Blood Hunters #1 - Marvel Comics

BLOOD HUNTERS No. 1, October 2024

Proudly proclaimed by its New York City-based publisher as “the beginning of an epic new adventure” involving “Marvel’s newest team”, Erica Schultz’s script for Issue One of “Blood Hunters” certainly seems to live up to its hype due to the twenty-five page periodical’s pulse-pounding mix of roster rivalries and blood-sucking shenanigans. Indeed, the America author’s ability to almost immediately have Dagger and Elsa Bloodstone berating one another over the fate of the vampires which they catch is arguably one of this inaugural edition’s biggest highlights.

Similarly as intriguing though has to be the quite considerable spotlight shone upon Hallows’ Eve and her truly mesmerizing supernatural power to make magical masks. Apparently still exploring these abilities herself, the young woman dons the face of the original Wasp, and promptly takes the reader on an enjoyable trip down memory lane with Janet Van Dyne’s famous stings, and ability to quite literally grow into a full-thrown punch; “Damn limbo magic… Never know what I’m gonna get.”

“The first woman to write a Spawn book in the history of the franchise” is also rather good at penning the somewhat complicated power struggle occurring within the nefarious Bloodcoven since Bloodstorm One fully took charge following Varnae’s defeat. Dagger’s assumption that all the remaining pale-skinned vampires want their humanity restored is disconcertingly wrong, and this desire by some of the fanged despots to remain immortal at all costs establishes an enjoyably straightforward good versus evil stance between the two groups. In fact, in many ways it plays into Bloodstone’s somewhat erratic belief that the only good drinker of blood is a dead one – something which later causes Miles Morales’ infected Spider-man no end of problems when he becomes caught in the monster hunter’s crosshairs.

Rounding off this perfect publication are the layouts of Robert Gill, with colours by Rain Beredo, which do a first-rate job of showing just how dangerous the dark streets of Brooklyn can still be in the aftermath of Blood Hunt. Furthermore, the illustrator is very good at showing just how physically fast both the titular characters and their prey can move whenever they’re fighting one another, as well demonstrating some of the fascinating abilities of Blade’s former “super-vamps” – such as the sheer formidable bulk of Dracula’s heavily-armoured clone.

Writer: Erica Schultz, Artist: Robert Gill, and Colorist: Rain Beredo