25] After Adolf Hitler's suicide, Supreme captures The Baron.[46] Afterwards, he visits Father Beam in Washington, who reminds him that one of the Ten Commandments prohibits killing and warns him about considering himself above God. Lashing out, Supreme slaps Beam and accidentally kills him.[32] In his grief, he decides to leave Earth, but does so under the cover story of wanting to find a higher calling for himself other than stopping human crime.[46]
1946-1979[]
January 1946: Mere days after Supreme's departure from Earth,[25] Supreme's arch-enemy, Zachariah Grizlock, murders his girlfriend Louise Masters, and Supreme's friends, Billy Nelson and the Junior Supreme Squad.[26]
A time-travelling, amnesiac Jonathan Taylor Prophet fights in the Vietnam War as a Sergeant. When Prophet's partner Jack Corwin dies from a grenade, he sees Prophet's past lover, Margda, as a Valkyrie.[17]
Michael Stone marries Ms. McManus
At some point, John and Cabbot Stone's father, Michael, leaves their mother and marries another woman with whom he sires a girl named Kaitlin McManus. The marriage doesn't last, and Kaitlin's mother tells her Michael died in Vietnam.[50]
At some point after World War II, Battlestone becomes the disciple of a man named Cartwright.[24]
In Space, Supreme allies himself with the Katellans and helps them achieve feats such as the victory at Maxia campaign[51] and the defeat of "Too-Lan-Roo."[26] When passing over the homeplanet of the Creed people, he notices a meteor flying by and destroys it for the sport of it, later learning it was about to destroy the planet below, and becoming a hero to the Creed.[52] Supreme encounters The Shepherd, a servant to The Keep, and the two fight multiple times.[53] In the 1960s, Supreme destroys a mining operation on the planet Osiris Rho when it threatens indigenous crystalline lifeforms. The operation’s owner, Chi, learns of the incident and hires the shape-shifting assassin Vergessen, an old World War II enemy of Supreme. Vergessen enters Supreme's brain to become the one thing Supreme fears can kill him. But, because Supreme believes nothing can kill him, Vergessen becomes nothing, inadvertently killing himself. Supreme deduces that the owner of the mining operation is who hired Vergessen.[37] Supreme goes after Chi, who can't overpower him. Under a waterfall, Chi takes on the form of Father Beam and chastizes Supreme, hoping to manipulate his guilt, but Supreme overcomes it and kills Chi. When he leaves the waterfall, the planet Li-Tep, famed for its lush beauty, is transformed into a barren desert, and Supreme feels that despite winning, he's lost.[54]
1950s: Upon turning eleven, David Anthony Proctor discovers he possesses the Nu-Gene when he realizes he can heal living beings with his touch. However, one day he attempts to heal a wounded bunny who dies in his arms, and he realizes he can't do anything against death. That day, he makes up his mind to find other special beings like himself and to protect them.[55]
1967: Summer: Meg Tsuchida, a paleobotanist, visits Africa's Congo Basin in Zaire to investigate reports of a species of flora believed to be extinct. Her expedition is massacred by the Jakarra, a species of cat-people, but their leader, Khylund, spares her life and takes her into their tribe. Eventually, they fall in love and Meg becomes pregnant.[56]
1968: Daniel Tsuchida, son of Meg and Khylund, is born.[56] As the Jakarrans consider his birth an offence, Khylund is murdered and Meg escapes with her baby back to the states.[57]
1970: Jillian Kessler gives birth to Jeff, who comes from a triplet cell that never split. Due to his huge size, his mother dies giving birth to him.[58][59] Jeff's family is hugely dysfunctional, with his father Arthur blaming him for his mother's death[59] and a brother who suffers from Muscular Dystrophy.[60]
1972: A scientist working for the CIA's Research and Development department stumbles upon a new and lethal virus, discovering the HIV. The government chooses to release it into the populace as a form of population control. Over time, the agency perfects a more controllable off-shoot that can be activated by command and injects it into their own agents in case they go rogue.[61]
Around 1972: Battlestone and Cabbot's father, Michael, becomes the radical terrorist Quantum, declaring war on humanity for opressing Nu-Genes. He builds a refuge for Nu-Genes in Canada called New Haven. In response, a group of Nu-Genes - Kodiak, Jetset, Fireball, Black Jack and Airstrike - come together under the leadership of David Proctor, who can heal others with his touch[55], with the goal of seeking out and educating fellow Nu Gene carriers about their abilities and how to survive the coming harvest from The Keep, the aliens who created their gene. Calling themselves the New Men, they work alongside scientist Marcus Langston to arrest and imprison Quantum.
Proctor, the founder of the New Men, is secretly working for The Keep, and preparing the Nu-Gene individuals to be harvested.[62] The New Men fight foes such as Elemental in a fight that scars him, forever branding him as a monster in the name of their perverted version of justice.[63] When an embryonic hate group target two innocent Nu-Gene children, the New Men try to protect the kids, but are overwhelmed. A Nu-Gene carrier who previously escaped The Keep, Pilot, arrives to help, but both Pilot and Proctor realize they have to choose between protecting their teammates or the kids. Proctor and Pilot choose the kids, managing to escape and saving them, but Airstrike and Jetset die, leaving their son Adam an orphan, and Black Jack develops a grudge against Proctor, turning to evil. Later, the hate group evolve into the Brotherhood of Man.[55] Proctor gains an ally in Pilot, but the New Men falls apart and disbands, with Proctor's allegiance to the Keep well hidden.[5]
In Quantum's absence, the Brotherhood of Man, a human supremacist group, destroy Quantum's refuge and kill everyone inside. Battlestone and Cabbot's mother is also murdered by the Brotherhood, but their sons come to believe it was Quantum's doing.[64][65]
A woman named Angela dates Cole Cash, the spy also known as Grifter, and he proposes to her. However, she refuses because Cole is too secretive and emotionally closed off. Eventually, Angela dates Joseph McCall, and they get married.[66]
1978: Halloween: Bruce Stinson is assaulted by a gang of kids led by a kid wearing skull paint in his face, an event that traumatizes him. Shortly after, Bruce's mother passes away and he's forced to go live with his abusive Uncle Theo. To cope, he turns to religion and takes communion.[68]
1980[]
Following a war in Hell in the future, Lucifer is removed from his throne by Lord Chapel and escapes to the past, landing in this year. He adopts the guise of Alexander Graves, and rises in the ranks of the Pentagon, setting in motion a plan to reclaim that which he's lost and manipulating events to suit his needs.[69]
Youngblood Strikefile #5 - The Katellan Kh'ambt is sent to Assael, a temple asteroid in close orbit around the Acuran sun, to retrieve an Orb of Power. He recalls his Katellan upbringing and training as he navigates the traps and labyrinthine layout of the temple. He reaches its central chamber, but is attacked by a female Acuran who is also after the Orb. They fight until Kh'ambt impales her with his staff, killing her. He searches for the Orb, but can't find it and leaves, unaware it has been taken by a Daemonite. After Combat leaves, Assael explodes.
Youngblood Strikefile #8 - January: Dutch is chosen to run a test on a new exo-skeleton by killing sandinistas in Nicaragua. The operation is a set-up, as all the sandinistas have been taken down by a robot codenamed Aztech sent by the government. Dutch loses the fight and goes into shock, and develops a paraonia against the government. It's all as was planned by the Covenant of the Sword, whose spies ensured a treasured soldier like Dutch would be chosen for that cruel mission.
Bruce Stinson, codenamed Chapel, kills a rogue U.S. Colonel in Nicaragua who had learned voodoo magic.[72][73]
Alexander Graves begins setting in motion plans for his Youngblood program, which leaks to Russia. 13-Years-Old Nikola Voganova is a gymnast of almost superhuman excellence, expected to bring home a gold medal in the '84 Olympic Games. Her father, Professor Andrei, is assigned to "Project Redblood", a top-secret experiment to create a team of Russian super-soldiers to compete with the U.S.A.'s Youngblood Project. Andrei claims the methods being used are inhuman and threatens to expose the project to the united nations. The man in charge, Alexander Stroika, of the KGB, murders Andrei. Leaving her mother Natalya and brother Dimitri behind, Nikola's uncle helps her escape through Russia's border, dying in the process.[74]
1984[]
In Katella, Kh'ambt voices his disapproval of the Emperor's directives several times. It becomes spread around that he wants to split the council and overthrow the Katellan Emperor. At some point between 1980 and now, Kh'ambt and the AcuranPhoton, his bitter rival, become accused of treason, but it is not known who is the traitor. The two of them escape off-planet.[75] When passing near Earth, Alexander Graves uses his hellish powers to cause them to crash land.[69] The aliens are told they'll get political asylum in exchange for their knowledge of Katellan and Acuran technology.[75]
Chapel is interviewed to see if he's fit to form part of "The Young Project."John Stone pretends to be the supervillain "Fist of the Bizarre" and, after a fight, passes Chapel.[68][76][41]
Alexander Graves creates Youngblood.[77] Marcus Langston becomes its first member, codenamed Sentinel.[78] When the time comes for Youngblood's debut, Graves replaces Kh'ambt with a clone who joins the Youngblood team as Combat, while the real Kh'ambt is locked away.[79]
1986[]
February: Operation: Knightstrike #1 - A U.S. helicopter carrying a microfilm listing the names of Soviets working undercover for America heads to Afghanistan rebels when it is forced out of the sky by the Russian airforce, led by General Grozny. Wanting to retrieve the documents and the pilots, including pilot Cabbot Stone, Alexander Graves hastily puts together a task force named Operation: Knightstrike to take care of the matter.
Alexander Stroika continues with Project Redblood in Russia, operating under the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. He goes through the medical records of the entire Soviet population, picking those whose genetic structure showed signs of superhuman potential, then subjecting them to a test, a genetic enhancement device powered by the nuclear core of Chernobyl. Most subjects die before the machine can be perfected. On April 26th, the Gene Enhancer overloads, sending radiation into the air and causing the worst nuclear accident in recorded history. Moscow Leaders shut down Project Redblood, blaming a "leak" in the reactor. They court-martial Alexander and send him to a gulag for life.[80]
1987[]
Jason Wynn orders Knightstrike to check out the extent of Cybernet's infiltration in Philadelphia. Dutch, Duke, Simmons, Chapel and John Stone face Giger's forces. When Dutch and Stone are left alone, Dutch reveals he works for Cybernet and kills Stone via a shot in the head. He's later resurrected through Project: Born Again.[24]
Knightstrike raids a Cybernet base in an operation that ends with the death of operative Duke.[38]
Cabbot joins his big brother's team, Operation: Knightstrike, alongside new member Yuki. The two promptly begin dating. During a mission in Afghanistan, they attempt to kill general Nicholi Gregoriev, but the Soviet train they blow up turns out empty.[81]
Leanna Creel goes scuba diving with two other people, but an accident threatens to kill the three of them.[82] Leanna is drawn to an underwater cave, where she meets the Sea Witch, a mystical entity that makes Leanna choose between saving her life or that of her friends.[83] Despite herself, Leanna chooses her own life, and the Witch grants her the power to control water. Shortly after, she reluctantly enters the Youngblood Program to make some quick cash,[20] and they cover up the deaths of her friends.[82]
1988[]
A year after joining Knightstrike, Cabbot is killed through unrevealed means.[81] John places him in Operation: Born Again, where he's resurrected, but the process drives him mad.[84] He's assigned to lead the new strike force Bloodstrike, made out of Born: Again subjects.
Summer: Youngblood is deployed to Kuwait to prevent Hassan Kussein's Iraqui Army from invading. Although they defeat the first strike, the mission is cancelled after Youngblood members Boggs, Raines, and Gamble are killed, and team leader Battlestone is relieved of duty.[85]
Jeff Kessler is recruited off of high school to join Youngblood due to his great performance in football, the only thing that helps him escape the hell that is his abusive father.[59] Adopting the codename Brahma, he meets Showdown in the Bloodpool program, where Youngblood trains possible future members. They become friends, but Showdown leaves, choosing a life of crime.[86]
Showdown meets the Never Man, an otherworldy being of unknown origins who tasks her with forming a group so that he can learn more about the world. Showdown recruits Gage, Strongarm and Starbright, who are oblivious as to the Never Man's existence.[59][87]
October: John 'Deadlock' Locke, a repo man, repossesses a vehicle containing a teleportation prototype case. After finding it, he sells it to Gage, Starbright and Strongarm and he snorts all the profits he made from the sale. When the government raids his house, John passes away from a heart attack. After tests on his body reveal he's a Nu-Gene carrier, John is sent to Project: Born Again in Washington DC, where he begins being brought back to life so he can lead the feds to the teleportation prototype.[68][88]
Fresh out of training for the FBI, Jeff Terrell and his partner Brian Robson catch serial killer Clarissa Maxon. Beaming with pride, Bureau Chief Charles Foster assures them she'll be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. Jeff meets Maxon's prosecutor, Shelly Price, and the two start dating.[89]
1989[]
June: Deadlock is revived after eight months in Project: Born Again. He escapes and joins Gage, Strongarm and Starbright, becoming the final member of The Four.[68][88]
During her Bloodpool audition, a young woman codenamed Tag breaks her neck. She's brought to Project: Born Again to be revived, and incorporated to the Bloodstrike division.[41]
Youngblood Strikefile #5-6 - The day after Bedrock gains his power, his father forbids him from leaving his compound in fears he'll hurt someone. That night, he busts out and escapes into the sewers below. There, he finds the corpses of several guards and the giant, grotesque monster that killed them. The creature tackles Badrock, but he doesn't want to fight. The creature calls himself Husk and says he was once human. Dying of disease, he was convinced to participate in experiments that transformed him into this current state. Viewed as a failure by the scientists, he and others like him were dumped into the sewers. Husk insists that Bedrock join him. While sympathetic, Badrock refuses, and Husk attacks him. Bedrock overpowers Husk right when Youngblood arrives, and Badrock returns with them to his father’s lab. Sentinel then invites him to join the team.
