A man codenamed Bloodshot has woken from a mysterious government facility with no memory. All he knows is that he's dead, and that his name is supposedly Raymond Garrison. Not believing it, he goes in search of his true identity, which he believes to be Angelo Mortalli. To find the information he seeks, Mortalli hunts down a mobster who apparently knows more about Mortalli than he's letting on. But every corner Bloodshot turns, it seems that everything from what little memory he has left has been completely erased in the real world...
The titular Bloodshot still has no character, despite his frequent as hell narrating. I'm especially confused as to why he deliberately chose a utility belt for his costume that has a huge red headlight on it!
The plot here accomplishes next to nothing. The majority shows the rest of Bloodshot's escape from the D.O.A facility, which really wasn't necessary, as we'd already seen enough of it last issue.
One really stupid scene is when D.O.A. director Simon Oreck is positing to Prject Lazarus head scientist Stroheim that the person they resurrected wasn't Raymond Garrison as they thought, but Angelo Mortalli. How in the hell did you perform this extremely elaborate procedure on a specific person (who they all know very well), but use the wrong body? However, Oreck doesn't mean it literally, as we find out in later issues. I'll just kill the mystery of that right here, lest you read this and think the writing is just inept.
The mobster, Pileggi, gets his satisfying just desserts this issue, but given how little he knows about Angelo Mortalli, why the hell did he gun down an underling last issue for merely mentioning the name?
The most baffling thing about this issue is the scene at the end, where Bloodshot recals a vague partial memory he has...And the memory is the tipping scene from Reservoir Dogs! There's a reason for this, but that's not explained this issue, so until you read where its explained, you'll wonder if the writers were trying to be cute, or if they're plagiarists!
By the way, there's one exchange between two D.O.A agents, where one is berating the other for wearing sunglasses at night, which the guy seems to think makes him look cool. I swear I wrote this exact same scene in a story I wrote! I guess I'll have to remove it, which is ok, as it was just a tiny one-scene joke. Funny coincidence!
The dialogue in this issue suffers from extreme pretentious overload, and this is not a small problem:
"Bodily fluids fermenting into wine for beetles, adipose tissue breakfast for the Conqueror Worm. Lies chiseled into granite. The name put to rest, but not the body...The grave's contents, unknown. Is six feet deep enough to bury a soul?". Judging by the lack of enough ghosts to necessitate the real-life existence of the Ghostbusters, I'd say Yes, Bloodshot, six feet is deep enough to bury the soul. "Cut the throat of metaphysics with Occam's Razor." Then what should be done with quantum mechanics? "Surge of current through emotional circuitry; spasm of memory, an amputee's phantom limb. Only an echo of a whisper, now. Sotto Voce reminder that coming back from the dead isn't the same being alive." Excuse me?! What?! And some dialogue is just dumb, such as when Bloodshot invades Pileggi's house!-"Doesn't matter how much you spend. If you build your castle out of money, the walls'll still be made of paper." Uh, no they won't. That's a terrible analogy! And one line is just disgusting! I'll save you the ickyness by not quoting it. This series also constantly overuses the word 'meat' when referring to flesh, and it's annoying!
Not all the dialogue is rubbish, though. "Was what Project Lazarus called from the grave not enough to make a whole man...or did I bring back too much of death with me?".
The artwork is just like last issue-Decent for the most part, but pretty damn cluttered. There's one scene where I think bullets are being pushed out from Bloodshot's body by his nanites, but due to the poor structure of the art, it's hard to tell. The cover is Liefeldian, kinda ugly, and is has very little to display. Just Bloodshot kneeling in a puddle of stuff.
This isn't a great issue, but for all its problems, it's still heaps better than anything Classic Valiant ever did with the character. Still, if you're interested in what Acclaim's Bloodshot has to offer, then just skip this issue. It accomplishes nothing...
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