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| Bloodshot Unleashed #3 Cover A by Jon Davis-Hunt |
Bloodshot Unleashed #3 begins with a bang, combining snake-handling in an old wooden church with alien infestation. It's something out of an ordinary soldier's strategy book, which calls for a warrior with extraterrestrial abilities. Thankfully, X-O Manowar--the son of a 5th Century Visigoth king, who once co-opted a suit of sentient armor from the aliens who kidnapped him--is on the case.
Still, not even the legendary Aric of Dacia can tackle these particular aliens alone. Thus, he turns to Ray Garrison, the supersoldier named Bloodshot. Together, these two extraordinary warriors join forces to combat this potential world-ending threat.
Deniz Camp's introduction is complicated, as he intersperses X-O Manowar and Bloodshot attending church with their earlier conference. Following this dual narrative is made more difficult by Bloodshot's commentary, presented in red bordered narrative boxes.
After they leave church, and approach the source of the alien infestation, the action gets easier to follow.
While Bloodshot follows awesome X-O Manowar's lead in this adventure, he experiences more reality glitches. These scenes remind us of the son Project Rising Spirit invented as a means of controlling him, as related in the last issue. They also remind us of how Rising Spirit Technologies manipulated his memories to control him in the Bloodshot movie starring Vin Diesel.
In Bloodshot Unleashed #3, a pregnant woman keeps our hero company as he fights at excellent X-O's side. Combined with Bloodshot's earlier assertion (in Bloodshot Unleashed #2) that the nanites are ordering him around, one wonders if the tiny robots living inside him have formed a gestalt or hive mind.
If so, what are the nanites trying to tell him? Perhaps that he's relied on them too much, and they're tired of how often he forces them to repair the damage he constantly inflicts upon his body? Well, Bloodshot is an experiment, a fusion of man and machine. In this series, the machines are definitely talking back.
Jon Davis-Hunt's penciling seems akin to a 1970s underground style. Colorist Jordie Bellaire drenches his compositions in gray, beige, and red. What their collaboration lacks in depth and realism will nonetheless excite those who yearn for ample helpings of blood, gore, and over-the-top graphic violence.
As always, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou finds new ways to express the full range of human vocal utterances. Lower case lettering, colored words, and even (in the case of mighty X-O Manowar) lightning-bolts arc from dialogue balloons. Thankfully, these innovations only occasionally tax the eyes, unlike the lettering in some books which use elegant fonts, or sizes that start small and diminish further to differentiate ordinary speech from murmurs and whispers.
Bloodshot Unleashed #3 delivers an out-of-this-world team-up with two of Valiant's most popular heroes. It tackles issues like the vanishing of small town America, our waning sense of social contract, and our increasing unwillingness to understand each other, compromise, and work together for the common good. Packed with pathos and sprinkled with off-beat humor, it delivers action, horror and science-fiction in a power-packed twenty pages.
If you're a fan of all good things like Bloodshot and intergalactic X-O Manowar, as well as cinematic alien and monster creature-features, consider Bloodshot Unleashed #3 your next MUST READ.
Dragon Dave
Details, details (Yes, again!)
BLOODSHOT UNLEASHED #3
Written by DENIZ CAMP
Art by JON DAVIS-HUNT
Colors by JORDIE BELLAIRE
Letters by HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU
Cover A by JON DAVIS-HUNT
Cover B by NICOLE RIFKIN
Cover C by JUAN JOSE RYP
Pre-order Cover by E.M. GIST
Guest-starring X-O MANOWAR!
BLOODSHOT recruits X-O MANOWAR – who knows a thing or two about ending alien threats – as a parasitic alien takes hold in an Appalachian church putting an entire congregation of lost souls at risk.
On sale NOVEMBER 23RD | 32 pages, full color | $3.99 US | M
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