Autumn: Youngblood #0 - Shaft joins Youngblood as Team Leader to replace Battlestone.[85]
October: Youngblood apprehends The Four. In the process, Deadlock is killed and taken to Project: Born Again, where he's merged to the new Bloodstrike division.[68]
November: Bloodstrike is sent to capture three escaped Katellans with Deadlock and new member Tag on a trial basis. Out of his mind, Deadlock murders one of the Katellans, so his own team murders him in return. He's sent to Project: Born Again.[68].[88]
1990[]
March: Deadlock is suspended from working on Bloodstrike after he's diagnosed with violent paranoid schizophrenia due to early conditioning by Project: Born Again.[68][88]
July: Bloodstrike #0 - After four months of additional preparation, Deadlock is reinstated to Bloodstrike. He attends a briefing in his Headquarters. Taking meds, his mental state is stable now, but he doesn't remember his old team, The Four.[88]
1991[]
Brigade #0 - After being discharged as a civilian, John Stone teams up with Lethal, Kayo and Boone to work as mercenaries, hoping to gain funds to wage a war against Project: Born Again's secret replacement of politicians with undead puppets. When their takedown of a Japanese mob lord doesn't bear much fruit, they agree to steal a mystical gem from a U.S. government facility in Norfolk, Virginia for Jacob Marlowe. On the facility, they run into Youngblood, who prevent them from completing the mission. Frustrated, Stone dissolves the team, with only Kayo staying behind.
At the same time, researcher Bernard Barros finds the underwater city of Neuport after years of searching. However, this goes noticed by the evil Neuport wizard Worlok, who sinks Bernard's boat with his two sons on board, Marc and Alexander. Neuport's king, Roman, intercepts the attack, and rescues the family by giving them the capacity to breathe underwater through magic. When Bernard decides to stay in Neuport, as that had always been his life's goal, Roman also gives his sons superpowers so that they'll be able to fend for themselves in the surface world.[90] When Kayo sees the news report that the wealthy Barros brothers are now orphaned and with superpowers, he convinces Battlestone to take them under his wing, and John uses their rich inheritance to create the vigilante super-team Brigade. Marc becomes Seahawk, and Alexander Coldsnap.[91]
The Youngblood International Task Force stops a Japanese revolution.[92]
When the Torgan Empire sweeps the galaxy, Loki lures Supreme into conflict with them.[34] Despite allying himself with the Katellans, they aren't enough to stop the Torgans. Because they're too prideful to ask for help, the Maxians send a secret delegation to the Khrome Conclave, and Khrome agrees to help. Together, he and Supreme are unstoppable against the Torgans. When rebuilding begins in the galaxy, Supreme leaves in search of further glory, leaving Khrome to pick up the pieces. Khrome becomes emperor of Maxia, destroys the Torgans's homeworld and begins expanding his empire.[93]
1992[]
Rebecca Hailey, a young writer hungry for a scoop, agrees to write an exposé on Brigade for her editor, Jack Bonner. She visits a Youngblood Research Facility, where the psychotic Dr. Luke McMullen gives her the power to control ambient heat with her mind. She sets off for Los Angeles with the intent of exposing Brigade as dangerous sociopaths and ruthless killers, but upon meeting Battlestone, she comes to believe in his cause and joins the team.[94]
March: Youngblood captures The Four members Deadlock and Starbright.[88]
May[88][note 2]: Youngblood #1 - The Youngblood Away Team asssassinates terrorist Hassan Kussein while the Home Team captures The Four members Gage and Strongarm. Youngblood member Psi-Fire killed Kussein sadistically, so he's put on power dampeners.
Brigade #1 - Brigade resolves a terrorist hostage situation.
A week later:[95]Youngblood #2-5 - Prophet is awakened from cryogenic sleep by Youngblood and they prevent Darkthornn, the evil ruler from planet D'khay, from invading Earth. The exertion pulls Psi-Fire into a coma.
Brigade #2-4 - Brigade is taken to planet D'Vor, where they defeat the tyrant prince Genocide at the cost of Brigade member Atlas.
Troll steals an Orb of Power from Glory's home, the Island of Amazonia. A week later, he grabs another one in Antartica by evading a squad of Katellans and a Daemonite called Evangeliste. Troll delivers the Orbs to Jeweler, his client, who is actually another Daemonite in disguise.[96]
Supreme leads the Katellans against Khrome's expansive empire, who withdraws and decides to spy on Supreme until he can find the location of his homeworld to seek revenge.[93] Supreme is exhausted and spent, and Loki strikes against him. Very nearly not surviving the attack, Supreme hurls himself into the 30th century, where he meets his descendants, the Starguard, including his offspring Probe and Val-En. They agree to help Supreme fight Loki, but when they travel back in time to 1995, the point of Loki's greatest weakness, they find themselves against Loki's powers at their height, as Loki had deluded them. Ambushed, Starguard are slaughtered and most die. A mysterious other-dimensional being called Enigma intervenes and, in a vision, tells Supreme to race back to Earth and find Mjollnir, Thor's hammer, a weapon capable of defeating even Loki. The trickster God attacks Supreme, so Enigma rips open the space-time fabric to wound the god and deposit Supreme outside of Earth in 1992. However, the tactic leaves Supreme without memories.[34] Back in Starguard's space/time capsule, Probe attempts to save her brother Val-En's life, switching their bodies with their minds, trapping herself in Val-En's body. However, when the capsule explodes, Probe's body is destroyed and her mind in Val-En's body forgets who she was.[97] Meanwhile, Loki rescues Val-En's consciousness and transports him through time and space to an alternate Earth, and they enter a bargain where Loki would give Val-En a physical form under the name of Ardath and eventually lure Supreme to Other-Earth, where Val-En would absorb his powers and return to his original state.[98]
Supreme #1 - Supreme returns to Earth after 47 years.
Supreme: Glory Days #1-2 - On the day of his arrival to Earth, Supreme rescues Glory from Wilhelm von Ritcher with help from a reunion of the Allies.
Supreme #2 - Supreme attempts to kill his old archvillain Zachariah Grizlock, but the super-team Heavy Mettle stops him from breaking the plan. Supreme then joins the team as its new leader to better observe the results of the current day's trend of genetic engineering on human beings, which concerns him.[99]
Darker Image #1 - Bloodwulf, an intergalatic bounty hunter, destroys the moon of Praxon 9 due to its princes having insulted his grandmother.
Bloodstrike #1 - Bloodstrike are hired by Corben, a disgraced G.A.T.E. International commander, into taking out his own base so that Corben can defeat Bloodstrike and regain his standing. Bloodstrike kill Corben.
Blood Brothers - John Stone's team, Brigade, meets and fights his brother Cabbot's team, Bloodstrike. Brigade member Stasis dies in the struggle, and Coldsnap heavily mutates in response to trauma, becoming an ice monster. Meanwhile, Thermal secretly writes an exposé on Brigade for her editor.
ShadowHawk #6 - Chapel is consulted to take action against ShadowHawk, but he declines the job.
1963 #1-6 - Shaft kidnaps Tommy Baker, a superhero from an alternate universe, for reasons that were never revealed.
Trencher #2-3 - Supreme meets Trencher, a walking cadaver of unknown origin.
Bedrock changes his codename to Badrock for legal reasons.[102]
The Pact #1-2 - Youngblood brings in fugitive superteam The Pact, including former Youngblood instructor Blacklight.
Youngblood Collector's Edition #1 - Agent Forsythe from Youngblood Public Relations stages a building fire with battle drones and a supervillain involved. Youngblood resolves the situation before they realize it was all a publicity stunt.
Youngblood Strikefile #1-3 - Diehard rescues Superpatriot from Cyberdata. Meanwhile, when Chapel refuses to do Jason Wynn's bidding, he activates the latent HIV virus in Chapel's blood. Wynn proceeds to leak this to the press, which gets Chapel kicked out of Youngblood.
Youngblood Yearbook #1 - The Youngblood away team stumbles upon the alternate dimension known as Arcadia and its tyrant ruler Tyrax. They swear to stop him one day.
Spawn #13 - Spawn fights Chapel, believing him to be his killer. Angered, Spawn rips the skin out of Chapel's face, giving him a permanent skull marking.
SuperPatriot #1-4 - Shaft visits SuperPatriot's holding cell in the Pentagon, and is outraged about the inhuman studies to which they're subjecting the old World War II hero. SuperPatriot is kidnapped by the Covenant of the Sword, who reveal themselves to the world for the first time. Sentinel helps consult on the crisis. Cabbot Stone demands that his Bloodstrike team be brought in, but Major Jake Farrell refuses. SuperPatriot attacks the Pentagon, but Diehard stops him by appealing to his humanity until he breaks programming.
Supreme #3 - When terrorists take dozens of foreign dignitaries hostage at Dulles International Airport, Supreme and Heavy Mettle intervene even as the government sends Bloodstrike. The two teams bicker over jurisdiction until Supreme single-handedly and brutally slaughters all the terrorists. Maxine Winslow's father is killed by the terrorists, but she blames Supreme's recklessness and swears to smear him using her position as a reporter.[35]
- Supreme's old enemy, Khrome, attacks Earth. Supreme kills Khrome, but the earthquakes caused by their fight allow Zackariah Grizlock to escape prison. Thor also manages to escape from his mountain prison in Germany, but this was actually orchestrated by Enigma, in the hopes of prodding Supreme's memory.[34]
Supreme #7-9 - Supreme is visited by Starguard, his descendants from the 30th century. They warn him against the future threat of Loki, but Supreme is only left confused. Later, he responds to an emergency signal coming from a G.A.T.E. International base in Germany, where Thor, who thinks he's still in World War II, is seeking to find Hitler and kill him. Supreme beats Thor and steals his hammer, as Enigma had intended. When Supreme drops off Thor at G.A.T.E. America, Director Jason Temple informs him they've disbanded Heavy Mettle, but he neglects to mention this was ordered by his boss, Youngblood Director Alexander Graves.
Prophet #1 - Prophet and Kirby travel to a G.A.T.E. International base in Alaska to repair the faulty D.O.C.C., Prophet's intelligent satellite that provides him with super-strength.
Team Youngblood #1-3 - While Prophet's mission is taking place, Giger, leader of Cybernet, takes over the Liberty II satellite which controls all worldwide communications with the intention of controlling all of the world's warheads. Recruiting former Cybernet member Dutch into Youngblood, and new team member Masada, the team stops Giger. Meanwhile, Brahma grows disilussioned with the team and leaves Youngblood. He meets up with Showdown, his old Bloodpool friend, and she invites him to The Four. Meanwhile, Psi-Fire escapes his coma by transfering his mind into a female guard's.
Prophet #2-3 - Prophet and Kirby fix D.O.C.C. and Prophet regains his strength. For breaking into a G.A.T.E. facility, Bloodstrike are called to arrest them, but Prophet beats them all until Prophet and Kirby are finally captured by a FBI strike force led by Mary McCormick, who looks exactly like Prophet's 1930's fiancee for reasons that were never explained. At the same time, Judas, a time traveller from the year 2043, arrives in the present, looking to kill Prophet.
- In the future of 2062, the Valiant Universe's Solar finds future Image's Void in the space that separates their universes. They make love and fuse their realities. Because their energies weren't compatible, the world that results is catastrophic and is undoing itself. A group of heroes including Supreme travel back in time to when Solar and Void met and, causing a black hole, prevent the fusion from happening in the first place.
