Bloodshot Gets the R-Rated Makeover He Deserved in Valiant’s Black, White and Bloodshot #1 (Review)

Warning: Contains spoilers for Black, white and bloodshot #1!

bluchos Gets the R-rated makeover he always deserved Valiant Comics‘ Black, white and bloodshot. In recent years, Marvel and DC have experimented with “bichromatic” anthologies, allowing some of their most violent characters to cut loose in gory and brutal ways. Bloodshot, Valiant’s resident nanite-infused assassin, joins the club Black, white and bloodshotAnd it pushes his character into “adult reader territory” to spectacular effect.

Black, white and bloodshot #1 is written and drawn by some of today’s top creators, as detailed in the table below. The book, black and white with red throughout, follows Bloodshot in a variety of adventures, whether searching for a nuclear warhead or fighting a nanite-controlled animatronic rat. Each story shows Bloodshot doing what he seems to do best: killing people in brutal fashions. After HThe stories are even more violent and even more gory than normal – making them perfect for Bloodshot.

Far from being completely gorefest, the stories are thought-provoking and, in some cases, darkly funny.

Bloodshot’s Valiant comics origin, explained

Bloodshot has some deep ties to the Valiant Universe

Since 1992, Bloodshot has left a trail of death and carnage across the Valiant Universe. Created by writer Kevin Van Hook and artist Don Perlin, Bloodshot has become one of the publisher’s most popular characters, and that carried over into its 2012 reboot. Bloodshot is also one of the few valiant characters to pass in other media: a feature film, released in 2020 and starring Vin Diesel. Although the film failed in its attempts to start the Valiant Cinematic Universe, it still helped introduce a wider audience to the violent world of Bloodshot.

In the Valiant Universe, Bloodshot is a product of Project Rising Spirit, or PRS. In Return of the Valiant in 2012, the PRS was an organization designed to oppose Toyo Harada’s Harbinger Foundation. Under the guise of a benevolent businessman, Harada began to gather an army of people like himself, called “psychiatrists”. Immensely powerful, the psyots posed a threat to Earth, and so Project Rising Spirit was born. Bloodshot represented the pinnacle of PRS’s work: a nanite-enhanced assassin that could be easily controlled and manipulated. Of course, Bloodshot broke free from PRS, and has since been on a quest to reclaim his lost humanity.

Bloodshot lives in a dark world, and Black, white and bloodshot Show the best

Valiant lets Bloodshot cut loose for the first time

The road took Bloodshot down some dark roads in the Valiant Universe. Previous bluchos Titles did not refrain from showing this, but they were, for the most part, restrained. Before Black, white and bloodshotHis adventures reflected a more “general audience” sensibility. Black, white and bloodshot Reject it all. The kills are even more brutal and the situations increasingly over the top. Bluchos thwarts a theatrical shooting in the only way he knows how, and he snaps the throat of a researcher trying to harvest his body. This is the most uncompromising view of Bloodshot yet.

While the promise of an unfettered bluchos Title may sell the title to readers, it is in fact the excellent stories themselves that carry the book. In one story, previously unannounced, Bloodshot fights “Mickey Mouse” in a story that stretches IP laws as far as they will go. Far from being completely solid, the story shows a deeper layer to the character, as he comes face to face with someone like him. In recent months, Valiant Comics has revitalized its line of superhero titles, and Black, white and bluchos Break boundaries by giving him a well-deserved R-rated makeover.

Black, white and bloodshot #1 is on sale now from Valiant Comics and Alien Books!