Review: Bloodshot and H.A.R.D. Corps #14
Creative Team:
Writers: Christos Gage & Joshua Dysart
Penciler: Emanuela Lupacchino
Inker: Guillermo Ortego
Color Artist: Brian Reber with Ian Hannin
Letterer: Simon Bowland
The Issue:
The Harbinger Wars are over, and Toyo Harada has won. Soundly. Now with Bloodshot in his possession, Harada has his scientists run tests to find out what makes his rival’s greatest creation tick. Impressed with the nanites that allow Bloodshot to operate he removes some for further study.
Meanwhile, Project Rising Spirit began plans for their next step in the decades old battle with Harada. Kozol, PRS head, puts together a new H.A.R.D. Corps. Kozol found a handful of people willing to go through the process which would allow them to call on psiot abilities at will to help them in battle. But before sending them out on a mission he managed to convince Major Palmer to return to his position as head of the group.
Palmer, a tested veteran, is paired with a group who have had their new abilities for less than a month. So what is this mismatched groups first mission? None other than rescuing Bloodshot from the grasps of Harada.
What I Liked:
The series started with Bloodshot attempting to rescue a psiot from Project Rising Spirit after his programming was hijacked by Dr. Emmanuel Kuretich. Now 13 issues later, the H.A.R.D. Corps are running to save him from Harada. In many ways the setup is similar even how there was no backup. You know they’ll get out but how it was setup was very interesting. But before going further let me rewind a bit…
One of the troubles of the first 13 issues of the series was that while Bloodshot is an interesting concept, he’s not a strong enough character (personality wise) to be the core of a book. There needs to be others to balance him. And while Duane Swierczynski did a solid job with the book he failed to surround Bloodshot with characters of any interest. So the book tended to lose momentum if Bloodshot wasn’t shooting up the world.
With Christos Gage and Joshua Dysart taking over as co-writers for the series they have the fortune of pairing Bloodshot with the H.A.R.D. Corps. Here you have fully develop characters with wants, needs, and personalities that should be able to work alongside Bloodshot. The most notable of these characters is Major Palmer who has been around for decades and knows the evil his employers are capable of. You can already see potential conflict in the future and that is good for the title.
What I Didn’t Like:
I understand that they are being rushed to rescue Bloodshot, but why would PRS only give the H.A.R.D. Corps two weeks of training before hand? Not only that but why wait so long to get Major Palmer on board. It just seemed weird especially since Palmer was expecting a trip back to Northern Canada. Also only three recruits? No sign of failures? Seems like they would have some failures in this extremely risky process.
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.
