Review: Bloodshot #12

Creative Team
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist: Barry Kitson
Inkers: Stefano Gaudiano, and Barry Kitson
Color Artist: Brian Reber
Cover Artists: Kalman Andrasofszky, Patrick Zircher, and Matthew Waite

How We Got Here: Everything he knew about himself was a lie. Not just one but hundreds of lies. Each lie put in place to give him something to fight for. He was a machine created to hunt down psiots and bring them back to Project Rising Spirit. What he thought he was doing was going on missions to protect his country against lethal threats.

With the help of Dr. Emmanuel Kuretich, Bloodshot was freed from the Project Rising Spirit programming. Attempting to truly understand the world around him for the first time he frees young psiots that were held in PRS’ Nursery compound. Recognizing him as the man who imprisoned them the kids were both driven by fear and confusion as they tried to escape. Half succeeded as they fled to Las Vegas. After winning the trust over the other half of the psiot children, Bloodshot left the scene to find a place to refuel and find food.

Toyo Harada, of the Harbinger Foundation, arrived to retrieve the children from Bloodshot. But what he thought would be an easy transaction turned to be a battle as deep coding inside of Bloodshot known as the Harada Protocol was activated.  As a result of the battle both Bloodshot and Toyo Harada were left on the verge of death. The escaped Psiots gathered Bloodshot and drove with the intent of going to Las Vegas to save the children who escaped the Nursery.

The Issue: Bloodshot is in horrible shape. The kids are all starving and cranky. Despite wanting to push on to Las Vegas for whatever awaited them, they stop to get something to eat. The nearest place is a slaughterhouse in the middle of the desert where Bloodshot goes to get food. What he doesn’t know is that he walked into a trap.

Dr. Emmanuel Kuretich who has a hit squad waiting for Bloodshot lay in wait. After the surprise attack, Kuretich vowed to do his creation one last favor by putting him out of his misery, Kuretich has his men cut off Bloodshot’s limbs and drops him on the meat grinder.

The conveyor belt moves slowly ahead, Bloodshot is out of strength just moments away from death.  As a last gasp attempt Bloodshot reaches out using the nanites inside of him to shut down the power supply. Kuretich and his men have one last chance to put Bloodshot out of his misery, but he reaches down and uses his last bit of energy to kill them all with another burst of energy emitted from his nanites.

Outside the kids are also under pressure and initial held captive in their vehicle.  They manage to escape and defeat the men who were holding watch over them. Bloodshot returns outside with some freshly cut steaks for the road. And just like that the gang heads to Vegas.

What I Liked: Honestly, I didn’t like much here. It’s not as much that it was a bad issue but there wasn’t really anything to talk about afterwards. This was the first issue of the Harbinger Wars crossover that existed completely outside of anything that was shown in the main series. And that is a good and bad thing. The good is that there is more room to work with. The bad is that it feels like filler, which is unfortunate.

After it being revealed that Kuretich was in cahoots with Toyo Harada it makes sense for Bloodshot to want revenge. It also makes sense that Kuretich would want to close this loose end to provide a favor for Harada. So instead of leaving this loose string hanging for maybe a year down the road they dealt with it now. The positive that comes from that is that it lets Bloodshot move forward in his story.

What I Didn’t Like: It was a filler issue. I’m team Valiant through and through, but maybe there isn’t enough story for a 12 issue crossover. I understand Bloodshot needing to stop for food. I also understand Kuretich wanting to close up a lose end. What I don’t understand is Kuretich being there first hand and willing to get his hands dirty. For someone who was far removed from the destruction of the Nursery it doesn’t ring true to his character.

Just a lot of things in this issue happened in order to move the storyline along. And these things happened without real explanations on why or how, but more or less they happened out of convenience. As much as I hate to say it there was lazy writing here.

Grade: 

2.5 out of 5 villains

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.