| Badrock | |
|---|---|
 Badrock | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Image Comics |
| First appearance | Youngblood #1 (April 1992) |
| Created by | Rob Liefeld |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Thomas John McCall |
| Team affiliations | Youngblood Brigade |
| Abilities | Superhuman strength, reflexes and durability Granite-like skin |
Badrock is a superhero appearing in comic books published by Image Comics. [1] Created by Rob Liefeld, he was originally named Bedrock and first appeared in Youngblood #1 (April 1992). [2]
Thomas John McCall is an average, underachieving 16-year-old when he swallows a vial of top secret genetic material in his father's lab. A transformation occurs and McCall's body becomes a mass of organic rock, similar to granite. He still however, exhibits the emotional immaturity of a 16-year-old. Thomas later assumes the identity of Badrock, after being recruited to join the high-profile, government superteam Youngblood. Badrock is a part of every incarnation of the Youngblood team to date (1992, 1995, and 2008 series as well as the Team Youngblood and Youngblood Strikefile series).
Badrock is proficient with a number of weapons, which include the many guns and knives available in the Youngblood arsenal. Not one to hide behind gadgetry however, Badrock often uses the power of his fists to pummel opponents into submission. Despite his massive size, Badrock's reflexes exceed normal human levels. [3]
Badrock is portrayed as impulsive and dangerous. He causes property-damage by picking fights with the police officer Savage Dragon and Mighty Man. The fight with Savage Dragon is intended to reveal if Bedrock was up to joining Youngblood. Instead, Savage Dragon arrests him. [4]
Bedrock is one of the most popular members of Youngblood in both, the fictional Image Universe and real-life comic readers. Badrock stars in more spin-off comics than any other member of the team. [5]
Many of Badrock's non-Youngblood adventures involve his parents, Dr. Joseph McCall and mother Angela, with whom he has a close and loving relationship.
He starred in his own team-up book entitled Badrock and Company, which ran for six issues and paired him with other Image heroes, that were all creations of Image's other studios. These included Pitt (Full Bleed Studios), Fuji of Stormwatch (WildStorm), Mighty Man (Highbrow Entertainment), Velocity (Top Cow Productions), Grifter of the Wildcats (also from WildStorm) and Shadowhawk (ShadowLine). [6]
Badrock's adventures involve threats to national security, such as Youngblood rescuing (what seems to be) Vice President Dan Quayle from the WildC.A.T.s. [7] Badrock, in one of his many solo adventures, visits Hell, confronting Spawn's old enemy, the Violator. This is after being named temporary security head of a scientific installation that investigates the realm of Hell. He is more responsible at this point, trying to protect the many innocent people who unwittingly made the trip to Hell with him. He has to deal with the interference of heavenly and hellish agents and the unwillingness of some of the humans to obey his orders. At one point, Violator tricks Badrock into freeing him because the heavenly agent that tore into the building is willing to kill anyone and everyone. Violator uses his human form to convince the angel Celestine that Badrock is the demon. The hero is defeated, and the angel is fatally injured. She manages to keep it together until her life force returns Badrock and the innocent humans to Earth. [8]
Around this time, and in a follow-up to the story from Badrock and Company #5, Badrock teams up with Grifter to save his mother, Angela, who is once again captured by the Covenant of the Sword. The story further explores the fact that Grifter once had an intimate relationship with Badrock's mom. [9] Only two issues of the limited series were produced, even though the story was incomplete and promised "To Be Continued...".
Badrock is part of a vital effort of keeping reality from duplicating itself in the Shattered Image limited series. [10] Around this time, his teammate Riptide is found murdered in her bedroom; Badrock is part of the group that takes custody of her seeming killer, Knightsabre. [11]
When Youngblood is disbanded after the death of Riptide, Badrock takes some time off. It does not last long though, and through a series of events, he becomes part of the fourth incarnation of Brigade (although the series, published by Liefeld's company, Awesome Comics, only lasted one issue).
