Bloodshot Salvation #2
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artists: Lewis LaRosa and Mico Suayan
Cover Artist: Philip Tan
Colorist: Diego Rodriguez and Brian Reber
Publisher: Valiant Comics
A Comic that reads like an action movie!
What You Need to Know:
Ray was designed to be the perfect living weapon with the Governments project “Rising Spirit”. Injected with Nanites, he has become Bloodshot the Pale skinned soldier who has Super Strength, Speed, and Endurance. He is able to shapeshift, heal from almost any wound, regenerate and is a technopath with the ability to speak to and control technology with a thought.
This story takes place between two eras. First, with a dramatic chase scene with Jesse (Bloodshot’s Daughter who has manifested his nanites) and magic his wife who is running from an Obsidian Monster who resembles Bloodshot with his red circle on his chest, but with jet black skin. The other story is a flashback to Ray (Bloodshot) who has gone to see Magic’s Daddy, an important figure from her past, to stop him from contacting her.
What You’ll Find Out:
The story picks up from the cliffhanger that the first issue left us in. After a man claiming to be Jesse’s Uncle fires a Ballistic missile at their car and upturns it. Magic is left unconscious and Jesse tries to flee, only to be grabbed by the Monster of a man seeped in Black Flesh with a Bright Red Circle on his chest. He is looking for the newly powered Jesse and having found his quarry, attempt to capture them.
Jesse has other ideas and fights back.
Magic wakes up and Jesse and she are swiftly taken into a van of a man claiming Ray sent them. Ray is dead last we knew, but they also resemble Jesse with their pale white skin and Red eyes.
What Just Happened?
The art on the book shifts to a new artist, as we enter a flashback of Ray at the kitchen table looking at a cellphone with several missed calls. Nine to be exact, and they are all from the mysterious “Daddy”. Ray knows that he has caused a great deal of harm and trauma in Magic’s past and decides to leave and put an end to the calls by confronting Daddy himself. As a reader, I had less of a feeling that he was her actual father, but more of a cult leader. He writes a note and heads off to find him.
Using his powers to follow the last cell phone call, Ray comes to secluded rural Ohio and a gated Compound. A well-armed extra from the cast of Deliverance greets him and tells him to turn back. Ray mentions that “Magic sent him” and the hillbilly lets him in to see Daddy.
He finds Daddy, a short squat unimpressive creature of a man, who greets him as his new Son-in-law.
It circles back to the events following when Ray had left. Magic wakes up to find that Jesse had run a high fever. She’s burning up and ray is nowhere to be found. She finds the note and then heads to the Emergency room with Jesse.
The doctor takes them in for treatment, and he notices that Jesse looks quite pale. She has begun what ray and magic feared. The nanites in her blood have begun to change her into another Bloodshot like her father.
Rating: 8/10
Final Thought: The two different artists are really a great way to tell a story and distinguish between a flashback and the present day. This is reminiscent of a Tarantino film where we start at the end and then work towards the beginning filling in the gaps along the way.
I describe this comic as watching an action movie, because the pace is vigorous and there is a lot of things like gunfights, and car chases to keep the action going. The story is fun and not convoluted with years of continuity to bog everything down. I am able to jump in as a new reader and enjoy the art and the characters with little exposition. Bloodshot Salvation does not disappoint with issue two!
