Brigade #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBrigade Vol. 2 #3 (September 1993) serves as the concluding chapter of the five-part 'Blood Brothers' crossover that threaded through both the Brigade and Bloodstrike ongoing series, making it a pivotal node in Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios shared universe. The issue delivers the first appearance of Roy Roman — the Extreme Universe's submarine monarch and an open homage to Marvel's Namor the Sub-Mariner — who would go on to become a recurring presence across the Extreme Studios line in titles including Supreme and later Brigade volumes. Narratively, the issue crystallizes the central tension of the early Brigade mythology: Battlestone's defiance of the U.S. government and his leveraging of 'Project: Born Again' secrets as a deterrent against Cabbot Stone and Bloodstrike, a standoff that would drive the series' ongoing storylines for years. As part of the 'Blood Brothers' event, it also demonstrated Image's early experiment in coordinated inter-title storytelling, a structural ambition that prefigured the larger Extreme Studios crossover events to come.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Brigade was conceived by Rob Liefeld as a Youngblood spin-off and launched through his Extreme Studios imprint within Image Comics, with Marat Mychaels serving as primary artist and Eric Stephenson co-writing. The ongoing second series picked up directly from the four-issue 1992–1993 mini-series and immediately plunged the team into 'Blood Brothers,' a crossover designed to interlock Brigade with the companion title Bloodstrike across five chapters. Issue #3 of this volume — the crossover's fifth and final chapter — was written by Liefeld and Stephenson with art by Mychaels and inker Norm Rapmund, and lettered and edited by Kurt Hathaway; colorist Paul Mounts ('Bongotone') completed the production team. The cover was a collaboration between Mychaels and veteran artist George Pérez, an unusual pairing that reflected the period's enthusiasm for marquee talent mix-and-match on covers.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Roy Roman (also known simply as 'Roman'), the Extreme Universe's undersea monarch — a deliberate analogue of Marvel's Namor the Sub-Mariner — who emerges from the Caribbean Sea in the issue's closing scene.
- Final chapter (part 5 of 5) of the 'Blood Brothers' crossover, which alternated between Brigade and Bloodstrike; the preceding chapter appeared in Bloodstrike Vol. 1 #3.
- Written by Rob Liefeld and Eric Stephenson; art by Marat Mychaels (pencils) and Norm Rapmund (inks); cover by Mychaels and George Pérez; colors by Paul Mounts ('Bongotone'); lettering and editing by Kurt Hathaway.
- The issue features the full Bloodstrike villain roster in action against Brigade: Cabbot Stone, Deadlock, Fourplay, Shogun, and Tag all appear as antagonists.
- Key story beat: Battlestone refuses to kill Cabbot Stone but threatens to expose 'Project: Born Again' publicly, establishing the government-conspiracy thread that runs through the remainder of the series.
- Stasis — who had been killed by Cabbot at the start of 'Blood Brothers' — remains dead; Cabbot explicitly destroys her rejuvenation chamber in this issue, cementing the permanent death of a named team member.
- Lethal returns to assist Brigade in the battle, reuniting a character who had been left behind when Battlestone originally disbanded the team's first incarnation.
- Published September 1993 by Image Comics under the Extreme Studios imprint as part of the early-1990s boom in creator-owned super-team titles.
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More fists fly in the Blood Brothers Finale but ugh! It's a tie!!
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).
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