Armor Hunters: Bloodshot #2 is a single fight in the middle of the larger Armor Hunters war. Lilt, one of the Armor Hunters, has come down with the team’s Hounds to personally capture Malgm. Bloodshot and M.E.R.O. are not going to give their prisoner to the hunters.
Harris piles on the threats here. The Armor Hunters are highly powered individually and have a unique collection of weaponry to use in their attack. Earth’s defenders (Bloodshot, at least, explicitly denies being a hero), are fighting all out to stay alive. Actually defeating the hunters seems increasingly unlikely at this point. Colonel Capshaw is a breakout character here: She is tough and not inclined to give anyone, least of all, Bloodshot, any slack, but she keeps makes the calls she needs to. It is increasingly odd to have the Armor Hunters call for surrender: By this point, they and everyone else know that most, if not all, the planet is slated for destruction in order to “cleanse” things. Why are they bothering?
Hairsine and Pennington keep the lines jagged and rough, suitable to a tale of fragmentation. Hairsine is keeping facial detail to the minimum here; this mostly works, with the emphasis on the overall fight, but there are a couple of panels where Capshaw is oddly without pupil or iris. Hairsine has to render several fighting styles here, including that of the completely alien Lilt, who does not move or fight like a human. Bloodshot may be limber, but he is still human, and he is facing a foe who does not fight like anyone else he has ever had to fight. The scenes combining Capshaw, Bloodshot, Lilt, and Malgm show just how alien Malgm and Lilt are, and how much Bloodshot is caught between: He does not move like Capshaw, neither does he maneuver like Lilt or Malgm.
There is a good summary of “What happened before” at the beginning, so new readers could come on board even now. There has been a lot of buildup to this point that they would miss, but it would still be possible to follow the story, especially for readers willing to pick up clues as they go along. Likewise, the Armor Hunters crossover is spread across multiple titles, but Bloodshot’s arc in the story is fairly self-contained; any past impact or event is referenced clearly enough for a reader wanting to stick with just Bloodshot. Valiant does provide a good checklist of titles, though by this point, it would be good to also have a chronological list. Bloodshot #2 is set before Unity #10, for example, which came out last week and has some of the same characters.
Writer: Joe Harris
Pencils: Trevor Hairsine
Inks: Mark Pennington
Cover Artists: Philip Tan, Donovan Santiago, Diego Bernard
Colorist: Dave Baron
Letters: Dave Sharpe