Prophet #4 - The captured Prophet and Kirby meet Mary McCormick and Philip Omen, director of the Ragnarok Project that seeks to develop the Disciples that Prophet was created to destroy. They're transfered to a facility in Colorado.
Bloodstrike #4-5 - During a day off, Cabbot investigates whether his Deadlock is the same as The Four's Deadlock, Shogun is only interested in working in his armor over being with real people, Deadlock murders and eats people, Fourplay goes shopping and Tag rapes a man named Max Sutherland. The following day, Deadlock arrives at Bloodstrike's HQ with his The Four personality, so he assaults Cabbot. After brutally neutralizing Deadlock, Bloodstrike receive orders to intercept Supreme on the Colorado Rockies, where he's gone to catch the rest of the Dulles Airport terrorists. Supreme murders every Bloodstrike member. In the wake of this, the Covenant of the Sword positions a spy, Leonard Noble, as director of Bloodstrike.
ShadowHawk #12 - ShadowHawk teams up with Chapel to break into Project: Born Again to look for a cure for AIDS. Their search is fruitless.
Bloodstrike #6-7 - Chapel is assigned as the new team leader of Bloodstrike.
The Order of the Knight, an interstellar force of peacekeepers, dispatches a squadron to the ninth moon of K'ythri, where they find a group of Acurans tampering with a strange machine fortress. The Acurans kill everybody but Ironside, who returns with a second squadron. They find the Acuran's leader is Davros, one of the Order's founders. Believed dead when a godlike creature devoured a planet Davros was protecting, Davros actually became the world-eater's herald, and built the machine to find new worlds for his god to devour. Davros is foiled, but he manages to escape.[106][107][88][108][109]
- Brigade member Kayo leaves the team to tie up some loose ends in Japan, not really having a concrete plan for what he'll do. Lethal, feeling a calling from her life as a hired killer, leaves as well. Shortly after, she accepts a contract to kill Kayo. Meanwhile, Brigade ally Hacker is kidnapped by the American Government and forced to work undercover to expose Brigade, tasked with finding a fellow Brigade member who'll be willing to betray the team. He chooses Boone.[110] Brigade is visited by Roman, Battlestone's old World War II teammate, who asks for help defending his underwater city from Worlok, a pretender to the throne who also wants to conquer the surface world. In Roman's city, Neuport, Seahawk and Coldsnap reunite with their father, Bernard, whom they believed dead. Finally, Battlestone defeats Worlok by allowing Court Wizard Trident to possess his body in order to amplify his magic. However, the shockwaves from Worlok's destruction shake Quantum's prison loose.
Looking for a hookup, Tag visits Dent Noires, a club she used to work for, but she discovers the Covenant of the Sword is organ harvesting girls there. Tag puts a stop to it, but there's not much she can do on the small scale.[76]
Bloodstrike #8 - Bloodstrike is put on alert regarding Quantum's prison.
Team Youngblood #4-6 - Cougar is visited in his house by a Jakarran like himself, who dares him to visit their nation in Zaire. Cougar brings Youngblood with him, and they find Cougar's mother has been taken hostage and will only be freed if Cougar fights Lynx for the throne. Unbeknowst to both of them, Lynx is Cougar's half-sister. Her mother, the Queen, died in childbirth, and the King banished the poor infant from the kingdom.[111] Cougar wins the fight, but doesn't want to rule the Jakarrans. His mother agrees to do it instead, as she's familiar with their culture. Meanwhile, Psi-Fire is loose in Youngblood's headquarters until he/she is taken down by Masada. Meanwhile, the situation at Quantum's prison worsens.
- Quantum escapes from prison and declares war on the world again. Despite Youngblood, Brigade and Bloodstrike teaming up, they can't defeat the villain. David Proctor, a member of the 1970's group New Men reunites the sons and daughters of his original teammates and forms a new New Men. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Man begins murdering Nu-Gene Positives with the help of an assassin called the Extreme Warrior, but he switches sides once he realizes he's a Nu-Gene Positive himself. However, even they aren't enough to stop Quantum. Supreme tries facing him, but Quantum's unleashed energies rob Supreme of all his powers. In the end, it takes the sacrifice of every Bloodstrike member for Quantum to be defeated.
While everyone mourns Cabbot, nobody notices Tag survived and she recovers the bodies of Fourplay, Shogun and Deadlock. She takes them to Project: Born Again, where they're healed and cloned. Later, Tag returns to Dent Noires to burn it down, and she finds the man she raped, Max Sutherland, in a struggle with a detective hired to find missing girls, Heaton. A Covenant of the Sword agent shoots them both,[76] although Max survives, turned into a psychic vampire due to Tag having had necrotic sex with him.[112][76] With the Bloodstrike program shutting down, Tag, Fourplay, Shogun and Deadlock get new identities and leave their past lives behind, trusting their clones to cover for them.[76] Later, the Purifiers, a U.S. government force directed to dispose of covert installations and personnel, kills Bloodstrike's Director, Noble, for being a Covenant of the Sword spy.[113] The Purifier's Director, Mars Gunther, takes over and resurrects Cabbot without memories, turning him into a single-man operation codenamed simply Bloodstrike.[114]
Supreme #12-18 - With Supreme powerless, Zachariah Grizlock attacks him with a Supreme Slayer armor, but Supreme manages to win using Thor's hammer. Begging for his life, Grizlock swears he'll restore Supreme's powers. Instead, he subjects Supreme to a device powered by Thor's hammer and meant to kill him, but which just creates a madness in the hero. When the maddened Supreme removes the hammer, it creates an explosion which kills Grizlock and impacts a young man named Danny Fuller, granting him superpowers.[47] In the days that follow, the crazy Supreme fights Union, falls into Spawn's alley and shares woes with him, fights StormWatch, Pitt and Simon Simpkins, a criminal who used to be rivals with Grizlock. In the end, Supreme knocks himself out by calling for Thor's thunder underwater, and awakens as his old self, but still powerless other than by using Thor's hammer.
November: Troll #1 - Following Bill Clinton's winning of the presidential election[20], Alexander Graves decides to change up Youngblood, and his first act is to recruit Troll to the team.
1993[]
Youngblood Strikefile #6-7 - Masada helps Mossad stop her friend Rimon Sibbechai, who has gone rogue and tries to assassinate Hashim, an outspoken anti-Semitic minister. In the end, Rimon calls her a traitor and commits suicide.
Diehard defeats a Kar'nge, an offshoot race of the Katellans, found in an ancient Katellan sarcophagi aboard a derelict spaceship.
March 17th: On St. Patrick's Day, Troll outsmarts the Ex-‘Chauns, leprechauns who lost their powers when Troll stole their crock of gold.
Prophet #5-7 - At the Ragnarok Project, Prophet is subjected to a virtual reality simulation test where he thinks he's fighting at World War II and Vietnam, which triggers his memories of actually doing it and causes him to enter a Berserker rage, storming out of the facility. Kirby is forced to hunt Prophet down with help of the Disciples. Just as Prophet is about to kill Kirby, D.O.C.C. reestablishes its mental link with him, bringing him back to his senses. Horrified by what he has done, he leaves with Kirby. In the Ragnarok Project, a portal opens and Crypt, a clone of Prophet from the year 2043, arrives from the future.
Youngblood Strikefile #8 - Moments later, Crypt raids Ragnarok and liberates their files on Prophet, so that nobody else but him will be able to go after the hero. Meanwhile, Shaft liberates hostages from terrorists at the Schoenbrun Center high-rise.
Prophet #0 - Prophet and Kirby take refuge in a church, where D.O.C.C. informs Prophet it is being attacked. Calling in a favor for a past mission in Mexico where he and Shaft disobeyed Graves's orders and saved 150 people, Kirby gets Shaft to loan them a Youngblood spaceship. In D.O.C.C., Prophet and Kirby meet Exile, who is destroying the satellite and shoots Kirby before claiming he's another of Doctor Wells's creations and Prophet's brother. The outcome of this event was never revealed.
Bloodstrike #11 - Cabbot executes his first mission as Operative: Knightstrike, eliminating a Covenant of the Sword cell with help of his support team, the Experts, Athena, Bailout and Tower.
Brigade #10-12 - Crucible, a Bloodpool trainee that was drafted into the New Men when Quantum attacked, decides to stay with Brigade. She and the rest of the team get involved in a mission against the Japanese Yakuza when they learn they've captured Kayo. Along the way, they receive support from Lethal and the WildC.A.Ts, who are after an Orb Of Power in possession of the Yakuza, and they fight a Daemonite and hired assassin Warcry. Afterwards, Kayo and Lethal rejoin the team.
Violator #1-3 - When the demons known as the Phlebiac Brothers go after their brother Violator, they create a force field around the neighborhood they'll do battle in. While that lasts, Youngblood attempts to destroy the force field, but they are unable to.
Spawn #23 - At the same time, Overtkill's programming gets scrambled and he becomes fixated on Badrock, setting out to destroy him.
Chapel #1-2 - Drinking in his apartment after leaving Bloodstrike, Chapel reflects on a mission he went to in 1983 where he assassinated a Nicaraguan Colonel who was a voodoo practitioner and used zombies. Thinking of this, he decides to visit his friend Al, who's come back to life as well, for the chance of saving his life from AIDS.
Baptism of Fire - To shake up Youngblood for the Clinton administration, Graves brings Troll, Knightsabre, Psilence, Task, Diehard II and Diehard 3000 into the team, and pulls Sentinel into more of an administrative position.
Vogue and Diehard begin dating.
Riptide receives an offer to pose for a nude magazine. When she accepts, the news leak to the media.
Dutch begins receiving death threats from a source that was never revealed.
The Youngblood Away Team travels to Nevada to fight Cybernet, but they find it was a trap set by a group of villains offshoot of Cybernet, Maddock, Warwolf, and Blackrock. They teleport away as they make their base explode, and Combat seemingly doesn't make it out, but he's actually teleported into Katellan ships orbiting Earth who want Combat to answer for the rumors that he fled to Earth because he wanted to overthrow the Katellan emperor. Later, Graves teleports Combat back to Earth.
Shaft's father, Colonel Bravo, begins approaching America to assemble the Order of The Knight, a group of superhumans who had sworn to protect the Earth if called for, as a crisis draws near. He meets up with Link, the lost Youngblood member, who comes from the future. His time-travel, along with Crypt's, causes the timeline to change and prevents the futures seen in Supreme #25, Brigade #25 and Bloodstrike #25.[115]
Enjoying some days off, Badrock becomes a media sensation as he saves a late-night talk host from a would-be-assassin, but the new Youngblood team debuts by saving the White House from an attack by the Brotherhood of Man and Troll steals Badrock's thunder. While Shaft's team goes after Maddock to get revenge for the Away Team, Badrock is attacked by Overtkill while skiing. After sending him on the run, he joins Shaft's mission and they defeat Maddock and his men.
The Away Team tries to recapture Gage, who's escaped and gone back to The Four in Antartica. There, they find Brahma has joined their ranks, and they discover The Four's leader, the Never Man. Jilted that Showdown kept his existence from the Four, Brahma lunges at the Never Man only to be repelled by an energy blast. Outraged, Showdown turns on her master and joins both teams in attacking him. In the end, the Never Man's energies flare out of control and he explodes. Youngblood agrees to let The Four walk away.
In Manhattan, Chapel confronts Spawn and after learning he came back to life after going to hell, Chapel happily shoots himself in the head.
Badrock & Company #1 - Two psychic twin brothers make a bet setting Badrock and Pitt against each other. One brother gets Badrock involved by telling him there is a child’s life at stake; the other brother finds Timmy Bracken, Pitt’s young companion, after school and mesmerizes him into coming along. Badrock and Pitt fight, but in the end turn on the brothers and capture them.
1994[]
Troll II #1 - When Troll hears his old friend The Jack has been murdered, he travels to England to help The Jack's daughter, Julia, avenge him. The Jack had been investigating a case that pointed to the world's scientists being secretly replaced by synthetic duplicates for months, including Badrock's dad, Dr. McCall. Troll, Badrock, and Julia, assigned by British Intelligence as the new Jack, visit Badrock's father, discovering he's a robot and that the plot has been orchestrated by old Nazi Franz Volger. They track him to Brazil, where Volger plans to use the kidnapped scientists to transfer his consciousness into his killing machine, the Ubernaut Mark II. Troll, Badrock and Julia destroy Volger and free Dr. McCall.
Badrock & Company #2 - Badrock wrestles StormWatch's Fuji for charity, but their fight gets out of control when their pheromones are stimulated by a superhuman criminal known as Impulse, working for Mafia Boss Tony Twist. Stormwatch and Youngblood arrive and work together to rescue their teammates. Cougar recognizes Impulse, saying her name as she slips away.
Badrock & Company #3 - Badrock meets Mighty Man at a toy convention when Badrock is attacked by Overtkill. The heroes overpower the villain.
