Sunday, May 15, 2011

Bloodshot volume 1 issues 0-6

Bloodshot volume 1 issues 0-6

This series came out when Valiant was at their peak of popularity. And IIRC issue 1 of Bloodshot came out the same day as the infamous Superman Volume 2 issue 75 AKA the Death of Superman issue. Bloodshot is the story of a former mafia hitman who is sold out and given to a Asian tech firm as a guinna pig. They fill his blood of nanites,little robots that can fix almost anything and allow him to control any electronic device. Well Bloodshot is rescued early on and goes on a quest to find out his past. Seems he remembers almost nothing of his previous life. You can tell that at first this was Valiant's attempt for a Punisher style hero. But quickly it changes into something else. Issue 0 came out way after these 6 issues and it does a good job giving you some of Bloodshot's story from before he became a one man killing machine.Issue 4 has him teaming up with Gilard aka the Enternal Warrior. They team up take on one of the many mafia families. An uneasy truce is reached and Gilad gets Bloodshot a job working for a British group that kinda reminds me of the group Micheal Knight worked for on Knight Rider.Issue 6 has a great cover of Bloodshot falling outta a place through the air. And at one time this issue was super hot. Cause it was the first appearance of Colin King who was Ninjak. And for a very short while Ninjak was a super hot hero. Thankfully all these issues should be easy to find for a buck an issue if no cheaper. This group of Bloodshot issues gets a B+.

Curse of the Weird #2

Curse of the Weird issue 2

Published back in the comic glut of 94,this 4 issue mini series was over looked by most of the comic fans. This is a series that reprinted "weird" tales from Marvel's Atlas era books. You get 5 stories. The first "The Ghost of Grismore Castle" has amazing artwork from the comic genius Steve Ditko. Kinda a normal ghost story,but it is elevated from an average story to a great story by art. Ditko has an energy and aura around his artwork that I can't really describe. Up next is "Bat's Tales' written by Stan Lee and pencils and inks by Russ Heath Jr. Passable vampire story with a predictable ending. "Innocent Bystander" is third,with pencils and inks by Dick Briefer. Never heard of Dick before but his artwork is a little below average for the time period. The story is like a 3rd rate "Crime Suspense Story". "The Unsolid Man" pencils and inks by the great Joe Orlando.Besides the art this one is not worth reading. And it isn't as good as Orlando's great stuff with EC. Wrapping up the comic is "No Sign of Life" written by Stan Lee and pencils and inks by Steve Ditko. Very cute Sci Fi story that doesn't over stay it's welcome. And beside the usual pages of ads,we get a few pages giving us some background on the stories,writers and artists that worked on this issue. I found this issue along with the following 2 at Coast Con last year. Got them outta the cheap bin and just the 2 stories with Ditko artwork are worth 10 times what I paid for them.