A review by crookedtreehouse
Bloodshot Volume 5: Get Some and Other Stories by Joshua Dysart, Christos Gage
3.0
The overall plot of this fifth installment of the Blodshot story is a satisfying continuation of previous volumes. The protagonist's story is still interesting, the mystique of Project Rising Spirit is still intriguing. The issue is that the rest of the HARDcorps team faces consequences for their actions or else specific trauma related to their backstory but .... but the backstory for most of the HARDcorps team is lazy and terrible. It hasn't really mattered in previous volumes because they've kind of been disposable ciphers, but in this volume we're supposed to care about the drunk guy whose powers make him wise, the mentally disabled person whose power makes him smart, the single mother who falls in love with the antagonist because he helps her kids, the religious guy powered by science, and the woman who was dying whose power makes her feel immortal. Ehhhh.
It's not that the writing is insensitive (it isn't), it's just that none of the characters have been given any depth other than "this is the irony of their situation" since they first appeared in the book, so it's hard to start caring about them at this point.
The backstory about the previous thirty years of HARDcorps teams is the highlight of the volume, and it's clear that the book is about to go in a new direction now that this storyline is over.
It's not that the writing is insensitive (it isn't), it's just that none of the characters have been given any depth other than "this is the irony of their situation" since they first appeared in the book, so it's hard to start caring about them at this point.
The backstory about the previous thirty years of HARDcorps teams is the highlight of the volume, and it's clear that the book is about to go in a new direction now that this storyline is over.