Badrock Annual #1 - While capturing villain Re-Coil, Badrock ends up in Chicago, where he meets bounty hunters Freak Force. After flirting with Ricochet, her boyfriend Barbaric gets jealous and he and Badrock fight in a derelict neighborhood. There, they find a group of squatters victims of human trafficking, who use superhuman powers to prevent the heroes from reporting them to the police. Later, at Youngblood headquarters, Shaft chastises Badrock for his actions and bills Freak Force for part of the damages.
Troll: Once a Hero #1 - During a day off at Youngblood Headquarters, Troll and Badrock are playing pool until Badrock gets upset because Troll wins. He says he shouldn't have to take this from a new guy like Troll, prompting Troll to share a story about how he helped out President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 by stopping Hitler's right hand man, Otto Weicker, and preventing him from developing an atomic warhead. As a reward, Troll's head was carved as the fifth head of Mount Rushmore, but Otto blew it to crumbs before being stopped for good. Troll explains to Badrock that he is the new guy, and he has to take Troll's attitude.
Troll Halloween Special #1 - In San Francisco, Troll spots the Maxx's friend, Julie, in the street and recalls that time in 1888 when he saw a woman just like her while investigating the Jack the Ripper murders. Troll guesses the woman he saw earlier was Julie’s descendant, unaware that was actually Julie, travelling back in time via her unconscious.
Badrock & Company #4 - After Badrock captures a supervillain named Iblis, Velocity from Cyberforce sees it on the news and runs out on her team over how much easier superheroics seem for Youngblood. When Velocity meets Badrock, they're attacked by Cyberdata operatives. They fend them off, but one is mortally wounded. He begs Badrock to tell his son that he died working with Youngblood. Badrock says he will.
Badrock & Company #5 - After Badrock's mother is kidnapped by the Covenant of the Sword to force his father to work with them, Graves tells Badrock to find Grifter of the WildC.A.T.s. Together, they rescue Badrock's mother in Mecca, but Badrock is unaware Grifter did it because he used to date Angela.
Supreme #19-20 - In Washington, D.C., teenager Danny Fuller recalls how, days ago, he gained superhuman powers after being caught in the explosion that gave Supreme temporal insanity. Meanwhile, Supreme recalls how the mob once threatened his girlfriend Louise in the '40s and decides to go after them again. He goes after Tony Twist. Danny follows on his steps, hoping to join Youngblood, and the two battle Overtkill. Although Twist and Overtkill escape, the duo manage to capture rival mobster Pugnacious McCrea, and Danny dubs himself Kid Supreme.
Supreme #21-22 - Seeing Supreme is without powers, Loki senses an opportunity and tricks Odin[34] into summoning the hero to Asgard so that he can return Mjolnir to Thor. Odin interprets Supreme’s bravado as agreement to a contest and declares he and Thor will compete in three challenges. Loki meddles with the duels, aiding Supreme in the hopes both champions will die and trigger Ragnarok. As a backup security measure, Enigma brings a Supreme from an alternate timeline into this one.[34] Thor and the original Supreme tie in all three challenges, so Odin declares the two shall duel to decide who gets Mjolnir. The dwarf magi Sindri creates a duplicate of Mjolnir, Skjyllnir, explaining its enchantment will only last 15 hours, and gives it to Thor to use in his contest with Supreme. Supreme and Thor exchange blows, unaware Loki is magically boosting Supreme’s powers and rage. During the fight, Supreme proclaims he plans to use Mjolnir to remake Earth in his image. After Baldr catches Loki and forces him to cancel his spells, Supreme defeats Thor and declares his supremacy amongs gods and men. Odin banishes Loki to the netherworld, and declares Supreme may keep Mjolnir. Seeing that the hero survived, Enigma sends the Supreme replacement back into space for future use. Loki detects this, and attacks Enigma. He barely survives by hiding his remains within the duplicate Supreme.[34]
The Monster Within - ShadowHawk bumps into Supreme, who is wrecking New York fighting a team called the Fantastical Four. ShadowHawk asks Supreme to cure him of AIDS, but Supreme refuses and flies away. ShadowHawk tries his luck with Charles Flanders, the original Kid Supreme, but he can't help either. Later, ShadowHawk is kidnapped by Bloodstrike and forced to team up in order to stop Dr. Orpheus, a man seeking to synthesize a solution to transport AIDS through water. Later, ShadowHawk travels to Youngblood Headquarters, where Badrock is sympathetic to his pleight and takes him to his scientist father. Armed robbers break into the lab to steal technology. Badrock and Shadowhawk swiftly subdue them, but the unit that would have transformed Shadowhawk is destroyed in the process. Later, ShadowHawk meets Spawn, who can't help either. He accepts his death and attempts to commit suicide, but decides not to. He makes up his mind to take his death like a man when the time comes.
Legend of Supreme #1-3 - Supreme destroys the headquarters of a genetics company and kills all its employees but one man. He orders the man to spread his demand that humanity abandon all genetic research immediately. Later, at an Illinois prison, Supreme slaughters all the mutated and superhuman convicts held there, deeming them abominations. In response, Washington create a clone of Supreme and sicc him on the real one. Fighting, the Supremes destroy much of a U.S. city and the Ural Mountains in Russia before Supreme kills his clone in a cluster of asteroids near Earth. Meanwhile, reporter Maxine Winslow uncovers Supreme's origin by talking with people who knew him in the 20th century. She returns home to find Supreme waiting for her. They argue about his actions, and she admits investigating him has scared her into returning to her faith. He tells her he is leaving Earth again.
Bloodwulf Summer Special #1 - Aliens D'rek, G'rok and P'rik kidnap Bloodwulf's nephew. In the process of rescuing him, Bloodwulf accidentally kills him. Supreme arrives at the station to find Bloodwulf fleeing from his aunt, who has trashed the place in a grieving rampage. Supreme punches her in the face, killing her. Infuriated, Bloodwulf attacks him. After their fight destroys the station they were in, Supreme flies off into space.
Youngblood Strikefile #9-10 (Battle Royale story) - Knightsabre finds out Warwolf, one of Maddock's sidekicks he fought as part of his Youngblood debut and with whom he shares history, is in Las Vegas. He travels there and the two fight, causing so much ruckus that the police arrive to arrest Knightsabre, not Warwolf. The villain manages to escape in the chaos, but he's captured and imprisoned in Hyde Penitentiary, a U.S. prison for supervillains, at some point.[116]
Youngblood Strikefile #9-11 - Cougar is lured by cats to an alley where two street gangs are fighting. Cougar tries to intervene, but a bullet grazes him. Cats swarm the alley, and the gangs flee. After they leave, a feline humanoid named Slink, the King of the Cats, introduces himself to Cougar. He trains Cougar in how to utilizes his feline abilities, including how to climb buildings and land on his feet, squeeze between the bars of a fence, hypnotize people, talk to felines, and use feline intuition. Cougar tries it, senses his mother has been poisoned, and takes off for Africa. Slink shows him a shortcut to Africa by leading him through “the Catacombs”, a maze-like interdimensional space. They arrive at the Temple of Kahega in the Jakarra kingdom. Cougar finds Praedon, his late father’s advisor, tied up. Praedon explains that he discovered Cougar’s mother Meg was being poisoned in a coup attempt and tried to stop the plotters. Cougar realizes the plot was led by his enemy, Lynx, just as she shows herself. They fight, and Cougar defeats her. Saved by an antidote from Praedon, Meg stops Cougar from killing Lynx and reveals the woman is his paternal half-sister. Lynx attacks Cougar again, but Slink steps in and defeats her. Cougar orders the Jakarra to exile her to the jungle until she overcomes her anger. Slink then declares that Cougar will take a more active role in ruling Jakarra now that he can arrive quickly via the Catacombs.
New Men #1 - The New Men (Byrd, Dash, Exit, Kodiak and Reign) locate in Seattle. When they see a news report about a disturbance in the University of Washington, they travel there and fight Elemental, who was an old foe of the 70's New Men and is wrecking the University in search of the Genesis Pods, orbs containing human templates used by Elemental's employer, Dominion, to extend his lifespan for centuries. Dominion lives in the future, and was actually one of the 90's New Men before he changed bodies so often he forgot his original name and gender. Dominion lost the Genesis Pods after a battle with the being named Ikonn, who fell into the 21st Century because of a temporal rift.[117] In the present, the New Men prevent Elemental from finding the pods, allowing Ikonn to roam free, unknown to anyone.
New Men #2-3 - At the carnival, the New Men meet Nu-Gene Pastime, who is being pursued by supervillain Girth. Together, they make Girth flee away. Meanwhile, New Men mentor Proctor contacts scientist and adventurer Khyber to study the captured Elemental, but the villain escapes after a power surge. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Man encroach on the New Men. Meanwhile, the released Ikonn continues killing civilians.
New Men #4-5 - The New Men team up with Ripclaw and Pastime to take down Ikonn, although Dash breaks one of her legs. Afterwards, both Ripclaw and Pastime leave, with Pastime declining membership. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Man continues encroaching on the team. Proctor leaves for reasons that were never revealed and leaves a robot duplicate of himself called Assimilac in his stead.[118] Around this time, Dash and Byrd begin dating.
Back at the New Men's home, Reign is possessed by the gem stuck on his forehead which amplifies his powers, and it makes him rape Dash, impregnating her. Afterward, Reign psychically erases the memory off of Dash's mind.[2]
Bloodstrike #12-13 - Operative Bloodstrike attacks another Cybernet base. In the process, the Experts are captured, and Cybernet leader Olivia takes out one of Athena's eyes. Bloodstrike kills Olivia and rescues the Experts. In Hong Kong, a man named Jagger searches for his former protege, Geist. Jagger trained him for the Olympus Corporation, but Geist betrayed him and became an assassin for hire.[119] In New Orleans, agents of Cybernet, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Covenant of the Sword meet to hire Geist, as they believe he's the one mercenary who can beat Bloodstrike.
Bloodstrike #14 - Athena cybernetically replaces her wounded eye. Later, a servant of Darkthornn from the year 2043, Wargame, hires Geist to fight Bloodstrike and determine if he's strong enough to face Prophet. Geist loses the fight, and Wargame collects enough data to consider Bloodstrike worthy.
War Games - Mars Gunther collaborates with the head of the Ragnarok program, Philip Omen, to send Bloodstrike to capture Prophet in Nevada. Secretly, however, Gunther intends to use Prophet to replace Bloodstrike. Meanwhile, Omen is allied with Wargame and both men work for Darkthornn. Bloodstrike and Prophet fight viciously, impaling each other with sewer pipes, before Wargame brings them aboard his ship, Endgame. He heals the heroes to savor his victory right before Crypt appears and kills Wargame. He attempts to murder Prophet, but stops himself, saying this has only been the overture and the curtain can't rise just yet. Crypt leaves through the timestream, and Bloodstrike allows Prophet to get away.
Extreme Super Christmas Special #1 - December 24th: The Greek sorceress Circe breaks out of the spell that turned her into a sheep for the first time on millennia. Back for revenge against Troll, the man that did that to her, she gives him 12 hours to bring her everything listed in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song or else she will transform all the men on Earth into warthogs. Troll rushes around the world, cajoling, abducting, recruiting, or stealing everything on the list. Youngblood chief Alexander Graves learns of what Troll is up to but declines to intervene. Certain Troll will fail, Circe goes to Central Park to meet him at midnight. To her shock, he arrives in a cargo plane and lowers its loading ramp to reveal everything from the song. Defeated, Circe turns back into a sheep. On December 25th, Troll is in jail for his actions. After one of the “nine ladies dancing” visits him, a guard tells him he is in deep trouble this time, but Troll says he did what he had to do.
1995[]
New Men #6-7 - Exit turns 21, so Byrd and Reign take him to a bar to celebrate. After they leave, Proctor's old friend Khyber visits Proctor, reconising he's a robot duplicate and leaving with him to try to find the kids to track down Elemental. Elemental, for his part, is reprimanded by his master, Dominion, who orders him to find the Genesis Pods for his own good. Meanwhile, Dash discovers she's pregnant and her superhuman metabolism is accelerating the process. At the bar, Exit, Byrd and Reign pick a fight with thugs which escalates until Reign's gem makes him lose control again and he murders one of his opponents. Immediately, the Brotherhood of Man seizes the opportunity to look like heroes against Nu-Gene menaces and attacks them with three robots. Still unhinged, Reign forces Exit to teleport them to their base, the strain of which almost kills Exit. When they get home, the kids reunite and discover Proctor is gone, so they escape to the city sewers through a secret escape route built into the house, all while being pursued by the Brotherhood. Khyber and Assimilac Proctor arrive to find Proctor's house destroyed, so Khyber goes after the kids and helps them. While detectives Lowry and Fowles inspect the bar's crime scene, another old friend of Proctor's, Pilot, overhears them and hurries to the New Men's house, where he finds the Assimilac Proctor. Meanwhile, Secretary Keever learns the New Men are being accused of murder, so he sends out an order to collect them for their protection. However, the order is intercepted by a Brotherhood spy, Higgins, who commands Youngblood to "apprehend the New Men at any cost."
