Bloodlines is the event that DC publishes between August and December of 1993. With this event, DC enters the most controversial decade of American comics with a straight leg, not without some difficulties and some lackluster editorial choices. First of all, the timing of publication and the moment in which it is published are not only the best. The event is almost sandwiched between the events concerning Superman’s death and his return and the fall of Batman at the hands of Bane and consequent arrival as the Dark Knight of Jean-Paul Valley in the long saga Knightfall. Two events which, due to their scope and importance, had monopolized the attention of readers and not only and with which Bloodlines not only will he have to contend in terms of exposition but also narratives.
From a purely editorial point of view, bloodlines, as had happened the year before for Eclipso – The Darkness Within, follows the standard formula of the time for the publication of events or be relegated to the annual of the various regular series involved. However, this formula is taken to the extreme by deciding to develop the plot in the annual to then be concluded in two one-shot titled specials bloodbath.
The writer is then called to sign the conclusion of the event Dan Raspler and the designers Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Bill Willingham, Sal Velluto And Val Semeiks. The editors behind Bloodlines instead they were Archie Goodwin And Bill Kaplan.
Major Events DC: Bloodlines (1993)
Bloodlines: the invasion of the “ultra-parasites”
Bloodlines opens with the LEGION, in whose ranks Lobo militates, which captures a dimensional distortion at the edge of the galaxy. Dox and his friends, having arrived on site, find themselves in front of an immense techno-organic ship. A team led by Lobo decides to board it to check if the crew is alive and to know where it comes from. Everything quickly turns into a massacre: in fact, the ship hosts Angon, Gemir, Glonth, Lissik, Pritor, Venev And slodd, seven alien creatures, who attack LEGION members by sucking out their spinal cords and taking their form.
Lobo is one of the few to escape the attack by blowing up the ship but the seven aliens manage to escape by falling to Earth. Strengthened by their ability to change shape and their physiology, which includes increased strength and a thick carapace capable of defending them from terrestrial weapons, the aliens begin to roam the length and breadth of our planet claiming victims attracted by the power of the superheroes they represent a dish as delicious as it is elusive.
The “kiss” with which Angon, Gemir, Glonth, Lissik, Pritor, Venev and Slodd they harvest the spinal cords from their victims, administered at the base of the neck, however it also has an unexpected contraindication. Some of the victims instead of dying suffer showy mutations caused by the awakening of the meta-gene inherent in their DNA. Obviously these individuals, in addition to developing incredible abilities and powers, are also connected with aliens by being attracted to them.
Soon these new meta-humans, about thirty and not all willing to put their skills at the service of good, are labeled as New Blood. Their powers are really heterogeneous: for example Blade can generate blades from his body, geist becomes invisible in the sunlight, Gunfire can transform matter into energy, krag has a body of stone, loose cannon is a creature of increased strength and resistance that changes color according to its degree of rage, Myriad she is a mercenary who can absorb the personalities of others, Hitman is an assassin who gains telepathic abilities and x-ray vision, Nightblade can regenerate, Slingshots it can speed up anything it touches and so on.
While on Earth we try to figure out how to stop the blood trail left by the aliens, in space we learn that Angon, Gemir, Glonth, Lissik, Pritor, Venev and Slodd come from another dimension where their home planet has been completely drained by their spinal cord thirst. The only survivor is Pax, who has acquired shamanic powers, and who joins the LEGION revealing the true purpose of the parasites.
In fact, the spinal cord is not only a nourishment but also a source of sustenance for a huge creature called the Taker who awakens thanks to their own sacrifice. The heroes are taken aback and are literally swallowed by the alien. Only Superman (just returned to life) manages to escape by leading the New Bloods who, by joining forces and their powers, manage to bring down Taker and save the heroes and the Earth from being completely consumed by the creature while Pax will send back the rest of the aliens generated from the creature in another dimension.
Bloodlines: lots of form, little substance
DC had, until 1993, only stroked the 90’s with their extreme aesthetics and the rough sensitivity of a new generation of readers who were more impressed by guns and flamboyant costumes than by complex plots or more or less profound themes. In this sense Bloodlines immediately appears as a event designed to ride some of these themes with editors Archie Goodwin And Bill Kaplan who have to orchestrate it finding themselves in fact between the rock and a hard place of two sagas, the death and resurrection of Superman and the saga Knightfall, which had effectively monopolized the attention of readers while other series maintained a certain autonomy such as the The Flash Of Mark Waid.
As happened in the past (millennium an event above all) the editors focus on science fiction to create a long saga that attracts readers and, instead of changing the status quo of the DC Universe, provide instead new characters with which to revive an editorial proposal that shortly thereafter suffered the transition from a solid second half of the 80s to a more “experimental”, and not always punctual, first half of the 90s also marked by a physiological generational change of writers and illustrators.