He also joins another incarnation of Youngblood, this one based on 'Liberty Island'. He joins with Shaft, Cougar, Diehard, Doc Rocket, and Johnny Panic. During his time with the team, he is injured and must use crutches. He also confronts evil, super-powered doubles of his parents. The entire team confronts a government controlled 'super-villain' team; each member of Youngblood has a focus-tested 'rival'. [12]
In the year 3000, Badrock is still alive and returns for a brief period of time to get some help from Youngblood to stop the Katellans. The continued attempts of the Katellans to reacquire the defector Combat lead to the destruction of Earth, Katella, and Acura in Badrock's timeline. Badrock then returns to 1995 where he prevents this from occurring. The mission succeeds. [13]
Badrock also starred in three inter-company crossovers with Marvel Comics. Badrock and Wolverine of the X-Men join forces to battle the Savage Land Mutates. [14] While being interviewed for the Daily Bugle, Badrock teams up with Spider-Man to take on Spidey's villains, thanks to the illusions of Mysterio. [15] As a member of Youngblood, Badrock and his pals team up with X-Force to battle the media madness of Mojo [16]
Badrock is also part of the 'Image United' crossover that began in November 2009.
In the series Prophet , which takes place millennia in the future, Badrock has grown to immense size and has become a planet. He has a number of children, including one called Brainrock who tries to become a planet as well, but only reaches the size of a tiny moon. [17]
Upon Youngblood's debut, the character's name was originally "Bedrock" and his catchphrase was "Yabba-dabba DOOM", but legal pressure forced Liefeld to change the name to "Badrock" to avoid confusion with The Flintstones' town. This was parodied during a television report seen in Spawn #12.
Image Comics is an American comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include Spawn, The Walking Dead, Kick-Ass, Invincible, Jupiter's Legacy, Witchblade, The Maxx, Savage Dragon, Bone, Saga, Radiant Black and Stray Dogs.
Wildcats, sometimes rendered WildCats or WildC.A.T.s, is a superhero team created by the American comic book artist Jim Lee and writer Brandon Choi.
Robert Liefeld is an American comic book creator. A prominent writer and artist in the 1990s, he is known for co-creating the character Cable with writer Louise Simonson and the character Deadpool with writer Fabian Nicieza. In the early 1990s, Liefeld gained popularity due to his work on Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and later X-Force. In 1992, he and several other popular Marvel illustrators left the company to found Image Comics, which started a wave of comic books owned by their creators rather than by publishers. The first book published by Image Comics was Liefeld's Youngblood #1.
Grifter is a superhero appearing in books published by Wildstorm Productions and DC Comics. Created by artist Jim Lee and writer Brandon Choi, he first appeared in WildC.A.T.s #1, as a member of that titular superhero team, during the period when Wildstorm and its properties were owned by Jim Lee. In that incarnation, Grifter is a former government operative and member of the military unit Team 7 and the espionage agency International Operations.
Youngblood is a superhero team starring in their self-titled comic book series, created by writer/artist Rob Liefeld. The team made its debut as a backup feature in RAMM #1 before the next month appearing in the one-shot Megaton Explosion #1 before later appearing in April 1992 in its own ongoing series as the flagship publication for Image Comics and the wider Image Universe. Youngblood was originally published by Image Comics, and later by Awesome Entertainment. Upon Rob Liefeld's return to Image Comics, it was revived in 2008, 2012, and 2017. In 2019, Liefeld revealed that he has not owned the rights to Youngblood for several years.
Erik J. Larsen is an American comic book artist, writer, and publisher. He currently acts as the chief financial officer of Image Comics. He gained attention in the early 1990s with his art on Spider-Man series for Marvel Comics. In 1992 he was one of several artists who stopped working for Marvel to found Image Comics, where he launched his superhero series Savage Dragon – one of the longest running creator-owned superhero comics series – and served for several years as the company's publisher.
The Savage Dragon is a superhero created by Erik Larsen, published by Image Comics and taking place in the Image Universe. The comic features the adventures of a superheroic police officer named the Dragon. The character first appeared as the Dragon in Graphic Fantasy #1 and first appeared as the "Savage Dragon" in Megaton #3.