In the sewers, the Brotherhood of Man kills Khyber, and, seeing an opportunity to destroy the New Men from within, infect his corpse with a nanotech virus, transforming him into a living machine.[120]
Team Youngblood #14 - Graves and Keever tell Riptide she'll lose her career if she poses nude for Pussycat magazine, but she does it anyway. Afterwards, Keever tells her she's fired and she'll be off the team after they bring in the New Men.
New Blood - Pilot destroys the Assimilac Proctor after downloading his memories. Meanwhile, the robot Khyber awakens and meets the real Proctor, who's back from wherever he was and who swears to be there for his students from now on. Meanwhile, Youngblood bumps onto the New Men, but when they refuse to turn themselves in, they fight. Youngblood captures everyone but Dash, who runs into Proctor, Pilot, and "Khyber". They track Youngblood and New Men to Youngblood Headquarters, where they're able to take down Higgins, the Brotherhood of Man's mole. A guard takes Keever hostage, revealing himself as another Brotherhood member, but spontaneously combusts before he can cause any harm. Later, Keever offers to make Proctor the New Men’s official government liaison. Sentinel tells Riptide he will try to get her reinstated, but she says she is glad to leave. Suddenly, Dash goes into labor.
Team Youngblood #16 - Sentinel is finally removed from field duty and "promoted" to administrator and Bloodpool trainer. He meets his replacement, Brett Butler, the new Sentinel. After exploring his feelings by writing in his journal, Marcus resigns himself to his new job and thinks he may feel better about it once he starts.
Brigade #13-14 - Thermal finishes writing her exposé on Brigade, but decides not to publish it. However, Boone reveals himself as a traitor working for the government and he knocks Thermal unconscious and steals her work. As Boone flees from Brigade, the team puts Thermal in a holding cell, hurt by her actions. She's consumed by guilt. In a pier, Battlestone engages Boone, but he sets off an explosion that makes it look like they both died. Under cover, he delivers Battlestone and the exposé to the government.
Battlestone #1-2 - Battlestone is reprogrammed by Project: Born Again into an obedient soldier for Graves. He sends Stone to Colorado to kill his old mentor, Cartwright, and Stone completes his mission.
Riptide #1-2 - Thanks to his performance, Battlestone is moved back into Youngblood. As retaliation for Riptide having posed nude in a magazine two weeks ago, Pentagon agent Abbott leaks the information that Riptide obtained her powers by killing two of her friends to Jack Leeds of WAMN Action News. Jack gives the report, but his conscience eats away at him. Leanna runs into Masada while out in Georgetown, and they go to lunch. Leanna wants to strike back at Graves, but Masada advises her to stand trial for the incident. Police arrive to arrest her, and Masada convinces her to surrender. Just after the police leave with Riptide in custody, Leeds approaches Masada and reveals he can prove Riptide has been set up, as Alan Keever gave him the Youngblood file on her origin and that it clears her of any wrongdoing in the diving incident. In custody, Battlestone posts Riptide's bail and claims to take her to the Pentagon, but when she realizes they're going in a different direction, she jumps out of the car, overpowers Stone and escapes. Graves receives a call from Leeds, telling him he'll refute the story against Riptide, but Graves is unphased, even as Riptide bursts into his office and has an outburst at him. He lets her go, saying he's losing the battle to win the war. Riptide runs into Battlestone, who lets her go as well because her physical prowess earlier impressed him, and that means she might be of use to him. Riptide returns home to find the police waiting for her, not to arrest her but to inform her the charges against her have been dropped. Instead, they have arrested Leeds for spreading fake news, but it's a fate he's chosen willingly.
Prophet #9 - Prophet and Kirby are hiding out in Idaho, but Prophet says he must go to Washington, D.C. to confront Crypt. At Ragnarok headquarters in Colorado, Omen orders the base emptied and evacuated. He then visits an underground chamber where he is developing a clone of Prophet. Prophet and Kirby hide out in a church that reminds Prophet of his father’s church. Judas bursts in and attacks, tipped off by the church’s priest. As she fights Prophet and Kirby, she reveals that she comes from the future of 2043. She says Prophet raised her but eventually left her to the Disciples. Feeling betrayed, she has come back in time to kill him. Prophet's reprogrammed android Disciple, DS-9, enters and self-destructs, destroying the church and enabling Prophet and Kirby to escape. Far away, Crypt senses Judas’s failure to kill Prophet, but his master orders him to focus on killing other heroes first.
Crypt teleports Judas to his location, saving her from the explosion. He gives a chamber to Judas, telling her he'll stay in telepathic contact with her and should he fall in the coming conflict, Judas should take the chamber to Crypt's last location to help him rise again.[121]
Lady Demeter's twin sister, Diabolique takes advantage of the fact the elementals of fire and ice have formed an alliance and floods Amazonia in hopes of ruling it, freezing every Amazon except for Lady Demeter and a few of her most loyal attendants, who swear to watch over the frozen Amazons.[14][4]
Bloodstrike #17 - Jagger continues searching for his old protege, Geist. After his job for Wargame, Geist takes a job from Epiphany, a psychic locked up in Hyde Penitentiary. She's an alien of the Othu race who is gathering the parts of a magical object named the Eye of God that will enable her to psionically power up the ship she crashed on Earth millennia ago, and then conquer Earth.[122] Geist gets sloppy about covering his tracks and Jagger and Bloodstrike separately track him to Paris, where Geist wants to steal an Egyptian gem called the Tear of Isis from the Louvre for Epiphany. A three-way fight breaks out, and after Geist escapes, Jagger and Bloodstrike team up. Finding out Geist's plans from an informant named Jaq at a place named Club Masquerade, they catch Geist again, and Bloodstrike tears one of his hands off. Geist teleports away, taking Jagger with him. Jagger appears in New York, some weeks into the future, holding the gem. He takes refuge in Glory's house, who's an old friend of his. She tells him she's leaving for her homeland soon, but he's free to stay with her until he's ready to resume his search. Meanwhile, Colonel Bravo and Link storm The Darkness, Bloodstrike's headquarters, and force Director Gunther to hand over Bloodstrike to them at gunpoint, wanting him for an upcoming fight. As Bloodstrike's regeneration treatment is interrupted, everyone on board sees his face, and identify him as Cabbot Stone. Cabbot remembers his own identity.
Looking to recover the Tear of Isis, Geist shadows Jagger all over the globe until he's able to recover the Tear from Jagger in Monte Carlo.[123]
New Men #9 - In a D.C. Hospital, Dash is in labor. Outside her room, Reign confesses his gem made him impregnate her, angering Byrd. Then, Pilot reveals to the New Men that the Nu-Gene is not naturally occurring but rather the product of genetic engineering by aliens to breed a slave race. Byrd and Proctor leave to join Dash as she gives birth. A nurse walks out with the baby, and—in only minutes—he has already grown into a toddler. Meanwhile, in the University of Colorado, Boulder, rich teenager Jamie Forester bumps into a jock, and accidentally syphons the man's strength and knocks him out. Jamie is scared and confused about what's happened, but fellow student and friend of Exit Paul witnesses the event and understands Jamie is a Nu-Gene, just like him. He also understand she's in trouble, as the guy she's hurt is part of a fraternity backed by the Brotherhood of Man. Meanwhile, Elemental continues searching for the Genesis Pods.
Extreme Sacrifice - Chapel wakes up in Limbo, watched over by the demon Naza’rhat. He just wants to be like Spawn, but Naza’rhat tells him he is meant for far more. The demon shows him a vision of the future: In Hell, Chapel will become powerful enough to overthrow Lucifer and lead the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as the Fifth. As Lord Chapel, he and his army will chase Lucifer to Earth and slaughter millions of people. After killing Lucifer, Lord Chapel will go on to conquer half the galaxy. However, the superhuman Newborn--son of the New Men’s Dash and Reign--will rise against Lord Chapel and eventually kill him. Because time is incidental in Limbo, these events have already occured. Lord Chapel uses the original Chapel's death as a way of resurrection, taking over his body. With all his memories intact, Lord Chapel plans to kill the Newborn before his power can reach fruition. Crypt introduces himself, and offers to help. Lord Chapel orders him to eliminate potential allies of the Order of the Knight, starting with Supreme.
Back on Earth, Graves reveals to Combat that he's Lucifer in disguise, having fled from the future. Meanwhile, Colonel Bravo and Link continue assembling the Brotherhood of the Knight alongside Bloodstrike, Gunther, and The Experts, bringing Roman, Glory, Warwolf, Troll and Knightsabre into their ranks to stop the threat of Lord Chapel. When she's recruited, Glory reveals that her fellow natives from the island of Amazonia have inexplicably vanished and she plans to return later to find her people. Even as she leaves, evil beings lurk in the shadows of Amazonia. When freeing Warwolf from Hyde Penitentiary, an armored guard shoots and apparently kills Tower. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dash and Reign’s son has matured to adulthood overnight. The New Men are arguing about what to do with him when he declares he must leave to find his purpose and teleports away. At the site of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, Supreme sulks over the state of affairs on Earth. He starts to fly away, but Crypt ambushes him and wounds him with an axe, sending him crashing into a Manhattan street. Their battle rages into the night until Crypt pulls Mjolnir away, rendering Supreme powerless. He breaks Supreme’s back and tosses him off a building into Spawn’s alley. Wanting to make the kill himself, though, Loki plucks Supreme's dying body and maroons it on an alternate Earth, so that the powerless Supreme will die slowly, tormented by his utter failure. However, a ripple in existence alters things so that Supreme arrives on Other-Earth with powers, and begins to gradually lose them.[34]
In Malibu, Brigade falls apart after Boone's recent betrayal and what they think was the death of Battlestone, even despite Seahawk appointing himself as the new leader. Packing up Stone's belongings, Crucible realizes she was his half-sister. While Thermal can't stop crying from guilt and Coldsnap and Thermal are at each other's throats, Crypt crashes into the house and kills Coldsnap, Crucible, Kayo and Thermal. Then, he teleports Lethal to a dystopian future to torture her. Glory and Roman arrive on the scene to try to recruit Battlestone, but they can't stop Crypt. The villain revels in the killing until Chapel orders him to attack the New Men in Washington, D.C., and he teleports away. The Newborn appears and tells Glory, Roman, and Seahawk to "go to the nation's capital and seek out the children of the blood--the serpent's defenders" before vanishing.
In Virginia, The New Men leave for the airport to return to Seattle when they're attacked by Crypt, who kills Khyber. Dash leaves in a taxi to go to Youngblood Headquarters for help, but the Brotherhood of Knight arrives first and teleport everyone there. The confrontation was watched by The Brotherhood of Man, who have hired Girth to assist them in taking down the New Men. At the University of Colorado, Jamie Forester wakes up to find a guy named Paul in her room. He tells her she has the Nu-Gene and convinces her to seek out the New Men together. In Washington state, Elemental finds the Genesis Pods, but, to his horror, they are all empty.
Shaft is reunited with his father, Colonel Bravo. Crypt quickly attacks the room, but he's intercepted by the Newborn. After claiming Reign’s control gem, the Newborn psionically blasts Crypt. However, Crypt is immune to the gem’s power, takes it for himself, and seemingly kills the Newborn. The assembled heroes attack, but Crypt fends them off. He's about to kill Dash when Sentinel II tackles him and detonates a small fusion reactor, killing himself and laying waste to Youngblood headquarters. Crypt crawls unscathed from the wreckage just as Prophet and Kirby arrive. They engage Crypt together, but Crypt shoots Kirby with an energy weapon, seemingly killing him, but actually flushing him into the timestream.[8] Crypt transports himself and an enraged Prophet to Hell, where they fight one on one. Prophet disarms Crypt, pins him to the ground, and tears his mask off, revealing him to be a clone of himself, as his prophetic dreams had been telling him. A dead demon rises from the lake of fire and tells Prophet to take Crypt's axe, which Prophet uses to decapitate his clone. With Crypt dead, the heroes consider what to do next as Lord Chapel emerges and battles them. Graves arrives, returns to his true demonic form as Lucifer, and grows to gigantic size to confront Lord Chapel. Nearby, the original Sentinel returns and joins the fight. Having found his control gem, Reign puts it back on his head, lets himself be possessed by the Newborn, and vanishes.
