I hope it delivers... and it's good!
Bloodshot Vol 4 5 GI Review
Valiant: Bloodshot #4!
Title: I hope it delivers…
Ladies and Gents, I’m proud to say that this series has been delivering, especially with respect to the past issue. As I might’ve mentioned before, this was one series I grabbed on a whim, gave a chance, and am glad I did thus far. That being said, I was pretty psyched to read this issue. So psyched, I gave this review a working, rather than retrospective title. Let’s see how this pans out. I mean just look at this awesome cover!
The summary page starts with a panel from the last issue that really sums things up quite succinctly, but for those of you who haven’t read the first three issues I’ll give you a summary that’s (hopefully) brief. The main character is codenamed Bloodshot and he’s full of “micromachines” of sorts called nanites that are able to do just about anything. They’re able to deconstruct and reconstruct matter on a subatomic level and this allows for Bloodshot to possess an amazing, and I fear an eventually overpowering, array of abilities. These range from regeneration from wounds that would be fatal to anyone but Wolverine, to even shapeshifting. Naturally, he was an agent of some super-secret government agency that’s used him for an unspecified amount of time to do all kinds of missions that involve stealthy infiltration to flat-out going on with guns blazing. They also did the luxury of Weapon X-ing his brain and giving him tons of false memories to keep both his cover and sanity intact. As expected, he found this out and is out for vengeance, but has been thwarted by his parent agency pretty adeptly so far. Are you still with me? Good. Now enter a young woman who’d been similarly mistreated by the same agency. The only thing is, she’s his foil as her codename is Pulse and she can temporarily shut down the nanites in his body, thus rendering him killable/manageable. At the end of last issue she’d been routed to use her powers on him and a government agent has moved in for the kill.
Switch to the present issue. Of course, things don’t go his way and Bloodshot’s able to recover and eventually even gain a new ally. You guessed it,the new ally is Pulse and they are united mostly because of the shared pain they both experienced at the hand of these shady government operatives. Kara, who we encountered about two issues ago, is a very sharp witted, resourceful, and necessarily smart-ass Army nurse. She decides to stay along for the ride for reasons that are still a little unclear. She does give us a little personal anecdote as to a reason why she’s partial to veterans, but it doesn’t quite, at least not yet, justify her staying on with the group.
During the first few issues we were given part of Bloodshot’s story via flashbacks and I was hopeful they wouldn’t be relied upon too much in the series. While they are used here, they’re done so tastefully and actually add to the story rather than seeming like a good ol’ story telling device. In fact, they’re skillfully used here to bring together Pulse and Blooshot in a time when both were a little more innocent and a lot more naïve. Additionally, some of the funniest dialogue takes place during one of the flashbacks and the final page of the issue brings back fond memories of both Terminator 2 (when Arnold’s character is in the desert prepping in that awesome underground bunker), and Rambo. You can bet your next pay check (don’t) it’s gonna hit the fan next issue if this creative team has anything to say about it.
My only gripes about this book are that it ready really quickly, at least it felt that way, and that the art isn’t consistent, but it’s pretty good and solid and so is the story. There’s also enough action to keep this series going along and help it maintain that military, high throttle kind of feel you’d expect a story with this kind of background to have. Definitely pick this up if you’ve got four bucks to spare or just wait for the trade. I take that last part back, a trade, in all likelihood, isn’t due out any time soon but there will be one from the first volume of Bloodshot available on the 24th of this month. I’ll definitely be picking that up. Final score 4.5/5.