Review: Blood Hunt + FCBD Blood Hunt

The covers on these two comics alone are enough to warrant a pick up from me and after listening to a podcast talk about how great it was, I was determined to pick it up. Now I actually picked these up at two different shops on Free Comic Book Day(FCBD). I got the FCBD version at my usual shop, I Want More Comics; then the first issue I picked up at Hero Headquarters. Why did I get them at different shops? Well the FCBD version was available at my usual shop but not the first issue. When I went out a second time to get some issues for a friend of mine I found this variant edition. I also didn’t notice until I got home that the variant edition I picked up was in fact a wrap- around cover. This was the only issue left that I managed to get, so finding out that it was also a wrap-around cover was an added plus.

Now I said going forward I was only going to be collecting Poison Ivy, Deadpool and Wolverine WWIII because I also got two mystery boxes of comics that I want to go through. However this Blood Hunt storyline is making me really think about adding it to my comic list.

A little different with this review since it’s two books. I’ll be reviewing the cover art, but I’ll just briefly mention the FCBD version instead of a full review:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Thought this was a cool and clean spread for a title open.

Cover & Story - Free Comic Book Day Blood Hunt 1*

As mentioned before the covers on these two books are freakin’ sweet. I’ve always been a big fan of vampire stories and movies like Blade, Twilight and Underworld. So seeing superheroes up against vampires is like a match made in heaven for me. On the FCBD cover the superheroes featured are Spider-Man, Daredevil and two members from the Fantastic Four, Sue Storm and Reed Richards. There is another character wielding a sword that we later find out is Blade’s daughter, Brielle Brooks. It’s a really neat cover that does a good job showcasing a horde of vampires. 

The story for this one is pretty short; we are shown four different areas that are dealing with something called “darkforce.” In Manhattan we have Spider-Man fighting off some being that ends up exploding into what I can only describe as a tornado of darkforce matter. Next Reed Richards and Sue Storm are alerted of multiple dimensional breaches and are worried that it might be the darkforce dimension. Daredevil is then seen fighting off a slew of vampire in Hell’s Kitchen; and Blade’s daughter Brielle Brooks is also fighting some vampires when she stumbles upon none other than….

No way! Dracula is in this? Of course!

Cover - Blood Hunt 1 Variant Edition

So this cover was quite a surprise when I got home. I didn’t realize it was a wrap-around and since it was already a cover I really liked, I was pretty stoked to check out what’s on the back. Similar to the FCBD version, this cover features a variety of superheroes on the cover fighting a butt ton of vampires. Thor, Captain America and Scarlet Witch are on the front; on the back we’ve got Doctor Strange, Spider-Man but in a different color suit than the FCBD version, Blade and I want to say Iron Man. Also on the front of the cover we have a vampire ripping the face off some skull, not sure if it’s supposed to be a known superhero but it looks pretty badass.

To start off, I was a bit lost with what the panels were talking about in regards to each one having a “Sundeath” along with a time. It looked like the numbers were all counting down but I couldn’t be sure because on the following page we jump back to a higher number than before. It begins with Scarlet Witch and Iron Man trying to get a sense of what is going on. They determine that there are reports of other superhumans exploding into darkforce portals. Next we got Hunter’s Moon and Tigra, two characters I am unfamiliar with, but they get jumped by another horde of vampires. 

What I really liked was an inclusion of a key players sheet that named off all the characters we need to know starting with Avengers; Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Vision and Captain America. The Midnight Mission consists of Hunter’s Moon and Tigra, while the last group is unnamed but is made up of Spider-Man, Blade, Doctor Strange, Clea and Doctor Doom. After that we get some more pages consisting of panels showing an apocalyptic world ruled by vampires with the “Sundeath” time. Then Spider-Man shows up and is fighting vampires and asks the question, “What would Blade do?” Well Blade shows up, says he has a plan and needs Spider-Man. All the Avengers are fighting their own separate battles but Blade is able to contact them and says he has information and that they all need to meet up.

This panel of Thor with a wooden stake through his head is wild!

Well that ends up being a huge ambush by Blade and the Avengers are all beat to shit by a bunch of villains called the Blood Coven. Thor gets whooped, Vision gets stabbed, Iron Man gets his suit taken apart, Captain Marvel endures excruciating pain, Captain America gets tossed across the room through a wall, Wanda is being overpowered. It’s all hands on deck and the Avengers are losing badly. Thor gets what I can only assume is a wooden stake, right thru his head. Black Panther gets struck down and the Blood Coven says they have to keep the world symbol alive, meaning Captain America I think?... 

I sensed something was going on with Blade, but a part of me wonders if someone is controlling him…

We cut to Bleeker Street and come upon Doctor Strange and Clea frantically trying to assemble a formula that would fix everything. But they are visited by Blade, who tells them there is someone who is uniting the vampires to compete against the Avengers. Doctor Strange thinks it’s Dracula but Blade tells him no, it’s someone else (considering the ending of the FCBD Blood Hunt, we see Dracula meeting Blade’s daughter Brielle and fighting alongside her). We land on the last page and BAM! Blad stabs Doctor Strange from behind and says, “It’s me.” WOW! What an ending and awesome artwork to tell this story. I’m really tempted to get the next issues.