In the asteroid belt that lies between Jupiter and Mars, a space/time capsule from the 30th century holds two time-traveling Supreme descendants, Probe and Val-En. After a fight with a future version of Loki, Probe only manages to survive by placing her mind within her brother's body, whose consciousness has been teleported away to Other-Earth by Loki. Without memories, Probe believes herself to be Val-En, and finds herself drawn to Earth. Upon arriving, she finds the planet locked into war with Lord Chapel. The demon immediately realizes the massive threat posed to him by a body as powerful as Val-En's, so he wastes no time in obliterating his atoms across existence. Through the miracle of Val-En's unique physiology, though, Probe is able to reintegrate their body over Tokyo. However, she still lacks any memories of her true identity or gender.[97]
The Newborn returns and, together with Lucifer, unleashes massive energy blasts on Lord Chapel, seemingly destroying him. Lucifer claims he shaped all these events, restores Reign to normal, and disappears. At the Pentagon, Keever tells Youngblood that Chapel was found alive and has no memory of anything since he joined Youngblood. Keever also reveals that the U.S. government is debating whether to shut down Youngblood. Afterward, Colonel Bravo invites Shaft to join him and Link. Shaft politely declines, and they say goodbye.
Crypt #1-2 - Minutes after Chapel's defeat, Judas arrives at Youngblood Headquarters. Using a chamber, she captures Crypt's lingering soul. Judas storms Philip Omen's new base and releases Omen's Prophet clone from stasis. She then opens her containment device, enabling Crypt’s soul to merge with the clone and reshape it into his form. Omen enters with his armored guards and orders them to capture Crypt and Judas. He shoots Judas, knocking her out, but Crypt slaughters his guards. Rather than kill Omen, Crypt thanks him for creating the clone, warns him not interfere, picks up the unconscious Judas, and teleports away. Elsewhere, the Prophet from the year 2043 travels back in time to the present alongside his followers, the Beholders. He tries to grab Prophet's soul in Youngblood Headquarters, but arrives too late. The Beholders provide the older Prophet, who calls himself Absolution, with a chemical that can destroy Crypt's miasmic energy after his body is destroyed. Crypt becomes aware of Absolution, and orders Judas to kill him after he comes to them on his own. Absolution teleports to Crypt's base outside of time and space, where he faces his clone and the revelation that his protege Judas never died and has turned against him. Crypt teleports them all to a ruined city in 2043 and attacks Absolution. While they battle, Judas realizes the city is where Absolution first found her when she was a girl. Crypt clubs Absolution with a mangled tricycle and orders Judas to kill him. She refuses, recalling how Absolution gave her the tricycle as a gift when she was young, and stabs Crypt in the throat instead. Absolution gives her the device to destroy Crypt’s essence, but Crypt takes over Absolution's body, fully healing himself. Judas activates the device, but nothing happens. Crypt claims this is the moment when Prophet becomes Crypt. He then shoots Judas and teleports away, leaving her to bleed out and die.[124] After this, Crypt's chain of actions begin - he meets Judas in the past and convinces her to travel to the past to kill her uncle, then Crypt travels to the past himself, creating a closed loop.[125]
In retaliation for having frozen her people, Glory lures Diabolique to an icy region, where her own elemental nature leaves her trapped in ice.[4]
Supreme #24 - An amnesiac Probe, occupying the body of her brother Val-En, falls to Tokyo, damaging buildings and several city blocks. Japan’s special defense team, Zero Squadron, scramble to intervene. Probe cannot remember who she is, yet can somehow speak Japanese. A gathering crowd angrily calls "him" Supreme, and one man explains that the Japanese hate Supreme because he dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Zero Squadron attacks, and "Supreme" swats them away, accidentally killing two of them. The surviving one drops Supreme, and "he" quickly discovers he can fly. Away from the battle, Zero Squadron's corporate overseer, Dexter Cortex of Cor-Tek Industries, beheads his underling Kyoga for his and Zero Squadron’s failure. Meanwhile, in a dark cavern in Providence, Rhode Island, a servant of Darkthornn called Dr. Anthony Bryce cuts the heart out of a volunteer, imbues it with dark magic, and puts it back, granting the volunteer superhuman powers and turning him into a member of his cult, the Blackhearts.
Supreme #26-28 - In Tokyo, Dexter Cortex needs to prove the younger-looking Supreme actually is Supreme so that the Prime Minister won't revoke his defense contract with Japan for his Zero Squadron's failure against the hero. He builds a robot woman and throws her off a building. When Supreme rescues her, she explodes and Dexter captures Supreme and plugs him to a memory probe. While the new Supreme receives a download of the old Supreme's memories, Dexter secretly analyses him and confirms they're not the same Supreme. However, this only proves Supreme's identity to Dexter, as he obtained access to Maxine Winslow's report on Supreme's origins, which claim he changes bodies and resurrects upon death. Feigning friendliness, Dexter gives Supreme contact information for the first Kid Supreme, Charles Flanders, in Washington, D.C. In New York, a Cor-Tek doctor downloads Cortex’s digitized consciousness into a new host body, but the body dies within seconds. The doctor tells Cortex he needs to find a superhuman host body. In Providence, Rhode Island, a pregnant woman in labor knocks on the door of her doctor, Anthony Bryce. Half an hour later, Bryce presents the newborn to his cult, the Blackhearts, and proclaims the child to be the son of their master, Darkthornn. Supreme reaches D.C. and is immediately attacked by the current Kid Supreme, Danny Fuller, for being an impostor. Soon enough, Supreme meets with both Kid Supremes, Danny and Charles. Charles shows Supreme and Kid Supreme old film footage of his adventures with the original Supreme and the Allies during World War II. Kid Supreme gets bored, tells Supreme that his past is irrelevant, and flies off. Flanders explains that he got his powers by siphoning them from the original Supreme. When he tries and fails to do that with the current Supreme, Flanders breaks down crying and explains that his whole life revolved around Supreme. Waiting for Supreme to return from space, he never married or had a family and wrote Supreme comics until he was fired. The new Supreme says he cannot give Flanders his powers back, and Flanders kicks him out of his house. Meanwhile, the anger in Kid Supreme's heart attracts a Blackheart cultist, but when he touches Kid Supreme's chest, he decides there's no hate in him and loses interest. He hears Flanders' heart calling for his youthful glory back, so he fights Kid Supreme and leads him to Flanders' house. Flanders discovers he can absorb Kid Supreme’s powers, restoring his youth, and Blackheart eggs him on, promising Flanders will be a god again if he drains Kid Supreme's powers completely. Crazed, Flanders flies off and attacks Supreme to be the only Supreme in the world. They battle on the National Mall until Blackheart appears and tries to manipulate Supreme. Supreme retaliates by ripping out Blackheart’s mystical heart, killing him. This causes Flanders’ powers to transfer back to Kid Supreme. Flanders reverts to his aged form, and Supreme takes him to a hospital. There, the doctor is busy treating a cancer patient, so Supreme excises the cancer in the patient himself and convinces the doctor to treat Flanders. Later, Glory arrives to visit Flanders. Mistaking Supreme for his predecessor, she rushes to hug him. Supreme explains that he is not the original just as Dr. Anthony Bryce enters to treat Flanders and tells them to leave. They step outside as Bryce dons his guise as the Baptist. He is poised to kill Flanders in the name of Darkthornn when Kid Supreme bursts in to stop him. Bryce’s assistants reveal themselves as Blackhearts and attack. Glory and Supreme intervene, and the battle soon spills into the street outside. Kid Supreme fails to subdue the Baptist, but his rapport with Flanders is reestablished. Kid Supreme enters Flanders’ mind and convinces him to help. Flanders absorbs some of Kid Supreme’s powers and drives the Baptist away while Glory and Supreme take out the Blackhearts. The heroes regroup in Flanders’ room, glad to see him restored to health.
Deadly Duo #3 - Villains ManEater and Gator kidnap a group of prostitutes from Atlantis, as they're highly addictive to human males. The act threatens war with Neuport, so Roman tracks them from New York to Detroit, where she rescues the Atlanteans with the help of Kill-Cat and The Kid Avenger.
Brigade #17-20 - A man named L'Xander, member of the cult of The Wheel, founded 3,000 years ago by Troll as a joke, is hired by a Neuport cult to raise the underwater city to the surface. L'Xander decides to unite as many cults as he can to harness their psychic energy and use it to raise Neuport. One of his servants, a woman made of bluish mist called Shape, tips off the government about his plans. After saving passengers from a derailed train, Supreme is kidnapped by Shape, who teleports him to a lab in Neuport, where a scientist named Landro begins siphoning off Supreme's powers. He's a member of the Cult of Aquon, dissidents who preferred when Neuport was called Aquaria before humans forced them to change the name and believe their king Roman favors humans over Aquarians and lets poverty run rampant in the kingdom. Landro tells Shape that Supreme doesn't have enough power, so she must find more subjects. In New York, Shape attacks the Spawn-related mutant-cyborg called Tremor, but he fends her off. Informed of the threat of the cults, Seahawk decides to fund a new Brigade team with Glory and invites Troll to join. Troll accepts, but leaves once Seahawk shows him a scroll made by The Wheel. Reminded of his old cult, Trolls travels to their old base in Madagascar, hoping to recover an antique book. Troll nearly falls, but Shape saves him and shows him the ancient text he was looking for, which points him to another book in Munich. Later, in Munich, Shadowhawk is preparing to rob a museum containing the book, which he hopes will have the cure for his AIDS, when he sees Troll inside stealing the book. Shadowhawk attacks Troll until Troll lets Shadowhawk take the book, but then Shape takes control of Troll and has him shoot Shadowhawk in the back as he walks away. Shape teleports them to Landro’s lab. Landro begins draining Shadowhawk and orders Troll’s death, but Troll breaks free. He fails to escape, and Shape shoves him out an airlock into the ocean depths. Elsewhere in Neuport, L'Xander organizes the Cult of Aquon to ambush Roman, but he fights them off. As Shape watches, their leader Gillorian appears. Cult members subdue Roman, and Gillorian prepares to execute him, but L’Xander wants him alive. Shape kills Gillorian before he can kill Roman and convinces the Cult that Roman is needed alive. Roman flees, but Shape catches up to him and points him toward Troll, who is about to drown. Roman gets Troll into a tunnel and revives him. Later, Shape points Glory towards a secret tunnel beneath an Amazonian church that leads to Neuport. In New York, Glory, Vanguard, and his robot Wally enter the secret tunnel. Glory and Vanguard meet up with Roman and Troll, unaware that L’Xander is monitoring them. In Manhattan, Shape recruits Tremor by helping him find a missing girl. Meanwhile, L'Xander dispatches the mute assassin Radikill to eliminate Seahawk. He's an Alorynn assassin of the Primus Guild who had his tongue cut off at age 12. In New York, Radikill attacks Seahawk in his office. Seahawk survives Radikill’s assault and realizes he has inadvertently sent Brigade into a trap. He radios Glory to warn her, but L’Xander takes control of Troll and forces him to subdue her and the others. L’Xander then has Troll bring them to Landro’s lab. He secures the allegiance of other cults: the Blood Cult, the Starguild Militia, the Hellions, and the American Prime. Later, he drains energy from the members of Brigade and uses it, along with the cults’ psychic energy, to sever the massive cables holding Neuport to the seafloor. Shape and Tremor are inside one as Neuport, renamed Aquaria, rises to the surface and into the air near New York. Then, L’Xander mollifies Landro by declaring him the new leader of the Cult of Aquon. Despite being traumatized and refusing to participate in violence, Seahawk flies Tremor, Wally, and Shape into Neuport and Landro’s lab. As they battle Cult henchmen, Troll removes L’Xander’s control device and frees Glory and the others. As the battle rages, Landro breaks the alliance with L’Xander and declares his intent to conquer the surface world, but Shape incinerates him. With Landro dead, the remaining Cult members surrender, and Shape flies away. Troll endorses the new Brigade, and Roman, Shadowhawk, and Supreme all join. Tremor refuses but says he will help if really needed. In Seahawk’s office, Shape encourages Seahawk to learn from Roman's example, who is reconsidering the way he was ignoring the poor in his kingdom, and tells Seahawk to reconsider his vow of non violence before leaving. She then joins L’Xander aboard The Wheel's heardquarters, a spacecraft orbiting Earth. Although the Aquarians failed, L'Xander fulfilled his contract with them when he raised Aquaria above sea level, so he's promoted one rank closer to the inner hub. Two more cults, the Darklings and the New Bloods, swear allegiance to him. Seahawk continues to fear the future.
