Comic Review: Bloodshot Volume 2

The new version of Valiant’s Bloodshot series depicted the nearly indestructible character learning his whole life was a lie, and the company that made him, Project Rising Spirit, was more than willing to end his life.  So, he had a purpose:  to find out who he truly was after he learned of all the false memories implanted into his mind to make him do the Project’s bidding.

In Volume 2, he returns to the lab that may have made him.

Bloodshot’s intel came from his former handler, one Dr. Kuretich, a fellow who in an interior monologue explains why he left the Project.  Kuretich tells Bloodshot that a heavily guarded desert facility has a computer with Bloodshot’s real name and identity listed on it.  Bloodshot doesn’t quite trust Kuretich, and as it turns out he’s right not to.  There is something in there connected to Bloodshot’s past, but it isn’t his real name.  It’s what he used to do for Project Rising Spirit.

Bloodshot goes in with his only allies:  a teenage girl psiot with EMP powers, the EMT he kidnapped to start things off, and the nanites in his blood that he can more or less communicate with now.  The nanites do a number of things, such as regenerate Bloodshot’s physical injuries, hack computers, and a few other basic things that make Bloodshot the great weapon that he is.  He’ll need it as he has to deal with cyborg soldiers and an older psiot (the Valiant term for people with superpowers) in the form of a large old woman named Gamma who gains power off the fear of others, and there are a lot of people terrified of this woman.

Writer Duane Swierczynski keeps the plot moving along quite well.  Halfway through the volume is a flashback chapter, outlining why Bloodshot is the way he is and how Kuretich, the narrator for the chapter, found he couldn’t stay with the company anymore.  Kuretich still isn’t completely trustworthy, but at least by the end of the volume, the reader knows exactly who the doctor is working for.

Much of the volume sets up a new status quo for Bloodshot, one that leads directly into his role in The Harbinger Wars.  As always, the biggest problem with a Valiant trade is they tend to be over far too soon.  I’m giving this one nine out of ten scrawny arms.