Overall 5 / 5

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Free Comic Book Day 2024

Free Comic Book Day! It’s officially been two years since I first started my comic collection, launched a comic website with a blog. I now have roughly 140 or so comics in my collection and it’s climbing, slowly but surely. This time I managed to scoop up a few comics for myself and my two boys got some comics for kids. I missed out on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle issue but I did manage to get the three I was going for which were Image Comics Energon Universe, DC’s Absolute Power and Marvel’s Blood Hunt. The most recent stack episode from the Comic Book Club podcast talked about Energon Universe and how G.I. Joe, Transformers and Void Rivals are all in one universe. I was definitely intrigued because if you recall, at the very end of the last Transformers movie, Rise of the Beasts, they alluded to a partnership between the Transformers and G.I. Joe sector. So I had to pick that one up being a Transformers fan, though I am not sure what Void Rivals is.

The other issue I will be reviewing besides Energon Universe is DC’s Absolute Power, I’ll cover the FCBD Blood Hunt along with the first issue review of Blood hunt. Now as I said, I am only two years into collecting comics, I am fairly new and don’t know much about existing story lines or important events, so I had no idea what to expect. Really I just saw Superman, Batman and another cool looking Batman on the cover and figured this should be good. Besides these few comics, I also bought another copy of X-Men ‘97 so I could use it for a crafts project and a Deadpool & Wolverine themed comic box. Remember gang, don’t just pick up the free comics but also purchase a couple things to help support your local comic shop.

A little different with this review since it’s two books. I’ll be reviewing the cover art, but I’ll just touch on the story instead of a full review:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Cover - Energon Universe

What I really like about this cover is its creativity. Megatron looks menacing even though we only see his red lit eyes. He’s got a smoking gun that he most likely just shot off and the ground below him is crumbling with electricity. The orange and yellow colors combine to make a very rich and bright background that illuminates Megatron from behind, with a tiny bit of a machinery/Cybertron peeping through at the top. The title is very creative with the stars in the dark black space, but to me this is the only part I wish was done a little differently. I like the idea but with the machine looking graphics behind it, it doesn’t stand out as much. I think that title treatment would stand out a bit more had the yellow and orange background been extended to the top.

Story - Energon Universe

Overall I like this one but I think if I had read some of the Void Rivals line, I’d understand this issue a bit more. They do a good job at the beginning showing the three titles, Transformers, Void Rivals and GI Joe but I wish there was just a snippet of text that explained each one. The book starts off with some AWESOME action sequences of none other than Optimus Prime and Megatron. Colors, action, text treatment, all of it looks epic at the start. 

This opening action spread is beautiful with its choice of colors

Optimus bests Megatron and as he’s holding onto the ship for dear life, Starscream comes by to “help.” Megatron calls out to Starscream and then BOOM! Starscream blasts Megatron off the ship. Next we get brought to a story of some odd looking creatures and an Autobot named Hotrod but honestly it didn’t make sense to me. Finally we get the GI Joe story which is some high powered action sequences just like the beginning. Pretty much we see Duk wanting to recruit someone named Anastasia Cisarovna, but Colonel Hawk is completely against it. In the end this was a fun little issue to just see the action panels, but I don’t think I can see myself picking up a Void Rivals issue, but definitely interested in knowing where the story is headed for Transformers and GI Joe. Overall 4/5

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Cover - Absolute Power

Having touched on this cover a bit already we know that there is Superman and two Batmans on it, but it also features a few more characters. Amanda Wallace, who I only remember from the Suicide Squad movies. Then Wonder Woman and one other character that I have no idea who it is but they look like some sort of android. I’m just now realizing that this cover has the same yellow and orange color background that the Energon Universe cover has, maybe that’s why I was so drawn to it. The treatment of the title, Absolute Power could have used a bit of love since it looks like word art but other than that it’s a pretty dope cover with how the characters are laid out.

Story - Absolute Power

Holy shit this issue. Again, I had no clue going into this and man I am so glad I got it. What I really appreciate from the book is in the back they have profile spreads on some of the characters. For instance the two that I didn’t know on the cover were Failsafe, the cool looking Batman but is really a cybernetic killer and genius-level tactician with near-indestructible frame. Oof. Then the other was in fact, the House of Braniac, a superintelligent alien hive mind, whose primary focus on the collection and storage of data, power and culture. Another big oof. 

Ok, definitely need to read up more on Failsafe cause he looks freakin awesome. Reminds me of Batman Beyond.

Essentially the story starts with Failsafe and Amanda Wallace trying to achieve something with the use of electro-metas but we don’t know what exactly they’re doing or why. They bring in a super named Haywire, or Dylan Moore, to a small observation room with a metal ball figure in the middle and ask him to shoot it with all the electric power he has. Well long story short, they drain him til he ‘pops.’ It’s pretty wild. We’re shown a vision of the future thru another super named Dreamer, but it’s not good; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League look to be in shackles. The final story in the back we see Superman approaching a robbery of some sort. The criminals get scared about going back to prison, so one of them shoots their gun at Superman. I’m expecting the bullets to bounce off and kill them or something, right? Absolutely Wrong is what this issue should be called, because I was so off. Superman gets hit by the bullets, sees blood and the final shot we see is Superman falling to what we can only presume will be his death. Phew. What an issue and it was free! Overall 

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