All-star team fires away in special 'Bloodshot' issue

Bloodshot is a brutal kind of guy, yet he's also been brutalized.

The fact that Valiant Comics' resident red-eyed killing machine isn't a fixed person is intriguing to Peter Milligan, and the Bloodshot writer contributes a story that balances the character's violent streak as well as an emotional side in a special oversized issue of the series in November.

Clocking in at 48 pages, Bloodshot No. 25 is chock full of tales featuring the conflicted hero, including one from the launch team of writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Manuel García, an untold story following his H.A.R.D. Corps experience by Duffy Boudreau and Al Barrionuevo, and a work written and illustrated by comic-book icon Howard Chaykin.

Other contributors for the issue include writers Justin Jordan and Daniel Kibblesmith of the website Clickhole as well as artists Rafer Roberts and Don Perlin, who co-created Bloodshot in 1992 with Kevin VanHook.

After the issue, the character moves to a lead role in the mega-miniseries The Valiant by writers Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt and artist Paolo Rivera beginning in December, and then shifts back to his own series next year as one of Valiant's most high-profile dudes.

"Bloodshot is Valiant's major balls-to-the-wall action hero," says Bloodshot editor Alejando Arbona. "He's the guy who goes in, guns blazing, fists flying, a trail of destruction in his wake, with a unique set of abilities that empower him to take a lot of punishment and keep coming."

He's continually having his body healed by nanites so he can go on mission after mission for the government, but Bloodshot is trying to figure out his identity, who exactly created him in the first place and come to terms with the memories of past loved ones.

Milligan and artist Lewis LaRosa's lead story in Bloodshot No. 25 examines the other side of being a destructive man of action, and of being the woman who loved one of Bloodshot's incarnations.

To offer a new insight into the character, Milligan says he's taking it from an existential viewpoint "to really get under the skin of this ultimate soldier and find that there's a lot more there than just regenerating nano-computers there."

Arbona describes it as an explosive adventure that's also touching and devastating. "We discover that, to fuel the engine that drives Bloodshot, human lives are turned into wreckage. Innocent civilians who don't even know they're connected to Bloodshot become casualties in his ongoing mission, whether he wants it or not."

As a living weapon, he's driven by the memories and emotional motivators plundered from the lives of actual human beings, according to the editor. So when the leash is torn off, there is still a good bit of emotional turmoil "Frankensteined" into his brain.

How Bloodshot digs through it and reacts is the core quality that defines the character, aside from the superpowers, Arbona says. "And when he has to wade through figuring himself out and shielding the innocent while also fighting a small army of highly specialized shock troops sent to tear him apart and bring back the pieces, he'll have his hands more than full."

Milligan feels that LaRosa's art delivers all the explosiveness and mayhem that comes naturally with Bloodshot combined with tender moments as well, and Arbona adds that the artist gives the character an undercurrent of humanity in a guy with red eyes and no pupils.

"You'll get guns-blazing, muscle-popping, violence-fueled destruction, but you'll also get heartfelt drama and compelling, down-to-earth character moments," the editor says. "It's not easy to sell relatable humanity with Bloodshot, but Lewis pulled it off with flying colors."

Arbona gives high marks to Chaykin's story, too, which tells a sweet and nutty story based on a single random element of Bloodshot's world.

"Digging deep into the guts of a Bloodshot mission," he says, "Howard's story fleshes out the world around Bloodshot to uncover the unexpected nature of how our hero operates and what keeps him going."

As much of a war machine as he is, Arbona reminds that he isn't indestructible. So looking at what slows him down makes for some of the best Bloodshot stories.

"He's spent his entire life as Bloodshot being used and exploited by the people who created him, being swung around as a blunt instrument or deftly deployed as a scalpel to attack problems big and small," Arbona says. "And when Bloodshot awakens into self-awareness, his greatest strengths as a living weapon become his major liabilities as a hero and a person.

"He's had no inner life, nobody to connect to, no idea who he is or who he used to be. He's the ultimate weapon on a pure mission of self-discovery."