There are a lot of comics out there, but some just stand out head and shoulders above the pack. With “Don’t Miss This” we want to spotlight those series we think need to be on your pull list. This week, we’re taking a look at Valiant’s return to one of the heroes that made the publisher a household name, and is VERY much not for children: “Bloodshot Unleashed.”
Who Is This By?
The book is written by author Deniz Camp, who is kind of new to the comic book scene but has made quite the impact with violent, quirky, and very imaginative books such as “Maxwell’s Demons” and “Agents of W.O.R.L.D.E”. This is his first book published with Valiant and the future certainly looks bright.
The artwork for “Bloodshot Unleashed” is provided by Jon Davis-Hunt, who is known for his work on Valiant’s “Shadowman” books and DC’s “Wildstorm”. His artwork uses large numbers of small panels to tell a story that feels more like beat poetry and his characters are highly detailed and realistic, which is viscous, hyper violent, and gorgeous looking bonus when you consider the book’s subject matter.
What’s It All About?
Bloodshot is not having a good time. At the beginning of the story he is just sitting in the abandoned wreckage of a destroyed home drinking himself into a stupor and blowing his brains out with a pistol in an attempt to make the pain stop and the bad memories go away. Unfortunately, the nanites in his blood are having none of it and are constantly repairing his flesh and restoring his memories, which means he can’t die and he can’t forget.
Fortunately for him, a distraction comes in the form of a mysterious government agent who has a job for the nanite enhanced super soldier. It turns out that Bloodshot wasn’t the only super soldier program being run by the United States government. Over the decades there have been hundreds of experiments to create monsters capable of killing America’s enemies, and when they’ve either failed or run out of funding they’ve all been thrown inside a specially made prison and left to rot. Unfortunately, they’ve all managed to break out of said prison and many of them are looking for some payback against the country that used them and cast them aside.
Now, Bloodshot must journey across the desolate and forgotten small towns and abandoned places of America, hunting and killing men just like him.
What Makes It So Great?
There are two things that make Bloodshot such an interesting and compelling hero. First, somebody screwed with his memories so whenever he thinks he has a bead on the memories of his past life, it usually turns out to be fake or some way to motivate him to fight harder. The creative team behind “Bloodshot Unleashed” understands the heartbreak and emotional wreckage something like this can cause and it’s not just for Bloodshot, it’s for the super soldiers that he’s fighting. The entire series is filled with broken men who have nothing left except their memories and whatever special abilities were forced on them and Deniz Camp does an amazing job of making all of these broken monsters sympathetic and relatable. On top of all this great emotional pathos, there’s an awesome cameo from XO Manowar–which is another great Valiant superhero–in issue #3 and it’s fantastic.
The second thing that sets Bloodshot apart from a lot of other heroes is the importance of blood (after all, it is in the name) and other bodily fluids in the narrative, and oh boy does “Bloodshot Unleashed” play that idea to the hilt. Right off the bat, the cover shows the reader what they’re getting into and what they can expect from the book. This is a comic book that isn’t afraid to show what can happen to a human body when it gets shot full of holes, blown up by claymore mines, or ripped in half by super strong robots and as a result, while it’s not really for younger readers or anyone who is squeamish, artist Jon Davis-Hunt makes it all look amazing and mesmerizingly beautiful.
How Can You Read It?
While the series has concluded, the book was published in September of 2022, which means that there are still copies available for purchase online and should be available through your local comic book store. No word on whether or not it will be released as a trade paperback, but the four issues shouldn’t be too hard to track down.
