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On to the new titles, then.
Bloodhound #1 is a new book from Dan
Jolley and Leonard Kirk (though the artist credit for creating
the character goes to Drew Johnson). DC have shown a
commendable willingness to launch completely new characters
into their own titles, as we've seen with books like
Monolith and the DC Focus line. The catch is that
they don't have a great track record for actually getting
anyone to buy them.
Still, Jolley's been getting perfectly
decent sales on Firestorm, so perhaps he can buck the
trends. Bloodhound #1 is violent B-movie stuff,
but it does it well.
This first issue looks to be the opening
chapter of an origin story. Travis Clevenger is a cop
who's been in jail for a good few years now after shooting his
own partner. He's not enormously popular, but he does
have the best record in Atlanta for hunting down superhumans.
The authorities come to him with the offer of getting out jail
if he goes to work for them - which is presumably going to be
the set-up for the series. Unfortunately, discussions
are interrupted by a prison breakout, at which point we get a
nice action sequence instead.
Since the first half of the book amounts to
Clevenger talking to some people in a small blank room, it's a
good move to go for the OTT violence in the second half.
Actually, they've done a good job of keeping the conversation
material visually interesting, with god use of cutaways to the
rest of the prison. But the second half - lots of
violence, of the bloody and ugly variety - looks like a better
indication of where the title's headed.
It's not exactly subtle, and the creators
may be overdoing it with the characterisation of Clevenger
(he's one of those fearsomely intelligent yet borderline
insane types who seems impossibly perfect at everything - the
antihero equivalent of Captain America). Still, it's a
well paced book with some excellent action sequences. It
won't be to everyone's tastes; it really is rather violent by
mainstream DC standards. I liked it a lot, though.
Rating: A-
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