Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Young Heroes In Love by Dan Raspler and Dev Madan ::
by William the Bloody
Okay, this one is from the vaults people, so don't try to find it on the rack with the new stuff. Young Heroes In Love ran for 18 issues starting in 1997. You remember the 90s, don't you? It was a time when angst was in the spotlight from music to TV, and this comic was no exception.
Meet for the first and only time the super hero team known as the Young Heroes: Hard Drive, Bonfire, Thunderhead, Monster Girl, Off-Ramp, Junior, Frostbite, and a little later, Zip-Kid. Hard Drive is the leader and the one responsible for getting the team together. He met Off-Ramp at a car race in Glouster. There was a 10 car pile up and getting worse by the second. Without even speaking, the two immediately went to work using their super powers (telekinesis and dimensional portals) to get the drivers to safety. They both felt that this was right, using their abilities for the greater good, and so found friends with other super powers to join the cause. Little did any of them know, that more goes on in a super team than just helping the public. There is also the matter of inter-teammate relations, love triangles, behind the scenes sabotage and a little thing called brainwashing! Bonfire is attracted to Frostbite, only she's been brainwashed to like Thunderhead better. Monster Girl is sleeping with Hard Drive only because she secretly wants to lead the team and is looking for a way to get him kicked out. Junior is in love with Zip-Kid, only she's engaged to a jerk. Off-Ramp has had his share of girlfriends and even had a baby with one, but isn't sure what he wants.
The Good: I loved this series when it first came out, and decided to see if it still held up. For its time, it explored an area of the super team that wasn't brought much to the foreground: love triangles and sex. It was still code-approved sure, but there was no doubt about it sex going on in this hero club house (an undeniable panel of a discarded condom wrapper for instance...). Raspler did a wonderful job giving each character their own unique personalities. There were only 18 issues, but we KNEW these people. Thunderhead, the dopey but loveable guy who chose super heroing second only to his ended music career. Monster Girl, liar, deceiver, and manipulator. Off-Ramp, searching for that missing piece in his life. Etc... Raspler did a great job at keeping the mood a little light, despite all the unrequited love in the air. His idea of Bonfire and Frostbite being able to "read" each other because of their temperature oriented powers was quite original. Madan's art with Keith Champagne on inks was perfect for the book. It reminds me slightly of a personalized version of a Bruce Timm style. By issue, three, those two were working together like they were born to do it. The series really ended with issue 17, but issue 18 ( aka 1,000,000) had a great little epilogue that you shouldn't miss.
The Bad: The issues with guest artists just didn't seem to fit. Raspler and Madan seemed to have a telepathic bond between how the script should translate to panels, and the substitute guys just couldn't deliver it up to par. The series also had the misfortune of running during two DC Universe spanning events, namely Genesis and DC One Million, which really seemed to interrupt their normal flow in order to fulfill a publisher's obligation. Occasionally, the series got "self aware" in that the characters would make comic book type references such as "I'm just bummed we didn't get to go to space last issue." This was only done about three or four times, so I don't really know what the point of breaking of the fourth wall was there. The series probably didn't last because of the barrage of silly villains our heroes had to fight, most of which were invented just for them, of course. The "point" of the series wasn't the fight scenes, but the group dynamic, which is probably why this was done, but the casual reader doesn't really go for that sort of thing, especially with completely new characters in a completely new book. The whole "Ricky Renquist" bit felt so unbelievably unreal that even I had my doubts about the lifespan of this book.
Overall, rereading it now it wasn't as impressive as it was then. It's STILL enjoyable to read, a delightful little romp in realm of sex, lies and superheroics. The characters and their loves and dramas are the interesting bits, which are brought down by often downright awful action sequences. I don't believe this series has been collected into a trade paperback yet, which makes me believe it won't ever be. As an unpopular series, perhaps the back issues will go for cheap, and if you can find them for a good deal, maybe you'll give them a try.
B+
