Everyone’s favorite pale, nanite fueled, murder machine begins a daring new chapter in his life: fatherhood.
Written by Jeff LemireCover by Kenneth Rocafort
Illustrated by Lewis La Rosa and Mico Suayan
Colored by Brian Reber
Lettered by Simon BowlandNow: In the arms of his beloved girlfriend Magic, Bloodshot has finally found hope for the future…in the form the couple’s unborn child. But when Magic’s estranged family – a cruel and sadistic clan of white supremacist criminals – re-emerge to lay claim to their lost daughter, Bloodshot will be pushed back to the brink of madness, mayhem, and warfare…nSoon: Eight years from today, Bloodshot’s daughter has inherited her father’s incredible abilities. Hunted by a high-tech kill squad called Omen, Jessie must hone her powers…and learn how to survive before the world is swallowed whole by the darkness that now pervades America…
After a lacking “Bloodshot Reborn” #0 which felt like Valiant marking time, the next chapter of writer Jeff Lemire’s run with the titular character begins in earnest with “Bloodshot Salvation” #1. Spread across two time periods and promised interaction with the larger Valiant universe, “Salvation” appears to have a highly aestheticized surface with a potent emotional core motif at its center in the tradition of previous titles. This time around Lemire is investigating the family Ray Garrison has found with Magic and their newborn daughter in the wake of “Bloodshot U.S.A. .” For a franchise that is built on male melodrama, “Salvation” is setting up for some Parenthood-esque good cries were the salt of tears mixed with the coppery taste of blood.
This leitmotif of family, begs the question: is Bloodshot conducive to one? Magic certainly doesn’t think so, and when Valiant CEO Dinesh Shamdasani describes the series as featuring “ what Bloodshot does best, which is fuck a whole lot of people up!” It’s hard not see the logic in that. For all of its nanite enhanced properties, Bloodhound still lacks the opposable thumbs necessary to help change Jessie, in one of Lemire and artist Lewis LaRosa’s quietly effective moments. Bloodshot and Hound possess a set of skills that aren’t exactly favorable for raising a newborn (but would be useful for scaring off prospective suitors for young Jessie later on.)
If Bloodshot isn’t immediately good for the new family, can Ray Garrison choose to leave things well enough alone, and do as Guile tells his defeated opponents? “Go home and be a family man.” The concept of choice is at the core of Ray-Bloodshot and the operational theme for the series going forward. Lemire and LaRosa beautifully encapsulate this in what is a small moment that will ripple out of the series going forward: does Ray pick up the phone or not? One second, one panel, he is Ray Garrison rugged family man. A panel later, he is the hulking gray murder machine Bloodshot, whose nanites are driving through the information superhighway on a mission, and there’s only ever been one kind of mission for Bloodshot. This and other little moments that Lemire and artists Lewis LaRosa and Mico Suayan illustrate do a great job of narrating to the reader the emotional stakes of this series. Which is what you should want out of a first issue, an understanding of character and the emotional context of things. Larger ideas surrounding the plot can come later.
In the previously referenced interview with Shamdasani and editor Warren Simons, as well as in other interviews with Jeff Lemire, they all comment on the divide between Ray and Bloodshot in terms of oppositional dualism. I don’t quite see the divide between Ray and Bloodshot in such oppositional terms. As the scene with the phone illustrates via both Lemire’s scripting and LaRosa’s art, they are one in the same. What I think the previous “Bloodshot” series made clear was that Bloodshot wasn’t so much evil as he was amoral; a tool that slowly discovered the Self. That discovery brings about a different sort of recognition, transforming Bloodshot into the Id of Ray Garrison. So now than how does Ray contend with and find salvation within that aspect of himself?
That is a question that will have to wait, as the world threatens to pull Ray and his family back in. The mysterious appearance of Magic’s Father conjures an immediate threat to their new family. But, something much worse may be in the distance. Evil never truly dies, it just evolves. And, so, from the ashes of Project Rising Spirit comes Omen and a new, not so anonymous, military industrial complex fueled baddie known as the Scarred Man. Their addition adds a new facet to Omen’s current plans for the Valiant U. In “Harbinger Renegade” they recently declared war on Psiots, with the backing of the government, and unleashed a massacre. All in a naked quest for capital. Here the Scarred Man talks of saving the country, stopping the decay, not profiteering. If he weren’t so well dressed it would be hard to distinguish him from your typical militia types. Undoubtedly, Omen would like a return of its property.
“Salvation” is setup to be very character focused, except unlike “Reborn,” with its intense interiority of Ray and Agent Festival, “Salvation” is spread across two separate periods of time with an artist for each period. For this arc, Mico Suayan handles the “near future,” which features a young Jessie (clearly taking after her father) and Logan-esque environment that bookends the issue. Lewis LaRosa illustrates the present where Jessie is a newborn in the core of the issue. Their contrasting art styles, Suayan’s sharp contrast inks, and LaRosa’s soft edges play off one another and make for a clear representation of choice and consequences. In the present things are softer, more open to possibilities. In the near future, Suayan’s definite line work contains everything, appears to be limited at best.
Brian Reber handles colors for the entire issue. He brings a smooth pallet to everything, for Suayan’s art this creates a sort of cross process effect to objects. Reber’s pallet blends the colors together nicely but that smoothness juts out against Suayan’s sharp blacks. It’s interesting to compare the tension in their images compared to Suayan and David Baron’s work on the first arc of “Reborn.” There isn’t that sort of clinch fist quality in LaRosa’s segments as his figures are not represented with such heavy weights, everything just blends together.
With multiple time periods and the concept of family, the point of view of the book is able to move beyond primacy Ray. Which means Magic finally gets to do something! While “Reborn” is good series overall, it’s hard to argue that the interiority of that series didn’t limit the development of Magic as her own character, relegating her to serve primarily as an object of desire for Ray as he worked through his issues. In the near future without Ray, it’s just her and Jessie on the run from Omen lone wolf and cub style. Magic gets to become the active body.
What does “salvation” mean? Distanced from its theological roots, it is the means by which someone or thing is saved from harm. It is a heavy verb in which to title a series with. How does someone like Bloodshot bring about salvation for anybody? As Ray’s Id, all he knows is to kill. Lemire has remarked that in his previous series, Bloodshot was often his own worst enemy, the real antagonist of the piece. What kind of choice can lead to his and others salvation?
Final Verdict: 8.0 – “Bloodshot Salvation” kicks off the next chapter in this character’s history and Jeff Lemire isn’t looking away from asking hard questions about its title character.
