Superpowered secret agent Bloodshot is on a mission collecting weapon components when his party is attacked by Webnet, a sinister and powerful organization. He alone manages to escape, and is assigned to protecting agents of the Weaponeer organization, an arms-smuggling company that Webnet has sworn to eradicate...
This is a tolerable issue of Valiant Comics' actioner Bloodshot, but still mediocre. The action is ok, but nothing special, and all-too brief.
The plot is setup to the events of Ninjak, another Valiant series, and it does so serviceably, but this issue gets across too little. It's purely setup and nothing else mixed in with an action scene.
One aspect to the plot that I like is that the Weaponeer agent who first approaches Bloodshot for protection is the same character from a previous issue a while back (from before we even knew about the Weaponeer). It's a neat bit of continuity, having an old one-time character returning and expanding on them. Granted, he never appears again after this issue, so it's not that big of a hit with me.
The biggest fault with this issue's story is in how ineffectual the title character is! He fails his mission in the Balkans, he fails his mission to extract a courier and weapon component, and worst of all, he fails to protect a single one of the Weaponeer agents he's meant to protect! They all get killed! Setting up a powerful villain is one thing, but it shouldn't be done at the cost of denigrating your hero. The Webnet connection is pretty annoying too, as it's part of the Ninjak storyline, not Bloodshot. This could potentially definitely act as a prequel to those events that you don't need to read if you don't want to, but Valiant comics were rarely like that. For example, you basically have to read Eternal Warrior Issue #5 before Bloodshot #1. This is an extremely irritating problem, and because of it, Bloodshot started off way too abruptly, and so does Ninjak. Even worse is that this isn't much of a standalone plot, yet the story is never continued in Bloodshot! Hell, the very next issue is a completely unrelated Christmas story!
The artwork is decent The cover is also ok. It does spoil how things turn out for the Weaponeer agents, but then again, so did I in the above paragraph. After all, the plot in this issue is so small that it's really only a bare handful of scenes long.
There's a big artwork disconnect when Bloodshot takes the Weaponeer agents to a safehouse, and in his narration, he says how it's an optimal setup because there are no adjacent buildings...Except for the adjacent buildings that can be plainly seen!
An aesthetically dumb choice is having all the Weaponeer agents wear white suits. It's idiotic and absurdly conspicuous! Bloodshot does lampshade it, but that doesn't make it any less stupider.
Overall, this issue accomplishes nothing, and is a pretty pointless read. Thankfully next issue of Bloodshot is actually really good! That's a rarity with this series, believe me!...
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