Bloodstrike #2

It’s Cable vs. Electra while Wolverine and Skids watch! The names may have been changed to protect us from Marvel lawyers.

Ugh! This book is everything I hate about the Image imprint. I’ve seen four decent things come out of Image: Alan Moore’s inspiring run on Supreme, a must read for any fan of the Superman books, The Walking Dead, which brought zombie fiction to comicbook land, Invincible, which is highly enjoyable even if I don’t worship it the way some do, and Erik Larsen’s The Savage Dragon, which I’d term an average superhero tale. Aside from those four, I’d seen very little from Image's first crop of books that I’d really like to read on an ongoing basis.

Why? Because the stories they produced contained almost exclusively superheroes beating the crap out of each other the entire length of a book. There is no real story or plot to them besides superpowered person "A" kicks superpowered person "B’s" butt. Over and over again. There are usually no non-powered characters with roles that amount to anything more than a one panel walk-on. We see no character development in any of the main characters. They will stand around posing a lot, act tough and say gritty “Dirty Harry” style lines.

“I’ll have a number 1, No pickles, NO ONIONS. Value sized. Got IT PUNK!” Does it matter what the content of what he’s saying is? No, it doesn’t.

This character’s name is Cabbot, by the way. He looks and acts just like Cable, another character Rob Liefeld (who is writer on this book) helped create. The difference in the two characters as far as I can tell is that Cabbot has two eyes. Cable…er, Cabbot is complaining about how his team did in a recent beat down with Brigade, who they are suppose to be bringing in for the Feds. They have two Brigade members in custody and are looking to take the rest of them down. Cabbot’s team consists of Wolverine, Domino, the chick from Mortal Combat with the four arms and a fat Iron Man. Crap I did it again! I meant to say Cabbot’s team is Deadlock, Tag, Fourplay (oh, that’s clever) and Shogun. It’s so hard to keep all these original concepts straight.

Liefeld has a penchant for pouches (try saying that one three times fast.) and every other character in Bloodstrike is carrying 10-20 of them. It’d be different if they actually appeared to use them for anything. I mean Batman has a utility belt that he gets in all the time for stuff. The name even implies that it has a use – it’s a utility belt. But Rob just likes pouches without providing a purpose. (oow! Rob has a penchant for pouches without providing a purpose.) Just to help him out, I decided to label the contents of one character’s.

 

Crap! All that and he left his wallet in his other costume!

While Cabbot’s team makes plans to capture the rest of Brigade because…”This mission isn’t over until Brigade has been Destroyed!”, two of surviving members of Brigade are meeting with an old friend named Boone who might be able to help them out. Boone must be a fairly powerful superhero. Just look at those pouches! While these two Brigade members try to sign Boone up, our third Brigade member is arranging to free Bloodstrike’s prisoners. Electra…er, Lethal is surprised by Wolverine…er, Deadlock and a battle between them breaks out.

I forget what the name of this comic is again…

Bloodstrike!

BLOODSTRIKE!

 

 BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!.....

...STRIKE!

Hell, Boone’s bleeding and he ain’t even been hit yet.

One of the prisoners gets released after Cable…er, Cabbot shows up and takes down Electra…er, Lethal, but by this point I’ve stopped caring. Unfortunately, I’m also feeling like I need a transfusion or two. The issue ends with the prisoner stating he’s going to kick everyone’s asses or ordering two burritos, I forget which.

There was also a 6 page backup story. Don’t even ask me to review it or I’ll hurt you.