New Men #11 - Narcisse, a Nu-Gene who managed to escape the last harvesting from The Keep alongside Pilot[126], watches ancient Keep statues in Peru and considers allying himself with the New Men to stop The Keep. At a Seattle diner, Jamie Forester and Paul, the man who brought her from Colorado, argue about what to do after having found the New Men’s home in ruins. A resurrected Khyber, still controlled by nanobots from the Brotherhood of Man, overhears them and offers to help. Elsewhere, armored troops run down and capture Elemental. In the woods, the New Men engage a Nu Gene carrier close to their lodge near Renton, Washington. They fight the large, armadillo-like creature and make him run away before Proctor can explain it was a fellow Nu Gene carrier human. Later, Pilot and Proctor worry about the fact that Reign's gem is corrupting him more and more. Then, Narcisse arrives to the New Men's base, but chooses to remain hidden, as he doesn't trust Proctor.[126]
ShadowHawk #18 - ShadowHawk battles his worst enemy, Hawk's Shadow, as TV cameras roll. Brigade watches the stream with worry, and Glory considers helping ShadowHawk, but Supreme and Troll insist this is ShadowHawk's fight. Ultimately, ShadowHawk wins, but eventually passes away due to his AIDS.
Brigade #21 - An armored villain called Haunt, and his creature, Drakkus, seek revenge on Seahawk for something he did over 20 years ago. In New York, Glory finds Troll saying his goodbyes at Shadowhawk’s grave. Afterward, the two ride a limo towards an Argentinian restaurant where Brigade will hold a tribute to ShadowHawk. Haunt and Drakkus attack, subduing Glory and Troll and telling Glory to warn Seahawk about the "sins of the father". In Washington, D.C., Seahawk finishes a government briefing on the battle with the Cult of Aquon. Roman meets him outside and reveals that the citizens of Neuport have voted to restores its previous name, Aquaria. In Aquaria, Cult member Hyaline announces his campaign to become the city sovereign. Brigade reunite at ShadowHawk's wake, but Haunt attacks and knocks everyone out except for Seahawk, who is too afraid to become a superhero again. Inspired by ShadowHawk's sacrifice, Seahawk pushes through his limits and fights back against Haunt. However, the villain escapes while keeping his identity and motivations a mystery.
Bloodstrike #19-22 - Cabbot’s is directed by his new boss, Lucas Solomon to stop Epiphany, who broke out from Hyde Penitentiary shortly after Cabbot and the Order of the Knight broke out Warwolf, and she brought the supervillain team The Horde with her - Ghengis, The Half, Maniac, Two-Bit, Figment, Maximum, Marionette, Katellan One and Katellan Two[41]. Solomon orders Cabbot to recapture the villains or else he, Athena, and Bailout will face treason charges. Later, Cabbot parachutes onto a secret base in Alaska that Mars Gunther is using as a hideout, where Gunther takes him to four containment units holding clones of Cabbot's old Bloodstrike teammates. Cabbot works alongside Deadlock, Fourplay, Tag, Shogun and The Experts, but they're unsuccesful at stopping Epiphany from obtaining all pieces of the Pedestal she was gathering. She also receives the Tear of Isis from Geist. The fight spans a CIA base in Virginia, the Orpheus Foundation in Austria, and Chichen Itza in Mexico, but Epiphany combines the Pedestal fragments with the Tear of Isis, forming the powerful Eye of God. She uses it to psionically power up the ship in which she crashed on Earth millennia ago, wanting to conquer Earth. En route to Epiphany, Athena confides in Cabbot about her desire to have a normal life, and they kiss. Bloodstrike catches up with Epiphany’s ship, and they blast their way inside. As they engage the Horde, Tag spontaneously combusts. Cabbot confronts Gunther, and he divulges that what just happened to her is a side effect of his resurrection process. Epiphany enters and kills Shogun and Fourplay. Cabbot fires at her as Deadlock sneaks up behind her and pushes her through the hull of the ship. In midair, Deadlock combusts, destroying himself and Epiphany. The rest of Bloodstrike returns to their jet, and Epiphany’s ship crashes into the ocean. When Gunther apologizes for their teammates’ deaths, Cabbot punches him out. Later, Cabbot says goodbye to Athena and leaves.
Bloodstrike #24 - Cabbot intended to take unpaid time off, but he's convinced to take a month off with pay if he retrieves his teammates' corpses from Epiphany's sunken alien spacecraft. In it, he finds the corpses of the old Bloodstrike's members before he's attacked by the missing two Horde members - Katellan One and Katellan Two. Cabbot manages to defeat them with the help of his teammates' last efforts. Later, he brings their remains to Youngblood, Shaft and Badrock. A Project: Born Again scientist, Doc. Bernard, informs Cabbot the corpses he brought are clones and he's gotta hunt down the originals immediately. Cabbot's only lead is a vague memory of Tag name-dropping a bar to him, the Loose Ends, so he stakes it out for a weekend. Eventually, the real Tag actually arrives. They converse, and Cabbot reveals the purpose of Project: Born Again is to fine-tune the process of reanimation on super-humans with the hope to make it applicable to humans in power. Cabbot tries bringing Tag in, but she brutally assaults him, explaining the old Bloodstrike members want to be left alone - Fourplay works as a gym trainer now, and Shogun got himself a boyfriend. Deadlock is the exception, as he hasn't been taking his meds. As Cabbot watches Tag leave, he makes up his mind, and he reports to Doc. Bernard that his memory losses made him forget Bloodstrike's location.
Glory #1-4 - Glory's father, Lord Silverfall, torments his daughter by manipulating events so that a demonic book, the Book of Love, falls into the hands of one of Glory’s friends, the academic Rumble. The book, which had been lost for 1000 years, was found at the estate of a celebrity who died in a murder-suicide. It was the book used by Lord Silverfall to win the love of Glory's mother, Lady Demeter. Slowly, the book begins making people fall madly in love with Glory and, eventually, with anyone. Lord Silverfall grants Mr. Factors, CEO of Factors Cosmetics, a talisman enhancing the book's effects, so he schedules an appointment with Glory. Mr. Factors tries to convince Glory to become the spokesmodel for a line of perfume he has named after her. She's uninterested, but the Book of Love drives the men in the room crazy, and when they begin to sexually harass her, Glory beats them up. Later, she joins her friends Rumble and his roommate Vandal, a half-demon born from a man and Silverfall's cousin, Lady Tabitha. One of Silverfall's demons, Croglin attacks them and boasts that he killed Vandal’s father before fleeing. Later, Glory, Rumble, and Vandal go to her apartment and find one of Factors’ men dead in her bed. Her shoe heel is sticking out of his chest and the symbol from Factors’ amulet and Rumble’s book is painted in his blood on the wall. The police arrive with a warrant, and Glory realizes she is being framed. She demolishes her bedroom wall to cover the corpse with debris and leaves with Rumble and Vandal. At Vandal and Rumble's college room, The Book activates its second power to open portals and a gigantic demon genie kidnaps Rumble and Vandal. As the Book begins driving the entire city mad with love, Croglin posseses Factors, forcing Glory to kill them. Later, Glory uses the book to open a portal to the underworld. She kills the genie and all his legions and she rescues her friends.
Badrock #1-2 - Badrock returns home from the grocery store to find his home in ruins and his dad missing. A hologram of Girth tells him his father has been taken by Overlord and challenges him to come to the rescue. Badrock teams up with Chicago native and Bloodpool trainee Gunner, who leads him to Overlord's skyscraper. Badrock exchanges blows with Girth, grabs Gunner and his dad, and jumps off the building. Upon landing, Gunner leads them toward an L-train. They fend off attacks by LowBlow, Cutthroat and HellRazor before stumbling upon Officer Dragon. Badrock punches Dragon, but he remains calm and offers the group weapons. Atop Overlord’s headquarters, the villain declares to Girth that Badrock must die for humiliating him. The conclusion of these events were never revealed, but Badrock ended up arresting Girth.[127]
Team Youngblood #18-20 - At the same time as Badrock is busy in Chicago, millionaire Robert Thomas is kidnapped by terrorists. Keever is ordered by Graves' replacement, Battlestone, to reactivate Youngblood to rescue him. Keever hopes to restore the team’s public image. He gathers Shaft, Dutch, and Knightsabre as well as Bloodpool cadets Psilence and Task, and he rehires Riptide. That night, Youngblood storm the building where Thomas is being held and begin fighting their way through the terrorists. Several members are disturbed to see news media already on scene. Psilence telepathically senses something is wrong and discovers the entire mission is a setup. During the battle, a terrorist sets off a smoke bomb. When the smoke clears, Thomas has been shot, and the terrorists blame Dutch. Reporters hound him while Battlestone watches the live news coverage. Secretly, Battlestone is working under the orders of the evil Lord Dredd, who hates Youngblood for reasons that were never revealed. Meanwhile, a 1022-years-old Badrock appears in the present, having travelled back in time from the year 3000 to prevent a war between Earth and Katella after Youngblood refused to release Combat to the Katellans; a war that destroyed both planets in Badrock's time. Dutch disappeared after the mission, so Cougar, Knightsabre, and Vogue go to his mountain cabin to find him. Inside, Knightsabre and Vogue find evidence someone in the Youngblood program was after Dutch while Cougar discovers a hidden bunker in the back yard. They're shocked by what they find, but this was (also) never revealed to the reader. In orbit, Katellan Admiral Kh’rk seeks to recapture Combat and summons an invasion fleet from Katella. In short succession, Battlestone detects Kh'rk's ship. Meanwhile, Psi-Fire is delivered to Youngblood HQ in a stasis pod, as per Battlestone's orders. While TV reporter Jack Leeds questions the integrity of Youngblood on TV, Dutch breaks into Thomas’s home looking for evidence that can exonerate him, and he meets Thomas' widow, Marla, who agrees to work with Dutch to find out who really killed her husband. A Youngblood team flies into orbit to investigate the Katellan ship just in time to see the arrival of the invasion fleet, and they're promptly captured. Late at night, Sentinel's wife answers her doorbell to find Brahma passed out on her front doorstep. How he got there is (also) something that was never revealed. Elsewhere, Keever informs Shaft that Battlestone is dissolving the Bloodpool program. Shaft is outraged but decides he will tell the cadets himself, while Battlestone holds a meeting with the Badrock from the future. Later, Shaft arrives early to a meeting with Battlestone only to catch him murdering his underling Abbott, who had done things like plant false evidence against Riptide when she was off the team but was beginning to get a conscience about the current manipulations against Youngblood. Shaft fights Battlestone, but the Director wins the fight and tells Shaft he's done as leader. Aboard a ship in orbit, the future Badrock leads a force to confront the Katellans.
Bloodpool #1 - Shaft informs the Bloodpool cadets they'll be disbanded, which they don't take too kindly. Bloodpool members Fusion, Psilence, Rubble, Seoul, Task and Wylder set off on their own, leaving remaining cadet Didelphis to fend for himself. Meanwhile, wealthy heir Denver Terry and his mistress are taken hostage in his limousine by his driver and a band of kidnappers. Bloodpool’s jeep accidentally crashes into the kidnappers’ van, and the team subdues them with their powers. Rather than call the police and risk exposing his extramarital affair, Terry writes Bloodpool a very generous check, enough to set them up as an independent superhero team.
Youngblood (Vol. 2) #1 - Badrock 3000's team engages the Katellans and free the captured Youngblood members. Kh’rk agrees to remove his fleet if he is allowed to take Combat for trial on Katella. Sentinel’s team protests, but the future Badrock accepts Kh’rk’s terms. Later, he explains to Youngblood that that Combat was a clone created by Graves. Before leaving Earth orbit, Kh’rk receives communication that the Shepherd, an herald of The Keep is in the Dalus Sector, meaning The Keep are coming to harvest Earth. Back on Earth, Badrock returns to Youngblood earlier than Battlestone's scheming had predicted and for that he gets a scolding from Dredd. Later, Battlestone is informed that Psi-Fire’s mind is not in his body. Meanwhile, Dutch and Marla find Knightsabre, who tells Dutch to lay low while he, Cougar, and Vogue resolve the situation within Youngblood. At the Pentagon, Battlestone tells Shaft he is still an important part of Youngblood, but Shaft is ambivalent. In the Himalayas, a mountain climber is drawn to the frozen form of Diabolique, Glory's evil aunt.
Bloodpool #2-4 - Bloodpool defeat the Eyrth Mover; once a real estate salesman, he discovered he was geokinetic, possessing the power to manipulate earth, and used his ability to accrue wealth, buy mind control technology, and make people his slaves. Later, they're hired by the Egyptian breakaway nation of Pharistan, where they stop Azad, a man who had infiltrated the government and raided the lost tomb of Sekmet-Ra to obtain an ancient scarab-shaped artifact and possess god-like powers. Still in Pharistan, they visit the Sekmet-Ra exhibit, but they're forced to destroy a mummy that comes to life. In December, Task writes Santa Claus a letter wishing for a date with Psilence. Because Psilence is busy, Santa Claus asks his old friend Glory to cheer Task up instead. For Christmas, Task and Rubble are volunteering at a local homeless shelter when a heavily armed street gang bursts in. Glory arrives and helps stop them. Afterwards, Rubble departs to spend the holiday with his family. Glory tells Task she will stay and help at the shelter, and offers him a date on New Year's Eve.
