For those of you that missed the 90's Image era I worked on a book called Bloodstrike. The basic idea of the book was that a government group of superheroes would get killed and brought back to life for each mission. Universal Soldier meets Youngblood.
I had come off of working for the Homage team and I was eager to do my own thing. Extreme Studios was exploding and Rob Liefeld was kind enough to give me a crack at Bloodstrike. He had an idea for a bold new direction for the book. It went from being a team to single character book. With a mysterious anti-hero taking on the name of the Bloodstrike team.
My goal was to out Extreme everyone with the art. I wanted to smash people in the mouth with the layouts and crack them over the skull with the level of detail. The new direction seemed to really resonate with readers and till this day I get asked to draw pictures of this iconic character.
A couple of years ago Rob and I discussed doing a new version of Bloodstrike. I was eager to get another shot (pun intended) at the character but I wanted to bring a modern look and feel to it.
My intention if the idea had moved forward was to go all out with the action and kick up the gore. I wanted to create something that was unlike any comic I'd done. I imagined it as Metal Gear/Ghost in the Shell vs The Authority.
Unfortunately the project never came together. Just this week it was announced that there will be a Bloodstrike relaunch. I was hit with several emails and messages asking if I was going to be working on it. I will not but from what I've seen it looks like a very impressive book. I wish them the best as they add another chapter to Cabbot and his undead super hero bad asses.
Below are some of the designs I did for the project as well as the first issue pitch I put together for the project.
Bloodstrike-Born Again
Pashtun Mountains located on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.
Two Months Ago.
Four
Blackhawk helicopters fly low and fast through the jagged Pashtun
mountains by night. The Blackhawks are delivering a team of special
forces operatives to a remote Taliban controlled area. They are chasing
down a well know terrorist leader. The lead chopper is piloted by Maria
Shawn her call sign is Fourplay. Fourplay notices that something is
wrong with the choppers controls and navigation computers. As they close
in on their target the chopper in the rear explodes. A NuGene active
terrorist has flown through the chopper destroying it and killing
everyone on board. The team has been drawn into a trap with Nu Gene
active mercenaries. The rest of the choppers start taking on fire from
Nu Genes who are firing on them from below! Fireballs and energy blasts
light up the night. A half man/bat flies along one of the choppers and
rips one of the soldiers out his seat throwing him to the ground.
Fourplay brings her chopper down and delivers her team. She pulls her
chopper up and a giant horned creature comes out of nowhere and rips off
the tale of the chopper. It spins out of control and violently crashes.
Fourplay pulls herself from the wreckage. She reaches for her pistol
and realizes her right arm is missing from the elbow down. She looks up
and sees the special forces team getting slaughtered by super human
mercenaries. She calls in an air strike on her position. She looks up
and sees two Predator attack drones bombing the area. We focus on her
eyes as the flames from the explosions move towards her. We cut to a
satellite video images of the explosions from above.
Cut to an
edited versions of those images on a TV screen. A broadcaster describes
how four U.N. copters crashed on a humanitarian mission to deliver
supplies to a remote Pakistani village stricken by a flood. A promo for
an Entertainment Tonight/TMZ type show focusing on members of
Youngblood.
We pull back to reveal a woman and four men dressed
in dark Euro/Matrix gear watching the broadcast on a large screen TV.
It's 24 hours since the Pakistan attack. They are located in a large
loft in London. It has no furniture just a single T.V. and a large
table. The room is made up of concrete walls and floors with windows
running across the wall facing out to the London skyline. Rain is
falling. "Turn those lies off." The female says. She is a large Latin
woman. Imagine a Mexican Wonder Woman. The guy sitting at the table has
spiked hair. He snaps his fingers and the TV turns off. The three last
men smoke and quietly wait for something to happen. They all wear tiny
earpieces making them look like secret service Euro trash. A knock at
the door. They all look at each other. A bit of fear in their eyes.
Suddenly a man wearing a trench coat and carrying a suitcase phases
through the door. He puts the suitcase on the table. "Complements of
the Sheik for making sure his son was not given a one way ticket to
Getmo." He pulls out stacks of Euros from the case and puts them into
even piles. They each take out various duffel bags and cases and begin
filling them up with their money. The Woman smells her money and smiles.
Suddenly the window shatters and an armor piercing shell rips her in
the chest. She flies across the room and through the trench coat man (he
phases) and through several walls and out of the building and down to
the street below. She hits the ground and crashes down into the subway
system. A cigarette falls from the mouth of the spikey haired guy.
