What always sort of amazes me about these things is the costumes. Not only are they not consistent (even in the pictures you posted, Psi-fire's flaming aura apparently causes his costume to appear differently in the two-page splash and the final, and Combat's arms can't decide whether they're blue or metallic), but they're horribly bland. Nothing about them stands out. Each one of them consists of two colors in solid regions, and have no unique features.
What I don't understand is here is a guy who seems to have been given huge amounts of creative control, and a universe in which there is no spandex-and-tights standard to which his heroes have to comply, and manages to create something so horribly and awfully generic that it's practically invisible. If you picked up this comic, looked at it, and then walked away, you probably couldn't remember anything about it for more then three minutes, regardless of how hard you try and keep it in your head. This team looks like the kind of team of foreign national generic supersoldiers that, when they are introduced in JLA of The Avengers, you just know that four issues later they'll be nothing more then a smear on the pavement.
Liefeld was given the opportunity (rare in the comic world) to be completely original - and managed to something untainted by the faintest hint or creativity. That takes a kind of gift.
(I'm not so much against Psi-fire being malevolent - in the right hands the idea of an intervention team whose work was so vital that they had to recruit the best, regardless of whether the best were sociopathic killers or not would be interesting as it generates nearly unlimited internal conflict. But I'm betting that Liefeld doesn't carry through with this.)
To be honest, I find Liefeld's minimalist aesthetic pretty fascinating. Possibly it's because of the dual nature of his heroes--on the one hand, Youngblood is a civil defence organization like the Avengers, responding to emergencies, apprehending and restraining superpowered criminals, that sort of thing. Precisely the sort of group that should be easily recognisable to the public as superheroes. Yet on the other hand, Youngblood also acts as a team of superpowered commandoes, carrying out wetwork operations for the US government. Liefeld's team is trying to carry out two often-contradictory missions at once and it shows. Even their choice of personnel reflects that, because there's no way a sensible superteam would allow someone like Chapel on their roster, but every reason for a team of special operators to do so. And it's reflected in their dress--our heroes, both halves of the team, wear spandex in bright colours. But at the same time, they're special operators in the testosterone-soaked '80s action movie hero sense of the term, so instead of using their costumes to further distinguish his heroes, he instead pours miscellaneous pouches, shoulderpads and headgear and other stereotypically commandolike attire as "distinguishing" feature on half the team, and leaves the other half to soldier on their very plain spandex. Compounding all this, of course, is the fact that Liefeld really can't design anything very well at all. But we've all heard enough about Liefeld and his lack of talent, so I shan't go into that now.
As for Psi-Fire's malevolence, it's not so much that Psi-Fire is a pretty nasty fellow and more the fact that it's obvious the man is either unwilling or unable to put business before pleasture. This would be a liability anywhere, but in this group, doing the kind of work they do, it becomes downright dangerous. One has to wonder when such a man would turn on his teammates, just because he felt like it. Psi-Fire's presence jeopardises whatever mission he's sent on. And it doesn't make sense that Youngblood's controllers are willing to allow him to do so for as long as they appear to have.
What I don't understand is here is a guy who seems to have been given huge amounts of creative control, and a universe in which there is no spandex-and-tights standard to which his heroes have to comply, and manages to create something so horribly and awfully generic that it's practically invisible. If you picked up this comic, looked at it, and then walked away, you probably couldn't remember anything about it for more then three minutes, regardless of how hard you try and keep it in your head. This team looks like the kind of team of foreign national generic supersoldiers that, when they are introduced in JLA of The Avengers, you just know that four issues later they'll be nothing more then a smear on the pavement.
Liefeld was given the opportunity (rare in the comic world) to be completely original - and managed to something untainted by the faintest hint or creativity. That takes a kind of gift.
(I'm not so much against Psi-fire being malevolent - in the right hands the idea of an intervention team whose work was so vital that they had to recruit the best, regardless of whether the best were sociopathic killers or not would be interesting as it generates nearly unlimited internal conflict. But I'm betting that Liefeld doesn't carry through with this.)
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As for Psi-Fire's malevolence, it's not so much that Psi-Fire is a pretty nasty fellow and more the fact that it's obvious the man is either unwilling or unable to put business before pleasture. This would be a liability anywhere, but in this group, doing the kind of work they do, it becomes downright dangerous. One has to wonder when such a man would turn on his teammates, just because he felt like it. Psi-Fire's presence jeopardises whatever mission he's sent on. And it doesn't make sense that Youngblood's controllers are willing to allow him to do so for as long as they appear to have.
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