This review first appeared in the August OTV Newsletter as the Classic Book Of The Month. This feature, as well as other Newsletter Exclusive content goes out at the beginning of every month, right to your email inbox. This month, our newsletter got our advance review of Archer & Armstrong #1, not available anywhere else. Sign up in the box at right to make sure you don’t miss future newsletters!
Bloodshot #12
Even Bloodshot needs to relax.
Written by Kevin Van HookPencilled by Don PerlinInked by John DixonColored by Jade Moede
Cover Date: January, 1994
Synopsis: “In the last six months, I’ve been hit with several hundred volts of electricity, stabbed throught the stomach by a high-tech ninja, shot and dropped from an airplane. I deserve a little time off.”
With that, Bloodshot, using his alias of Michael Lazarus, takes a vacation away from his work with British Intelligence. He vacations in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and while vacationing on the sands, gets distracted by the drug mob violence in the room next to his. He takes a vacation from his vacation, and gets his hands dirty stopping a gang-land style execution that a local drug boss has planned for some of his lackeys.
Why it’s cool: Bloodshot on vacation! How cool is that! It is fun to see Bloodshot thrown into atypical situations, in this case, trying to relax. Bloodshot kicks back, has a beer, hangs out at the beach, watches a John Wayne movie, plays a nice little trick on some beach punks, meets a lady at the bar, goes on a date, and gets flustered by his date’s more intimate advances. He also seems to have packed his Dessert Eagle with him on the vacation, showing that you can take the man away from the Agency, but you can’t take the agency out of the man. These sort of “slice of life” stories are fun, and this is a great done-in-one issue from the classic Bloodshot series.
Why it was chosen: After what happened in the new Bloodshot #1 this month, don’t you think he deserves a vacation? It would have been easy to pick Archer & Armstrong #0 as the Classic Book Of The Month, to compare and contrast it with the first issue of the new series. You’ve probably already read Archer & Armstrong #0 anyway, since it is one of the three best issues Valiant published in the 90’s (the other two are Eternal Warrior #1 and Rai #0, for the record). I thought it would be fun to take a look at a gem from the middle years of Valiant, and showcase one of the more fun, light-hearted books from the original run. Plus, at the end (spoiler alert), of course he gets the girl.