After being pushed back for a number of weeks, the 75th issue of Images premier title is released, was it worth the wait?

Here is the summary from Image:

It’s been twenty years in the making, but YOUNGBLOOD reaches its 75th issue with an oversized story! And who can blame them?! In this issue Jeff Terrell returns to the team, Cougar realizes that as impossible as it seems, he might actually be in love. We get one more clue as to the fate of Badrock, and Die Hard and Vogue discover there is more “there” there than they every suspected. All this and a battle worthy of the world’s greatest superhero team!

This issue is NOT a good jumping on point for new readers (Like myself), although it does try to fill in holes for those new readers, it mostly fails and comes out a bit boring by the time the issue is over. The creative tries but doesn’t really succeed in what they are trying to do.

John McLaughlin delivers a pretty boring and dated script, that is kind of all over the place which makes its hard to stay attentive to the story. None of the characters are really all that likable and the whole “magazine” framing device doesn’t really do much but grind the story to a halt. Even though it tries to give exposition on some of the characters, it just comes off as clunky and a bit lazy. There is also a a few plot points brought up that really don’t effect the overall story and come off as padding to fill 40 pages worth of comic.

Jon Malin handles the art and while it is BETTER than series creator Rob Liefeld’s it isn’t much of an improvement. There are a few miscommunication between writer and artist with dialogue not being really fitting with the action going on. The colors are at least diverse and bright though.

Youngblood #75 really shows the books age, with a boring story, and outdated dialogue. None of the characters aren’t really likable or memorable, and the few magazine articles in the story just serve to grind whatever story is there to a screeching halt. If you have been following Youngblood since the 90’s you make like this issue, but to newer readers the comic is really outdated and doesn’t hold up.

1.5/5