Deathmate is a six-part comic book crossover between Valiant Comics and Image Comics published in 1993–94. The series is remembered for its negative impact on comic book retailers and the industry as a whole due to its late, over-ordered but poorly-selling books.
Brigade is an American comic book published by Image Comics and later by Awesome Entertainment, created, plotted, and originally written by Rob Liefeld and first illustrated by Marat Mychaels as a spin-off from the then-popular series Youngblood.
Awesome Comics or Awesome Entertainment was an American comic book studio formed in 1997 by Rob Liefeld following his expulsion from Image Comics, a company he co-founded five years prior.
New Men is a comic book series published during the 1990s by Image Comics. It was one of the many titles co-created by Rob Liefeld, and released as part of his Extreme Studios imprint. After an initial launch the series underwent a re-design and revamp by writer Eric Stephenson and penciler Chris Sprouse.
Splitting Image is a 2 issue comic-book limited series created in 1993 by Don Simpson and published by Image Comics. It satirizes the founders of Image and their initial titles such as Savage Dragon, Spawn, Youngblood, WildC.A.T.s: Covert Action Teams, Cyber Force, Shadowhawk, Wetworks, and Pitt. Issue #2 ends with a cliffhanger ending featuring Megaton Man, Captain Everything from normalman, and Mr. Spook from Tales of the Beanworld which was continued in the Megaton Man/normalman Special. In 2017, to celebrate the publisher's 25th anniversary, Image released an 80-Giant Special collecting both issues of Splitting Image along with the Normalman/Megaton Man special and supplementary material.
Judgment Day was a limited series published by Awesome Comics from June to October 1997 written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Rob Liefeld, with additional art by Gil Kane. This story features several characters created by Liefeld for both Awesome Comics and the Image Universe, including Supreme, Youngblood and Glory, dealing with the concept of superheroes being tried for murder. The series also features characters created by other Image Comics creators such as Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon.
Shaft is a superhero created by writer/artist Rob Liefeld. Liefeld created the character for his Extreme Studios as the leader of superhero team Youngblood.
Bloodstrike is a comic book series created by writer/artist Rob Liefeld as part of his Extreme Studios production company, and which debuted in 1993 through Image Comics as a spinoff of Liefeld's other property Youngblood. Bloodstrike features a squad of assassins, each of whom is a super-powered operative who died in the line of duty and was resurrected by a secret government program called Project Born Again. The group is led by Cabbot Stone, and its other members include Fourplay, Deadlock, Shogun, Tag, and Chapel.
Chapel is a supervillain/antihero character appearing in comics published by Rob Liefeld, who created the character in 1992 as a member of the government superhero group Youngblood for their series of the same name published by Extreme Studios.
Image United is an incomplete comic book limited series published by Image Comics. The intent of the series was to re-unite the founders of Image Comics on a joint project, serving as a crossover between various Image Universe titles. However, there were delays in production, and only three of the planned six issues were published in November 2009, with artist Rob Liefeld eventually confirming that no further issues would be forthcoming.
The Image Universe (IU) is a fictional universe in which some of the stories published by Image Comics take place. It was introduced in the early years of the publisher, shared by the various creators who formed the Image partnership. The independent, creator-owned nature of their work led to limited interaction between their characters, and little coordination of the Image Universe as a shared setting, with the primary versions populated by a number of superheroes/villains, including Supreme, Invincible, Omni-Man, Spawn, Angela, Atom Eve, the Savage Dragon, Gert, Bomb Queen, and Witchblade, as well as incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Covenant of the Sword is a fictional, covert organization bent on global domination appearing in comic books published by Image Universe. It was created by Erik Larsen, Keith Giffen and Dave Johnson, and first appeared in SuperPatriot #1. Although mainly appearing in Larsen's flagship title The Savage Dragon and the related title SuperPatriot, the Covenant also appeared in a number of Extreme Studios comics by Rob Liefeld, most notably Bloodstrike and Badrock. Damien Darklord is one of the members who is also a major villain in the Savage Dragon series.