Voice over.
Cabbot as Bloodstrike" Rule one: always take out the strong guy on the team first."
We
follow the bullet backwards through the hole in the wall and across
town to a rooftop (think Wanted) Rain falls on the roof but one spot is
dry. Bloodstrike pulls off a camo sheet that gives him electronic
invisibility. He has a huge tank buster sniper rifle. He stands up rain evaporating off the barrel of the gun.
"Super teams have a hierarchy. They piss in their pants
when the strong guy goes down. When you can leap a tall building in a
single bound you can get cocky and sloppy. I'm here to remind them what
fear is."
The trench coat man orders them to attack. One of the
men turns into the bat/man creature and rips through the window
screaming his head off. One of them turns into a horned creature and
jumps from the window landing on the ground and jumping like the Hulk.
The spike haired guy begins glowing with electricity and the last guy
turns on fire burning his clothes off.
"The flyers are usually the first on the scene. They send intel back to the group. Kill the flyer. Blind the team."
Cut
to the man/bat swooping in on Bloodstrike. He talks back to the group
with his earpiece yelling out Bloodstrike's position. Bloodstrike jumps
from building to building and forces the Man/Bat into a tight spot in
between two buildings. He turns side ways to fit and as he comes out his
wings are cut off by laser wire strung between the buildings. He
crashes to the floor. He looks up into the rain as Bloodstike's boot
crushes him in the face. Bloodstrike punches a needle filled with anti
NuGene nanos. The Man/Bat reverts to his human form.
"The big one will need room to use his size and strength. I'll take that away."
The
horned creature jumps onto a roof and charges set under it explode and
he falls down through the building to the basement. Bloodstrike meets
him there sword drawn. They square off and the Horned creature can't
move and can't ram Bloodstrike. Bloodstrike uses his size against him
and cuts at him with his sword. He stabs him in the heart and presses
the hilt of his sword sending Nanos into the creature turning him back
to a human and robbing him of his powers.
The spikey haired
electricity user is making his way down a dark alley. He is visibly
nervous. He's heard of Bloodstrike and for NuGene Mercs he's like
Michale Myers and Freddy wrapped up into one ass kicking package. He
hears a noise and stumbles falling into a puddle. A shadow blocks out
the moon. Bloodstrike is standing in front of him. He fires an
electricity blast that goes right through Bloodstrike and into light
pole triggering a feedback of electricity that fries him. Another
Bloodstrike comes out of the shadows.
"Good job." he says to his
other self. "No problem" says the other self. The other self flickers
and disappears revealing that he was a hologram the whole time projected
by a device on a nearby wall. Bloodstrike hits spikey hair with the
anti NuGene nanos and moves on.
The Trench coat man is hiding
holding an automatic sub-machine gun. As he puts the gun around the
corner Bloodstrike appears and rips the gun out of his hand tossing it
across the room. Trench coat man tries to phase and a current running
through Bloodstrike's gloves stops him from escaping. Bloodstrike is
about to interrogate him when up from the floor comes the Strong woman
who punches Bloodstrike and tosses him around the room. She grabs his
arms and breaks it. Twisting it like a broken doll. She grabs his head
and is about to crush him when a sound from outside distracts her. The
roof suddenly rips off, revealing Shogun! He punches Strong woman
freeing Bloodstrike. She jumps at Shogun and they tumble off of one roof
on to the roof of a nearby building. She rips off his arm and he hits
her with his energy mace. Shogun is about to lower the boom on her and
suddenly she is pulled through the floor. Trench coat guy has helped her
escape. Bloodstrike stands up his arm dangling. He twists his arm back
into place resetting it. He squeezes his hand into a fist. Next time I won't play so nice he mutters to himself.
Maria
wakes up violently. Sitting upright in her hospital bed. She rubs her
face unaware of where she is. As she rubs her eyes another hand appears
brushing back her hair. She doesn't seem to notice. Than a fourth hand
appears straightening her hospital smock. She slowly becomes aware of
that she has four arms. She freaks out falling out of the bed kicking
and screaming. She crawls into the corner of what now appears to be a
hospital room.
A voice from across the room comforts her.
"Welcome back to the land of the living Fourplay."
She looks up to see Bloodstrike with his back to her looking over his shoulder at her.
Her screams echo through the deserted hallways.
End issue #1
