When Image Comics began in 1992, it was intended to be a shared universe. For a time, Spawn, Cyberforce, the Savage Dragon and other Image icons did cross paths with each other. But due to shifting deals and creators departing to form their own studios, that eventually changed. While modern Image has seen the birth of shared universes including the Massiveverse and Ghost Machine, there hasn’t been an attempt to replicate the “golden days” of Image. Not until Blood Squad Seven #1.
Blood Squad Seven follows the titular superhero team, who exploded in popularity when they made their debut in 1994. Now the team’s been reformed in 2024 with all-new membership and a new goal of conducting special ops with the United States government backing them. But both versions of Blood Squad Seven have their own hangups to deal with, not to mention the rapidly shifting landscape that is the modern day.
Writer/co-creator Joe Casey is no stranger to this type of story, having taken a similar approach with Dutch (which Blood Squad Seven spins out of.) In fact, he all but confirms that the Blood Squad is meant to be the modern day successor to Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood. And while there’s plenty of the bombastic action you’d expect from a ’90s-era book, Casey also explores how a modern-day superhero team would work. There’s marketing talk – one page is all but a wink to the audience with the line “Nineties nostalgia is huge right now” – and concerns about covert ops, despite the fact that these are people who can bench-press tanks and break the sound barrier.
The art team of Paul Fry and Francesco Segala strike the perfect balance between old and new with their artwork. Fry leans into the ’90s aesthetic with a vengeance, as the members of Blood Squad Seven are either rippling with muscles, have outfits that cling tightly to their bodies, or both. The first few pages also feature Blood Squad Seven member Nightstalker streaking through the air, leaving a trail of explosions in her wake. Segala renders it all in very realistic colors, with the fight scenes having a more muted palette to contrast with the near-blindingly white walls of the Pentagon. Finally, Rus Wooton’s lettering is broken down in a number of ways from translating the battle cries of soldiers in Ukraine to simulating the sound of a radio.
Blood Squad Seven #1 is a promising start; it sets up its premise but is open-ended enough to keep readers coming back. Image books like Local Man and Radiant Black have shown that there’s still juice in the superhero genre, and comics in general, so hopefully this is a title that follows in those footsteps.
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