Blood Squad Seven Vol. 1: Perilous Relaunch

by Joe Casey, Paul Fry (Artist), Francesco Segala (Colorist)

A bombastic, action-packed new series exploring '90s era superteam dynamics through a modern lens.

Thirty years ago, Blood Squad Seven was America’s most popular superhero team. Its members were seen on television, on magazine covers, scoring million-dollar endorsement deals…. They were celebrities and they were everywhere.

But that was then... this is now. And so, a new generation of modern-day heroes takes up the mantle—or perhaps, the poisoned chalice—fulfilling a promise made decades ago: to be the heroes that a fractured America needs.

Collects issues #1-4

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

152 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2024

About the author

Librarian note: there is more than one author with this name

Joe Casey is an American comic book writer. He has worked on titles such as Wildcats 3.0, Uncanny X-Men, The Intimates, Adventures of Superman, and G.I. Joe: America's Elite among others. As part of the comics creator group Man of Action Studios, Casey is one of the creators of the animated series Ben 10.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Casey

Reviews

[Jake Morrissey · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's another image comic that makes fun of image comics.

[David Dalton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just so so. Not a top notch effort.

[Alex Sarll]

I can absolutely understand the thinking here; build on nineties nostalgia in general, and in particular the work that's been done on reassembling the shared universe of Image's early days, by creating a new series about the modern heirs of a nineties team who slot into the gap in history left by the excision, for business and legal reasons, of certain nineties characters whose rights are now elsewhere. And nobody could be a better bet to write such a series than Joe Casey, who has excellent form on those unmentionable originals, on other retro reinvention comics like Godland, and for making this sort of daft project into something more than comics about comics. But at the same time, he's never been what you'd call a consistent writer; I often think of a guy I knew whose last comics review was of an issue of Vengeance, and what a way to die that was, baffled by the middle issues of a misfiring Joe Casey miniseries*. And this...the whole media management of military-corporate superheroes has been done to death now, and as for the disastrous development that obliges the new team to launch early, it's chortle-inducingly close to Brass Eye's "This is the one thing we didn't want to happen." Oh, and the mysterious enemies in the background are called the Gang of Four, which does make a difference from comics featuring enigmatic organisations called the Shadow Cabinet, but remains a problem for readers who know UK politics (or post-punk, for that matter). All of which would be forgiveable, of course, if only the story and the art captured the brash, kinetic excitement which, though never exactly my bag, was undeniably the draw of the comics this is homaging. Instead: an occasional action scene doled out among an awful lot of pages of people arguing in shadowy boardrooms, as if comics needed to abide by the budgetary constraints of Asylum mockbusters. The apparent failure to understand a self-set assignment is all the sadder when you contrast this with Local Man, which, while posing as a grounded, small-town story, did a much better nineties pastiche whenever there was an excuse for a flashback.

*Though one, it must be admitted, which gave the world America Chavez; even in the darkness there's a dot of light.

[Drew Woodworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no doubt that the concept of this book is head and shoulders above the execution. That being said, it is still a pretty entertaining comic, but just doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the idea.
I really enjoyed the art by Paul Fry, but there are couple of characters that look very similar. I believe they may be mother/daughter, but still it’s a bad idea.
Joe Casey crams a lot into these four issues, and, unfortunately, a few things don’t feel as fleshed out as they probably could have been. Hopefully, they will keep it going so he can keep developing everything the way it deserves.

Favorite thing: The throwbacks to Youngblood and oh so not so subtlety skirting the copyright issues.

Least favorite thing: The deus ex machina way the big final battle is resolved.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

So since Rob Liefeld has been kicked out of Image and Youngblood with him, enter Blood Squad Seven. Casey propositions the team as an alternate past where Blood Squad Seven rose to prominence at 90s Image instead. Now it's 30 years later and the government is bringing a new team into the public eye. But this isn't really a superhero team book. It's an operating behind the scenes of power type thing. It was surprisingly good. Maybe along the line of what he did with WildCATS 3.0. Paul Fry's art was quite good too. I wasn't familiar with his work previously.

The one thing I hated about the book is the team name. Blood Squad Seven is a terrible name. And there's only 6 members in this.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is '90s nostalgia. Kind of.
The plot comes out of the unspoken decade for sure. The character's? they are largely new some have analogies with the old Youngblood (1992-1994) #0, others don't. Occasionally there was a cameo of an image character I recognised.

The art was not '90s pouch laden and not really of the same style, but quite good despite (or perhaps because of) this.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember Image comics from the 90s?

This is a huge homage to that era. Casey has taken the idea of Youngblood as a brand and replaced them with 'Blood Squad Seven'. This is that early 90's era Image (with Savage Dragon, Super Patriot, and more). It's definitely a dance since licensing is a thing and different companies now own those properties.

So...
What if a 90s team that was popular but failed, then got a chance to get rebooted and rebuilt in the 2k2 era? Blood Squad Seven has the branding, backing, and government connections to be a celebrity superpowered team.
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Bonus: I didn't realize just how much I missed the original Image-verse of the early 90s.