This article is taken from the July OTV Newsletter, which was delivered to subscriber’s inboxes yesterday. The newsletter comes out once a month, and is a review of things that have happened in the previous month, and what we can look forward to in the coming month. We also have a “Classic Book Of The Month” that we feature in the newsletter, sometimes pointing out an obvious gem, and sometimes a hidden gem from the classic Valiant Universe.
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Bloodshot #40
Bloodshot 40 Cover
Written by Mark Moretti, Pencilled by Jackson Guice, Inked by Mike Sellers, Colored by Frank Lopez & VanHook Studios, and Lettered by Mike Harmon.
Cover Date: December, 1995
Synopsis
The Joint Chiefs of Staff have a meeting about these so-called “meta-humans”, aka, our Valiant heroes, and decide to recruit Bloodshot to help take out Julio Cortez, a South American cocaine dealer. Since Bloodshot has had a string of failures at MI-6, he is ripe to go work for another agency. Or were those failures just a setup? Bloodshot drops in to Colombia to take out Cortez, and then everything goes wrong, Jillian is shot, and Bloodshot is not in good shape. It turns out that there are multiple plots moving around to betray Bloodshot.
Why it’s cool
Is the cover not enough? That cover is one of the coolest covers to a Bloodshot comic. Ever. Aside from that, we see Bloodshot kicking butt like only Bloodshot can, plots, backstabbing, setups, twists, and more. At first the story seems to just be a plot of the British and American governments, and more is revealed to show a connection to Bloodshot’s oldest enemy.
Why it was chosen
Ok, ok, we have to admit that this issue was chosen because of the awesome cover, and because this Newsletter is being sent out on the Fourth Of July (If you are international, 4th of July is Independence Day in U.S.A.), but it is a very cool issue! This is the first issue of Mark Moretti’s run as writer of Bloodshot, and throughout his run he evolves Bloodshot, digs in to his past, and allows Bloodshot to discover more of who he was before he was turned over to Project Rising Spirit, and evolves Jillian Alcott in a very cool way. This issue and the next issue are a 2-part story that set up a lot of what Mark Moretti does with this run. If you want to know more about these later issues of Bloodshot, we discuss them in Episode 59.