Blood Hunters #5 - Marvel Comics

BLOOD HUNTERS No. 5, February 2025

Whilst this final issue to “Blood Hunters” certainly seems to bring the brand new group’s battle against the Bloodcoven to a fairly satisfactory conclusion, it's probably a safe bet that some of this comic’s audience couldn’t shake off the impression that the twenty-page periodical was put together in a bit of a rush. Indeed, along with the creative team’s decision to employ two different artists to pencil the pulse-pounding plot for no obvious story-telling reasons, Erica Schultz’s script also contains arguably one of the oldest tricks in the game by having an upper-tier meta-human conveniently appear at the very last moment to salvage the day; “Does this mean you’ve healed from the damage Varnae inflicted on you..?”

Of course, the sudden appearance of Tyrone Johnson’s alter-ego could quite convincingly be explained by his close, emotional bond to Dagger, and the fact that just moments before Bloodstorm One detects his presence, poor Tandy Bowen was in a bit of a fatal fix. However, the shadowy teleporter’s direct interference rather disconcertingly suggests that this title’s lead protagonists were incapable of ever defeating The Structure’s elite group of vampires in the first place, and debatably causes such an end result to leave a rather unsatisfactory taste in the mouth.

Furthermore, the entire point of this five-part mini-series appears to have been equally as badly thought-out by its American author, with “Dagger’s super-powered blood” only seeming to give its drinker the ability to throw her infamous lightforce constructs at people. Gaining just such an ability may well appear immensely beneficial on paper. But when it’s welded by the likes of Dracula’s already formidably dangerous heavily-armoured clone, some readers will surely be questioning just whether all the time and trouble was in any way worth the somewhat second-rate reward..?

What does prove somewhat impressive though are Robert Gill’s pencils and inks, which for the most part do a prodigious job of depicting all the frantic action taking place within the Bloodcoven’s den in Brooklyn. Of particular note has to be the illustrator’s ability to show just how hard pushed Elsa Bloodstone becomes when tackling “the first of a line of vampiric shocktroopers utilized by Hydra's Department of Occult Affairs” in brutal hand-to-hand combat, as well as how disturbingly cute the monster hunter's newly acquired 'pet' cat appears, even when its attacking the odd grey-skinned thrall or two.

Writer: Erica Schultz, and Pencilers: Chris Campana & Robert Gill