1996[]
New Men #12 - Detectives Lowry and Fowles investigate the deaths of three people who were present at the bar when Reign lost control and killed a man. These new bodies seem to have been killed by the same method, but they were in fact killed by Nameless Ones, the disposable host bodies for Dominion that spawn from the Genesis Pods. At Proctor’s lodge, Pilot and Proctor question Reign about his control gem. Pilot tries to remove it, and Reign lashes out with his powers, beginning a struggle. Elsewhere, Elemental is escorted to Black Jack, one of the original New Men who now works for the villain Dominion, and who must punish Elemental for having misplaced Dominion's Genesis Pods, which extend his lifespan. At Pike Place Market in Seattle, Jamie, Paul and Khyber get caught in the middle of Reign's rampage. Paul reconvenes with his old friend Exit, but when the dazed Exit asks for help getting back in his portal, Paul takes the two of them inside of it, not realizing Exit was being controlled by Reign so he's not in his right mind. Reign keeps Khyber and the New Men at bay until Proctor distracts him long enough for Pilot to knock him out. Proctor then places a neural inhibitor on Reign to suppress his psionic powers. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Man's leader, Brock Hagstrom, of unknown relation to corrupt former CIA Director Jedemiah Hagstrom, is having trouble upkeeping his reputation while Girth is away working for Overlord. At Proctor's Lodge, the New Men take Jamie in, who is mad at Paul for having disappeared. While the group begin to seriously suspect Khyber is behaving strangely (due to being a Brotherhood of Man plant), Khyber takes a stroll outside, where Narcisse assaults him and warns him he's protecting the New Men, even if he hasn't shown himself to them yet.
New Men #13-16 - Dominion sends his stormtroopers back in time and kidnaps the New Men, taking them to the year 2012, where Earth has become a warzone after the New Men disappeared when The Keep harvested Earth. Dominion intends to interview each New Men member until he can figure out which one of them was his original past self, and then take over their bodies, but the New Men escape. After defeating an inhabitant of the post-apocalyptic landscape, Brewer's Groot with help from Wildstar, the New Men stumble upon the Time Guild, an union of every person who has some sort of control over time. They are attempting to go back in time and make this reality not happen, and their members include names such as Rozzer, Pastime, and Skylark. Ultimately, Skylark sends the New Men back in time.
Back in the present, Proctor, Reign and Pilot travel to a satellite in orbit they own. Proctor removes Reign's gem, and upon studying it, realizes it's so powerful it raises the possibility that the Newborn never existed at all. Reign deduces that Khyber has been resurrected by the Brotherhood of Man and sent to kill the team. Khyber attacks Proctor from behind, attaching Reign's gem to himself. Pilot, Proctor, Assimilac Proctor and Reign fight him, egging him on until the gem overloads and destroys Khyber, as the gem needed a biological host and Khyber was made of nanobots. Reign hypothesizes the Gem was a sentient being, possibly a Nu Gene-positive human, and maybe just another form of the Newborn. Meanwhile, Black Jack double crosses Dominion and hires Elemental to kill the New Men in exchange for escaping their boss, commenting that he holds a special grudge against Proctor. Elsewhere, Girth is teleported out of jail by Brotherhood leader Brock Hagstrom and once again tasked with eliminating the New Men. He teleports to the New Men's base in Seattle, discovering it's been abandoned and is in ruins. He leaves, unaware that something still lurks in the place, although their identity was never made clear. Meanwhile, detectives Lowry and Fowles continue investigating the Nameless Ones killings, which continue amassing a body count. They track them to the University of Washington, where the Pods are being stored, at the same time Elemental finds them. Elemental watches as a Nameless One emerges from a Pod and devours a janitor named Kissel, becoming a tiny version of the man. Baffled, Elemental takes the being to Black Jack, who explains to Elemental what the Genesis Pods are. Later, Detective Lowry checks up on the expert scientist they hired to study the Pods in the police station, Costello, but he discovers Costello assaulted his forensics assistant and stole a Pod. In Costello's house, he reveals himself to be a student of the mystic arts, and he kidnaps a woman and studies as a Pod opens and a Nameless One devours her. The consequences of Costello's crimes were never revealed. Meanwhile, Exit and Paul finally arrive at the New Men's lodge, but they're both gravely injured from Reign's rampage. Exit realizes he'll die. Not wanting his friend Paul to die as well, he opens one of the Genesis Pods he held within his null field after fighting Ikonn and lets a Nameless One out, telling him to adopt his identity. The Nameless One takes on Exit's physical appearance,[128] and deposits Paul in the lodge. Paul is bleeding badly, though, so Narcisse intervenes and bites his neck, turning him into a vampire to save his life.
Afterwards, the New Men arrive on the present, but Dominion travels next to them and ambushes them. The New Men are captured, but they manage to escape thanks to Narcisse and the pretender Exit working from the shadows. Once he's freed, Kodiak brutally assaults Dominion, as his Nu Gene is evolving and erasing his human half. Byrd's hands, likewise, are itching with the onset of turning into claws. Dominion escapes through a portal, but lands on Khyber's lab, where his computers accidentally (or accurately) identify him as Khyber and trap him in a stasis tube due to his injuries, never to be seen again. Afterwards, Narcisse finally reveals himself to the New Men. In space, the Shepherd continues approaching Earth, destroying alien ships as he flies through them.
Bloodwulf #1-4 - In his home planet of Luap'ur, Bloodwulf lives with his eight children, including Cluck, Caryn, Dredoe, Kippi, Lune, Nita, Rorick, and his four wives, including Sashet. One day, an escape pod crashes into his lawn containing two droids, Smood VI and Oy-Doi. They show Bloodwulf a holographic message revealing Bloodwulf's long-lost mother Redwulf is alive, working as a rebel fighting the oppresive Regime. Her message is directed to someone named Ogo Kanefee, and asks him to find the two people that can help her: Bloodwulf's grandmother Califia and her wife Mertyl. Since Ogo lives in another region of Luap'ur, Bloodwulf escorts him out of the planet while escaping Regime stormtroopers, but forgets about shielding Ogo from space, and he explodes upon reaching the vacuum. Bloodwulf heads to the space station Deep Thrust Nine, where he takes Ogo's frozen head to a doctor to be resurrected. While he waits, the station is invaded by Carollings symbiotes which cause a massacre. After Ogo gets a new body, Bloodwulf, his droids, Ogo and his doctor Dorothy Gale escape from the overrun station, leaving its police force, Hotblood, to die. The group then sets course for a nearby wormhole that will take them to the Regime homeworld. However, they run out of fuel, and land on a nearby planet. After fending off pirates and a giant squid, they're captured by Regime troops. Bloodwulf is taken to the Regime's base, the Dark Orb, and finds out his mother's message was allowed to go through so that the Regime's leader, Vas Deferense, could enact vengeance on Bloodwulf. When his torturers attempt to cut his hair, Bloodwulf enters a berserker rage that resembles a werewolf form. Vas reveals himself as Gaimanwank, an old enemy of Bloodwulf whom Bloodwulf had left for dead in Rambovia. While his allies help his mother escape, Bloodwulf accidentally activates the station's self destruct sequence. The Dark Orb is destroyed, and Bloodwulf floats through space until he's found by his grandmother Califia and her wife Mertyl. Back in their home planet, everyone celebrates with a cookout. One of Bloodwulf's wives, Sashet, tells him to consider marrying Dorothy Gale, and Bloodwulf mentions she asked him to help her with some unfinished business on her home planet, Earth.
Shattered Image #1-4 - The Extreme Universe splits from the larger Image Universe because of the actions of Entropy, causing a revision and leading into Alan Moore's Extreme. All of the future past this point ceases to exist. The story continues in Alan Moore's Extreme.
The Future[]
2012: In a timeline where the New Men disappeared after The Keep invaded Earth, the planet becomes a warzone. After the New Men's disappearance, a time guild is formed by every person who has some sort of control over time in an attempt to go back in time and make this reality not happen. When the New Men from 17 years ago are taken to this moment in time by Dominion, they escape his clutches and find the Time Guild, where Skylark sends the kids back home. Whether this undid this timeline is unclear, as Skylark claimed she did it to "prevent the kids from messing everything up."[129]
2030s: Darkthornn takes over Earth with help of his Disciples of Doom and agents like Wargame. An aged Prophet adopts a five-year-old[130] war orphan, Judas, and raises her like his own daughter.[124]
2043: Prophet becomes a general for the Beholders, the resistance against Darkthornn. One day, they fall into an ambush and Judas is left behind. She falls into the hands of the Disciples, who torture her until she turns against Prophet. Jonathan, meanwhile, believes Judas dead.[130][124] Allying herself with Crypt, an evil clone of Prophet, Judas travels back in time to the 20th century to kill her "uncle"[131]. Eventually, the aged Prophet defeats the Disciples, and adopting the name Absolution, goes back in time to prevent Crypt from coming back to life after his death in the past. Absolution fails, and Crypt is revived.[121] Absolution teleports to Crypt's base outside of time and space, where he faces his clone and the revelation that his protege Judas never died and has turned against him. Crypt teleports them all to a ruined city in 2043 and attacks Absolution. While they battle, Judas realizes the city is where Absolution first found her when she was a girl. Crypt clubs Absolution with a mangled tricycle and orders Judas to kill him. She refuses, recalling how Absolution gave her the tricycle as a gift when she was young, and stabs Crypt in the throat instead. Absolution gives her the device to destroy Crypt’s essence, but Crypt takes over Absolution's body, fully healing himself. Judas activates the device, but nothing happens. Crypt claims this is the moment when Prophet becomes Crypt. He then shoots Judas and teleports away, leaving her to bleed out and die.[124] After this, Crypt's chain of actions begin - he meets Judas in the past and convinces her to travel to the past to kill her uncle, then Crypt travels to the past himself, creating a closed loop.[125]
2167: Earth is tech-contaminated, mutating millions. Most of the population leaves Earth. A time-travelling, amnesiac John Taylor Prophet works for Waste Corp as a salvager. During a skirmish with mutants, Prophet sees Margda, his past lover from the times of the vikings, who travelled as a spirit to see him. She gives him the Sword of Excalibur, and Margda's captor, Drakmordrid, appears and fights Prophet for Margda's indiscretion. Before the fight can be resolved, Waste Corp teleports Prophet away.[17]
30th Century: Supreme's descendants form the Starguard, including Cougar, Diehard, Godspeed, Probe and Val-En.[93] Knowing from history that Supreme will face Loki in the 20th century, Starguard travel back in time and try to warn him, but they're unable to reveal too much and Supreme is just left confused.[35] Later, Loki transports the team to a later point of the 20th century, when Loki's final battle with Supreme is taking place. In the confusion of seeing Supreme next to a fake duplicate and a future version of Probe, the Starguard aid Loki violently, until they're bested and Loki sends them back to the 30th century.[98] The 20th Century's Enigma travels forward with them, and he collaborates with his 30th century counterpart to erase the Starguard's memories to preserve the timeline.[132] Years later, the Starguard are visited by an earlier incarnation of Supreme, who asks for help fighting Loki. The team agree to help him, and they travel back in time to 1995, the point of Loki's greatest weakness. However, they find themselves against Loki's powers at their height, as Loki had deluded them. Ambushed, Starguard are slaughtered and most die. Probe survives by sending her mind into Val-En's body[97] and, Loki rescues Val-En's consciousness and transports him through time and space to an alternate Earth[98], but none return to the 30th Century.
3000 CE: Earth and Katella go to war after a chain of events that began with Youngblood refusing to release Combat to the Katellans in the 20th century. The war destroys both Earth and Katella, and Acura is affected as well. Wanting to prevent this, a 1022-years-old Badrock travels back in time[133] and erases this timeline.[134]
↑Despite the story giving us the exact year of 1947 for this event, Supreme: Glory Days #1 tells us Supreme left Earth in 1945, and Supreme #9 tells us Louise died mere days after in 1946.
↑Despite Shaft mentioning "it's the season for giving", in Youngblood #1, Bloodstrike #4 gives the exact date of May for the events of Youngblood #3, which occurs one week after Youngblood #1.
↑Despite the story giving us the exact date of August 9th for these events, Youngblood Battlezone #2 retconned the next year's worth of issues into happening before November 1992.
↑Despite Savage Dragon occuring in real time, giving us a December date for these events, Youngblood Battlezone #2 retconned the next year's worth of issues into happening before November 1992.
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