BLOODSHOT #11, available from Valiant Entertainment on February 24th, 2021, take Bloodshot, KT, and Wigans on a diving expedition to find out how to stop Project Rising Spirit from turning American citizens into compliant drones. When Rampage offers his blood to be the source of the mind control infection, it’s nanite soldier versus nanite soldier for control of the hearts and minds of America.
The Details
- Written By: Tim Seeley
- Art By: Pedro Andreo
- Colors By: Andrew Dalhouse
- Letters By: Dave Sharpe
- Cover Art By: Adelso Corona
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: February 24, 2021
Was It Good?
It’s tough to tell. Tim Seeley is merging competing ideas about mania, zealotry, fanaticism, national pride versus nationalist fears, and a whole host of other topical, real-world issues. The main villain, Rampage, is mentally disturbed, so to get what he’s doing and his perspective Seeley layers on these competing ideas in a chaotic mish-mash that doesn’t make much sense.
If the idea is to make Rampage’s obsession nonsensical, mission accomplished. If not, then whatever point Seeley was trying to make was tough to absorb.
The art is detailed and creative, especially with the rendering of Zealot, so at the very least, the issue is visually entertaining. If you’d like to get a closer look at the art, head on over to our exclusive BLOODSHOT #11 preview.
Also, don’t forget to check out our BLOODSHOT #10 review to see how we got here.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
We pick up with Bloodshot, KT, and Wigans collaborating over breakfast about the next step to shut down Project Rising Spirit(PRS). They believe the next PRS plan will be to unleash a new nanite plague that will turn the populace into compliant sheep rather than mindless rage killers.
The trio shows up at a Voter Rights rally in Washington D.C. to investigate when and how PRS will make their next attack.
The sequence of events during this scene is a little jarring because the three are standing in the middle of a rally in broad daylight, and then they’re standing by the river at night in the very next panel with no transition. It’s a minor quibble but it’s such a had cut it’s impossible not to have to flip back a page and ask “What just happened?”
The trio dives into the Chesapeake Bay and retrieves rebreather equipment KT has quietly been stashing on the river bottom for weeks. We learn they’re raiding a PRS data center hidden under the water. Once inside, Wigans begins to connect with the servers to extract whatever intel he can while Bloodshot and KT look around.
Suddenly, Bloodshot and KT come under fire and they see they’ve been followed by Zealot. His entire consciousness has been transplanted into a cyborg body with several attached weapons and total resistance to injury or pain. However, he can take damage as any other machine and Bloodshot goes on the nanite-powered offensive.
Bloodshot and KT hold their own against Zealot but it appears to be a stalemate. That is until Wigans uses his equipment to hack into Zealots neural circuitry and shut him down. Unfortunately, the trio is too late to stop the PRS attack (codename Dissident Suppression), and Rampage enters from the nearby control room to confront them.
In a flashback, we see several panels of Rampage ranting and pontificating about the nature of his love for his country and what it means to be a good citizen in a weird and twisted way. As noted in the summary above, it’s difficult to make sense of what Rampage is latching on to as a central idea. He’s all over the place.
The sitting President somehow agrees to ally with Rampage by making use of the nanites in his blood to pacify the American people into submission. When Rampage enters the data center room now, we see him covered in sensors, nodes, and wires with which he controls his clouds of nanites.
Bloodshot instantly starts shooting, but the Rampage is no more susceptible to gunfire than Bloodshot. Suddenly, Wigans and KT attack Bloodshot as infected, mind-controlled victims of Rampage’s nanite swarm.
Final Thoughts
BLOODSHOT #11 takes the very present issues of political division and toxic patriotism, ramps it up to 11, and wraps it in a sci-fi action piece. The art is gorgeous, but the story was a little hard to follow in spots due to Rampage’s over-the-top rantings. It’s a solid issue, albeit not as good as #10.
Score: 7/10
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