Youngblood (Extreme)

History

1984[]

In 1984, the American Government created the Youngblood superteam,^[1] and Marcus Langston, codenamed Sentinel, was the first member to sign up.^[2]

1987[]

In 1987, Daniel Tsuchida was recruited onto the team.^[3]

1988[]

In the summer of 1988, Youngblood members Battlestone, Chapel, Diehard, Riptide, Colonel Boggs, Lt. Gamble and Raines were deployed to Kuwait to prevent Hassan Kussein's Iraqui Army from invading. Although they defeated the first strike, the mission was cancelled after Boggs, Raines and Gamble were killed, and team leader Battlestone was relieved of duty.^[4]

1989[]

In 1989, Thomas John McCall was recruited onto the team.^[5]^[6]^[7] Fourteen months after Battlestone's dismissal, Shaft was introduced to the team to replace him as leader. His team consisted of Bedrock, Chapel, a clone of Combat, Cougar, Diehard, Link, Sentinel, and Vogue.^[4] That October, Youngblood apprehended The Four.^[8]

1991[]

In 1991, Shaft, Bedrock, Diehard and Vogue prevented their old ally, Battlestone, from stealing a mystical gem from a U.S. government facility in Norfolk, Virginia. Battlestone was allied with individuals called Boone, Hacker, Kayo and Lethal.^[9] Later that year, Youngblood's International Task Force dealt with ending a Japanese revolution.^[10]

1992[]

In March 1992, the Youngblood International Task Force was composed of Combat, Brahma, Cougar, Psi-Fire, Riptide and Sentinel. One of their missions involved the execution of terrorist Hassan Kussein, leader of a group called the Holy Unification.^[10]

Meanwhile, the Home Team was composed of Shaft, Bedrock, Chapel, Diehard, Vogue and Photon. They stopped supervillains Strongarm and Gage from breaking out the other half of their supervillain team, The Four, composed of Deadlock and Starbright.^[10]

A week later, the International Task Force was tasked with visiting a G.A.T.E. International laboratory in Germany to transport a sleeping super-soldier named Jonathan Taylor Prophet to America. Accidentally, Youngblood awakened Prophet, right when Prophet's enemies, the Disciples of Doom, assaulted the laboratory, alongside another band of heroes named the Berzerkers.^[11] The Disciples overwhelmed all the heroes. Meanwhile, Youngblood's Home Team failed to prevent The Four from escaping The Pentagon with help of their ally Showdown. Only Gage remained imprisoned. Afterwards, they received a call for help from the Away Team.^[12] After travelling to Germany for ten hours, Youngblood's Home Team met Prophet and they warded off the Disciples. However, their leader, Darkthornn, arrived from his home planet D'khay and brainwashed Bedrock to his side.^[13] Working with the Berzerkers, Youngblood were able to knock some sense into Bedrock, but Darkthornn defeated them all until Psi-Fire overpowered him into retreating back to his home planet. After this, Prophet and the Berzerkers went their own way.^[14]

On August 9, the Home Team was assigned to guard vice-president Dan Quayle at Strategic Defense Initiative Astronomics along with two mercenaries named Pike and Hestia. There, the VP was assaulted by a rogue Covert Action Team.^[15] The two teams fought until the Vice President was revealed to have been possessed by an alien named B'lial.^[16] Shortly after, Youngblood came under attack by the alien in charge, named Lord Helspont. As the Wild Covert Action Team left to take care of him, Youngblood directed their attention to his cronies, Pike and Hestia. Shortly after, the facility started self destructing, and Youngblood was forced to run with the Vice-President, praying the Covert Action Team could make it out on their own. After the explosion, there was no sign of any of the involved parties, but Shaft commented the Covert Action Team seemed like a resourceful bunch, and that he wouldn't be surprised if their paths crossed again.^[17]

In December, Bedrock assaulted Chicago police officer Dragon to see if he was tough enough to join Youngblood, which landed him in jail. Shaft and Diehard had to bail him out.^[18]^[19]^[20]

Later, Diehard, Sentinel, Combat, Photon and Bedrock were called to stop a being who was approaching Earth's atmosphere. The being identified himself as Supreme, but Combat couldn't believe he was the legend who had helped his people, so he attacked him. Supreme engaged in battle against Youngblood, ending with a collision with Diehard equal to a 500 megaton explosion. After that, Sentinel admitted they had acted hastily and requested Supreme to allow them to escort him to a conference on Earth. There, scientists ran tests and determined he was the real Supreme. Sentinel offered him a contract to join Youngblood, but Supreme was disgusted at the government's genetic engineering of superhumans and flew away from the building, something Sentinel took as a "no."^[21]

1993[]

In 1993, Gloriana Demeter arrived at Youngblood headquarters to ask they retrieve Superpatriot, who was being held by Cyberdata. Diehard took care of that task.^[22]^[23]^[24]

Later, Brahma, Cougar, Photon, Riptide and Sentinel were sent to Antarctica to investigate a CIA monitoring station that had mysteriously gone offline. They found it ruined, with the staff missing, when they were attacked by a group of large barbarians. Youngblood followed the men through a tunnel that led them to Arcadia, an alternate Earth. Youngblood let themselves be captured to find the missing CIA agents, and they were led before Arcadia's ruler, Tyrax, who intended to execute them. Youngblood were rescued by the appearance of a group of rebels, led by Kanan, who helped them get the missing CIA agents and escape back to Earth right before the mystical portal closed.^[25]

Notes

Trivia

Originally, Rob Liefeld intended to co-write DC's Teen Titans alongside Marv Wolfman, but the series fell through, and so it became known as Youngblood. The original characters from the series were based on the characters of Teen Titans.
According to Liefeld, Youngblood is based on a theory that if superheroes did exist, they would be treated in a similar fashion to celebrities. Throughout the series there are numerous references the celebrity lifestyle and fame.
The unofficial debut of Youngblood was in an advertisement in Megaton: Explosion, but the Megaton Special being advertised was never released.
Scripts for Youngblood Vol 3, which were written by Alan Moore are available online to read here.

Links and References

The Youngblood Myspace Page

References

[1] Youngblood Trading Cards

[2] Youngblood Trading Cards, 1992: #50 - Sentinel

[TY5-3] Team Youngblood #5

[Y0-4] 4.0 ^4.1 Youngblood #0

[5] Youngblood Trading Cards, 1992: #22 - Bedrock

[YS5-6] Youngblood Strikefile #5

[YS6-7] Youngblood Strikefile #6

[Blood4-8] Bloodstrike #4

[9] Brigade #0

[Y1-10] 10.0 ^10.1 ^10.2 Youngblood #1

[11] Youngblood #2

[12] Youngblood #3

[13] Youngblood #4

[14] Youngblood #5

[15] WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams #2

[16] WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams #3

[17] WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams #4

[18] Savage Dragon (Mini-series) #3

[19] The Dragon #3

[20] The Dragon #4

[21] Supreme #1

[22] Youngblood Strikefile #1

[23] Youngblood Strikefile #2

[24] Youngblood Strikefile #3

[25] Youngblood Yearbook #1

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