It’s the culmination of the journey Bloodshot has been on to save his daughter Jessie. Having made a deal with Baron Samedi, his little girl is alive, but he’s been flung into the year 4002 AD. What’s more the people who he loves most in the world are in the hands of a secret agency called Omen. With the vulnerable state everyone is in, how this concludes won’t leave anyone unscathed.
Bloodshot has been one of the few consistent characters in the Valiant universe. His moral compass isn’t guided by some traditional means of right or wrong. Rather, he tends to keep to himself and only fights when cornered. His abilities and the way in which he’s been abused by the now defunct Project Rising Spirit gives Bloodshot a clear perspective. So when he sets out to kill Baron Samedi’s enemy, he knows that he’s on his own in how he’s going to return to his family. But he will get back to them. Then there’s Hound, the nanite-infused dog that’s been a bloodshot for over a hundred years. If nothing else these two are determined. And that should frighten anyone. Meanwhile, Magic, a determined mother and the other Bloodshots have a plan to get Jessie out. All of seven years old, Jessie is serene. A Bloodshot like her father, her time on the Deadside where she was healed from whatever was killing her aged her considerably. There’s a panel in issue 12 of ‘Bloodshot: Salvation’ where she has this serene look on her face. Her captors believe she has resigned herself to being their prisoner, that she’s lost hope. But if you look closer it will remind you of that scene in the 1986 film Dune where Alia’s small stature, hides her power. She kills the “floating fat man†the Baron so swiftly that if you blink you miss it. Jessie looks like that, as if she’s biding her time. It goes to how Magic is trying to raise a daughter, not a monster. By Magic saving her child, she in turn makes sure that Jessie can rely on others. That essentially by rescuing her daughter, she teaches her that she doesn’t have to always save herself.
The Garrison, Bloodshot family are survivors. People are dead, in the present and the future. What makes this comic-book stay with you is that Omen is sanctioned by the government. An organization that is allowed to treat people as if they are commodities says a lot about the society we’re in today. You may side with Magic by the end of this tale, but with the elimination of an enemy, a greater threat may come about. Garrison narrates the end of this story and his touchstone will always be the family he’s created. It means teaching his daughter to use her gifts to save herself if need be. What matters is that they find a way to get back to each other. And that’s what makes Bloodshot such a satisfying read.
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