Review: Bloodshot #11
Creative Team:
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Barry Kitson
Inkers: Stefano Gaudiano & Barry Kitson
Color Artist: Brian Reber
Cover Artists: Kalman Andrasofszky, and Matthew Clark with Brian Reber
How We Got Here: Created by Project Rising Spirit, Bloodshot is a one-man weapon of mass destruction. Prior soldiers created by PRS went crazy due to non-stop combat. To prevent against this Bloodshot was implanted with false memories of family to give him motivation to complete his missions.
Believing he was on his final mission, Bloodshot went to Afghanistan to prevent a beheading. The rescue attempt turned out to be a trap. Bloodshot woke up in a lab controlled by former PRS head and mastermind Dr. Emmanuel Kuretich. Kuretich scrubs the programming put in place by Project Rising Spirit and confronts Bloodshot with all of his false memories. Off balance, and unsure of what is real, Bloodshot escapes and calls to be rescued. Instead he finds himself hunted down by the very people he believed he worked for.
Unsure of who, or what, he is, whether man or machine. Bloodshot stumbles onto a group of young psiots (super powered individuals) who were held captive and frees them. After an initial conflict, Bloodshot and the young psiots take up arms and escape. The problem is as a man without memories, and no idea of who he is, he has nowhere to go.
The Issue: Escaping from Project Rising Spirit with a group of young psiots in tow, Bloodshot finds shelter in an abandoned compound in Nevada. With no idea what he’s doing, he tries to avoid trouble until they find a plan of action. After a month of hiding they are located by Toyo Harada, the head of Harada Foundation, who demands for Bloodshot to hand over the psiots. He attempts to reason that the psiots will be best served by being under his care.
What was once a regular standoff turns into something else as the deep coding within Bloodshot is activated. This coding is called “the Harada Protocol” which was designed to allow Bloodshot to do everything within power to kill his new enemy. As he fights Toyo Harada on the outside, he also struggles to override his programming on the inside. Explosions he rigged a month prior are set off. The conflict ceases and he uses a fail-safe implanted in his tooth to set him free from the protocol. Using this as cover he and the psiots head to Las Vegas.
What I Liked: The question that drives Bloodshot is a question of “what makes you who you are?” If you find out that all the memories you had were false, and all that you know is how to kill is that all that defines you? Do you have a chance to create your own narrative? Or is it too late? These are the questions that Bloodshot faces as he tries to find out more about himself. But before he can answer them he has to overcome the obstacles in his path.
Just when we think Bloodshot has full control over himself we discover that there is some coding that lied under the surface. He was created to kill Toyo Harada. If these commands existed, what else is under there? There seems to be so much room to work here for fantastic story telling, and I completely trust Duane Swierczynski.
What I Didn’t Like: It was too easy for Bloodshot to get out of the situation. He went from believing that he was free of all Project Rising Spirit programming to suddenly having a fail-safe built into his tooth. If he didn’t think there was any programming why would he have this? Especially when it wasn’t explained before hand. It comes off as extremely convenient storytelling.
Grade:
Coatesvillain
Just a guy who was into this nerd stuff before it's popular. Now that is I'm just happy I have people to talk about it with.
