What happens when Indie Icons looks back at one of the flagship titles from Image Comic‘s creation? Nothing good. Absolutely, nothing good happens. Let’s get into the strange, shall we?

The story opens with a group of heroes in the dark dimension of D’Khay. And, for your guy’s sake, I’m going to get this out of the way right now because they don’t explain it for a long, LONG, time. Each superhero in this comic is part of the Youngbloods. There are at least twenty separate heroes in this story, all infiltrating something at some point too. It can get pretty confusing. Because of that, nobodies name is actually that important. For example, the man below’s name is Wildmane. I refuse to call him that. He will now be known as feral Wolverine. By the hounds of perdition’s flames indeed. The team, poignantly named the Death Squad, continues to murder their way through the base they are in. Killing becomes so easy and boring to them that they actually start getting mad when someone doesn’t leave enough people to slaughter for the rest of the class. One person is particularly responsible for killing too many people too quickly and that is one Jackson Kirby. I really hope this is an homage to Jack Kirby. If it is, it is the most over the top interpretation ever. It’s also my favorite. Let’s compare.

Basically, twins. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a picture of Jack Kirby carrying comically large guns the size of his entire torso but, I’m sure there’s one out there somewhere. The Death Squad continues moving through the base, killing everything in sight as they’re known to do. After clearing the hallway, they all jump in unison and become frozen in air. Why you ask? Because, Lord Darkthornn has trapped them in what he calls crash limbo. Who is Lord Darkthornn? I have no idea. He says he wants to conquer Earth but then, we never see him or any of the other characters we just met ever again. I’m sure it pays off at some point in a later issue but, I only just finished the prologue and I’m already getting exhausted. OK, which Youngblood is next?Oh, yes. Shaft. He has no pupils in this picture but, no one actually addresses the reason for this. It seems like he can see so, maybe his power is having really white eyes? I don’t know. We’re introduced to Shaft in the middle of an argument with his super model girlfriend. He is upset because all of the paparazzi are following him around. Then, he sees a man steal a woman’s purse and the hero in him finally comes out. He tackles the purse snatcher and punches him right in the face. That is until he realizes it’s just a young kid. He quickly figure out it’s a set up and spots a sniper off in the distance. Shaft does not play these games. He takes a pen out of his pocket and throws it right into this man’s heart.

I guess he really does have pupils. Maybe, his power is being able to throw office products incredibly accurately? The paparazzi quickly surround him. It seems they were waiting for a moment just like this to make themselves known. They ask a quick question about the man he just killed but, that’s all just to butter him up for the real questions. No one really cares about the random dead guy or public murder they just witnessed. They want to know if there is a classified mission going on in Iraq. Shaft ignores them and runs away while his super model girlfriend laughs psychotically in the background. Now, I’ve never been in one of these situations but, it seems like they best way to get information from someone isn’t to try and trick them while they under a high amount of stress. I’ve also never killed anyone. I just imagine that it’s really stressful. I’ll be honest, I just write funny articles on the internet. Sure, there’s some office products throwing. But, normally, no one dies from it. Let’s look at a fun picture to get Indie Icons back on track. This is Thomas. He is so mad that he doesn’t have enough combos in his video games that he can’t even eat cereal properly anymore. I can’t say I blame him either. Combos are serious you guys. After this, we are quickly introduced to the rest of the main team. I mean, I think they’re the main team. They’re on the cover at least. Next, we have the Die Hard unit who is, what looks like, a muscular robot hanging out in a basement in Arlington, Virginia. After that, comes Chapel. His introduction shows him planning on having sex with the woman in his bed until they both die. I wish I was kidding but this is the actual conversation.Might as well, right? He then puts on his uniform and screams angrily at the woman on the bed, asking her if this turns her on. He seems like a really unstable fellow. We then get a few panels of a woman dressed in purple jumping out of a balcony. Who is she? No idea. And that’s the main team. Shaft arrives at Youngblood headquarters and, on the local news, he sees that the Youngblood operation in Iraq has leaked. They plan on destroying Hassan Kussein’s meta-munitions program apparently. It looks like it’s time for the team we have spent the last few pages to finally get into action and save the day! What? That doesn’t happen at all? There’s another team of Youngbloods still!?

An entire, I can’t believe there’s more, new team of Youngbloods land on Iraqi soil and just start laying waste to everything in front of them. They are looking to rescue a target being protected by Kussein. While making their way through the desert, the large Youngblood wearing a giant golden helmet turns out to be an alien and swears revenge. Revenge for what? Revenge on who? I…I just don’t know. So much is happening right now. I’m feeling overwhelmed and there aren’t anymore fun pictures to save this article. Let’s just keep going.

We cut back to the main Youngbloods still sitting at headquarters and trying to figure out if the leak of information is their fault. They decide to go to the hangar bay for some reason and that’s that. We cut back to our team in Iraq, continuing to murder Kussein’s army. They begin to get a bit paranoid because this seems too easy. That is, until they hit a trip wire energy grid that fries their synapses on contact.This doesn’t effect psi-fire, whose glowing feet you see above. It just makes him angry. We don’t quite get to see this play out though. We first cut to the White House, where the president is freaking out about the Iraqi mission leak. And, that’s it. Do we finally start wrapping up this comic which, at this point, has about 4000 loose story threads? Of course not. The story returns to the main team who are flying over a prison transport at the exact moment a few super villains begin to try and break the prisoners out. And, being Youngblood, there isn’t just one or two villains. There is an entire team of bad guys because this story needs all the characters it can possibly find. And, finally, we get to see the main team in action. The heroes on the actual cover of the comics. The one’s we bothered to learn a bit of backstory on. Look how promising this action pose is. It looks like some serious business is about to happen. It doesn’t. We don’t see the main team again for the rest of the issue. We cut back to Psi-Fire who decides to tell Kussein about how he killed his parents by making their heads explode. He then tells him, and I’m not making this up, it’s “better than sex”. I don’t have any words for whats going on at this point. He eventually makes Kussein’s head explode for what I can only assume is because he is sexually excited by the dictator? It’s really weird you guys.The rest of the team is not happy about this. They actually start freaking out because he just randomly murdered a country’s dictator but, they quickly get over it. With Kussein and his army out of the way, the Youngbloods can finally grab the target they came for. You never get to see that though. This is where the story ends. Nothing is resolved. I’m confused. I’m tired. Indie Icons will be back next week with a comic that is not Youngblood. Never again Youngblood.