Bloodlines all about parasitic aliens from another dimension in a short circuit of references who pays dues to two franchise extremely influential at the time ie Aliens by Ridley Scott And Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The influence of the first is evident in the incipit of the event and in the look of the parasites themselves, covertly reworked, but which is obviously inspired by that of Scott’s film and its sequels; the second film instead characterizes the modus operandi of the parasites on Earth who become real predators of men.
But unfortunately Bloodlines he can’t go beyond the “homage” to the two films. In fact, the plot loses momentum almost immediately also due to a structure, the proposal in the annual, which is definitively ousted by this event: too many pages available, too many creative teams often not involved in the foreground and repetitive plots with the parasite that attacked the human on duty who awakens with new powers. Apart from some variations on the theme of some more shrewd writers such as Chuck Dixon, Garth Ennis or Len Wein respectively on Robin, Demon or deathstroke, Bloodlines suffers in general also from a messy construction which leaves the reader with the task of understanding the true goal of the parasites until the final battle in which Dan Raspler can do little but raise the stakes, the survival of the planet, and try to put the new characters first while the only Sal Velvet manages to pack a test beyond the sufficiency of the designers involved in the two final one-shots.
If one could forgive the ingenuity in the construction of the villains and the plot which, to tell the story, is also fun in its frank simplicity of the initial albums, what is striking is the quantity of characters created during the event all winking to the aforementioned sensibility of the 90s. So here are guns and blades popping up almost everywhere between monstrous creatures with a heart of gold and heroines with telepathic and telekinetic powers. Definitely DC was looking for “new blood” by following in the footsteps of what at the time was the best of the competition’s production. Interlocutory choice and which, as can be easily understood, will not bear fruit in the long term.
Bloodlines and its “new blood”
The intention of Bloodlines was to create new characters to populate the DC Universe with, and as noted right above, 30 New Characters is an enviable starting point. However the problem when you structure events in this way it is not so much the creation phase as that of maintaining, confirming and inserting the new characters organically into the fabric of the narrative universe. From this point of view Bloodlines fails to correct this trend already recognized a few years earlier and which will be repeated at regular intervals in the years to come in which some important exceptions obviously stand out.
THE New Blood who will enjoy series and miniseries will be Anima, Argus, Gunfire, Loose Cannon hey Psyba-Rats to which the team is added Blood Pack consisting of Ballistic, Nightblade, Loria, Geist, Mongrel, Sparx, Razorsharp and lo Showcase ’94 that is, an anthological issue completely dedicated to the remaining characters. Within a couple of years, however, practically all the New Bloods ended up in oblivion. The exception that proves this rule is represented by Hitman i.e. the character created by Garth Ennis on Demon Annual #2 who will enjoy a cult series which will last 61 issues and various specials between 1996 and 2001. Of all the characters created in the event, it will be the one with the simplest look and powers that survives, also thanks to the ironic imprint of its creator.
As a demonstration of lack of incisiveness of these characters, the Blood Pack will be exterminated by Superboy Prime in Infinite Crisis #7 save returning as a Black Lantern in Blackest Night a few years later and, together with the New Blood, will be counted among the “forgotten heroes” in Crisis The final. In 2011, in full New 52, some of these characters will be recovered in a titled miniseries Bloodlines in which a group of teenagers acquire extraordinary powers upon contact with a meteor.
Bloodlines fails to rival other DC-branded sci-fi events. It doesn’t have the sophistication of Cosmic Odyssey nor the range of Invasion! inserting himself into it instead category Of “transitional events”, like the aforementioned Millennium, who only manage to “photograph” the change of pace of the editorial line.
Bloodlines: the Italian editions
Bloodlines it’s completely unreleased in Italy: neither the two issues that make up the main miniseries nor any of the annual that make up the saga have in fact been published in our country by the various publishers who have succeeded in the publication of DC material except Demon Annual #2 i.e. the first appearance of Hitman.
We are not lucky even if we wanted to buy the event in the original language. DC in fact never picked it up in volume. Bloodlines then, together with the previous one Eclipso – The Darkness Within, It results to be one of the very few events to remain “unpublished” that is, not having enjoyed a reprint.
If we wanted to do some “fantasy publishing” we could play at compiling a volume of Bloodlines just inserting:
- Lobe Annual #1
- Justice League America Annual #7
- LEGION ’93 Annual #4
- bloodbath #1
- bloodbath #2
This selection would thus allow us to maintain a logical thread of events even if as already extensively described above, the plot is far from well thought out.
