Badrock

Badrock is a fictional superhero who appears in books published by Image Comics. Created by Rob Liefeld, he was originally named Bedrock and first appeared in ''Youngblood'' #1 (April 1992).

Fictional character biography

Thomas John McCall was an average, underachieving 16-year-old when he swallowed a vial of top secret genetic material in his father's lab. A transformation occurred and McCall's body became a mass of organic rock, similar to granite. He still however, exhibited the emotional immaturity of a 16-year-old. Thomas later assumed the identity of Badrock, after he was recruited to join the high-profile, government superteam Youngblood. Badrock has been 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 incredible power of his fists to pummel opponents into submission. Despite his massive size, Badrock's reflexes exceed normal human levels.

Badrock is impulsive and dangerous. He has caused property-damage by picking fights with the police officer Savage Dragon and Mighty Man. The fight with Savage Dragon was intended to see if Bedrock was up to joining Youngblood. Instead, Savage Dragon arrested him.

Bedrock is one of the most popular members of Youngblood in both, the fictional Image Universe and real-life comic readers. Badrock has starred in more spin-off comics than any other member of the team.Badrock @ Grand Comics Database
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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 one 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).

Badrock's adventures involved threats to national security, such as Youngblood rescuing (what seemed to be) Vice President Dan Quayle from the WildC.A.T.s. Badrock, in one of his many solo adventures, visits Hell, confronting Spawn's old enemy, the Violator. This was after being named temporary security head of a scientific installation that was investigating the realm of Hell. He was more responsible at this point, trying to protect the many innocent people who had unwittingly made the trip to Hell with him. He had to deal with the interference of heavenly and hellish agents and the unwillingness of some of the humans to actually obey his orders. At one point, Violator tricks Badrock into freeing him because the heavenly agent that had torn into the building was 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 back to Earth.

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 has once again been captured by the Covenant of the Sword. The story further explores the fact that Grifter once had an intimate relationship with Badrock's mom. Only two issues of the limited series were produced, even though the story was incomplete and promised "To Be Continued...".

Murder

Badrock is part of a vital effort of keeping reality from duplicating itself in the ''Shattered Image'' limited series. 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.

When Youngblood was disbanded after the death of Riptide, Badrock took some time off. It did not last long though, and through a series of events, he became 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 out of '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'.

In the year 3000, Badrock was still alive and returned 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 back led to the destruction of Earth, Katella, and Acura in Badrock's timeline. Badrock then returned to 1995 where he prevented this from occurring. The mission succeeded.

Badrock also starred in three inter-company crossovers with Marvel Comics. Badrock and Wolverine of the X-Men joined forces to battle the Savage Land Mutates. While being interviewed for the Daily Bugle, Badrock teamed up with Spider-Man to take on Spidey's rogues' gallery, thanks to the illusions of Mysterio. As a member of Youngblood, Badrock and his pals teamed up with X-Force to battle the media madness of Mojo

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 actually become a planet. He has a number of children, including one called Brainrock, who tried to become a planet as well, but only reached the size of a tiny moon."Prophet" #26 (2012)

Name change

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.

See also

*Image Comics
* List of Image Comics publications
*Youngblood

References

{{Youngblood, state=autocollapse

Comics characters introduced in 1992
Image Comics characters with superhuman strength
Image Comics male superheroes
Arcade Comics characters
Characters created by Rob Liefeld