Was I the only one who kind of liked the Bloodlines/New Blood heroes.

General Discussion Comic Books
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I know they have been mostly forgotten and became a punchline, with Hitman being the only actual success out of any of the heroes created out of Bloodlines. And that was more due to Garth Enis becoming such a superstar more then the character in and of itself.

But I kind of liked them…

Yeah most of them were very much a product of their times and felt liked the rushed creations most likely were.

But I actually thought the Gunfire ongoing series for what little time it lasted was enjoyable enough to me. (although I have learned as I got older my taste were much more forgiving in my teens), Joe Public was an interesting idea and I liked his design for some reason, Jamm was dumb and as he was way too 90’s to work, but with a redesign could have been one hell of a super villian akin to Maxwell Lord or Marvel’s Kilgrave. And I actually genuinely likes SParx (who I guess with her Superboy and the Ravers appearance had more success then most… as sad as that is).

Razorsharp and the Psyba-Rats also were an interesting idea at the time as a team of super hero hackers. I also got a kick out of actually seeing Razorsharp adapted in The Flash TV series (has to be the most obscure super hero ever adapted to live action). I notices even most sites and videos posting easter egg’s for the episode missed that the girl who’s arms turned into blades was actually from the comics. But it was definitely supposed to be her, same powers, same civilian first name, and the actress even looked like a slightly older version of her. Yeah she was dead in less then a minute, cannon fodder for Cicada, but in a way isn’t making her cannon fodder a true tribute to what the Bloodlines heroes sadly ended up being most useful as.

I also found the Blood Pack mini-series to be ahead of it’s time, as the idea of a super hero team being filmed as a TV show may be more prevelent today then it ever was at the time, with reality shows going on to become what they did after this comic.

Yeah I am not shocked they left little impact looking back. For one they were all so very much a product of 90’s comic books and few if any have aged well as 90’s had a very… unique flavor in comics that you either like or dislike, but most don’t really translate well today.

I also think they suffered from trying that idea when they did. That was when creator owned characters truly were taking off, and showing the money potential that they could have. So I think that most of the creators of the time when told to create an original hero didn’t want to give DC their best idea for a new superhero, which then would be owned by DC to do what they pleased with… given they all ended up cannon fodder doubt they had much regret. It didn’t help that at that time a lot of the best writers had left DC so these were not all the creme of the crop creating them in the first place. So it is no shock that despite lots of fans likely picking up the annuals hoping to get the next Action Comics #1 or Detective #27, it obviously was never going to work out that way.

Still… they were fun and it was exciting to see a new superhero created week after week for a time when I was reading them. Shame they didn’t leave a bigger mark then they did.

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I remember reading some of them when I was going through the Death of Superman and Knightfall eras…And that’s about all I remember. There was a guy who had spikes all over him, a shapeshifter who couldn’t remember who they were…some sort of assassin? That’s about it. I guess they could have worked, but they needed a lot of overhauls. A LOT of overhauls.

Also, wasn’t Gunfire the one who killed most of them and himself when he accidentally turned his ass into a hand grenade?

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I like the Bloodlines material I’ve read, but it’s such a small amount that I’m not too familiar with the characters who were newly introduced in it.

I’d really like to see Bloodlines trades or an omnibus that collects everything from it. Lesser titles have received those, so there’s no reason Bloodlines can’t.

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To clarify, I’d like to see trades or an omnibus that collects all of the annuals that Bloodlines characters were introduced in.

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I don’t know, trades maybe as you said lesser have recieved it. But an Ombibus would be real expensive, even after everything I said I don’t think I would pay that much to read them again. Would say DCU should have them (and know they have at least one from the death of Superman era) but I also know right now they have limited slots and given some of the stuff they took off for apparently that reason would seem Bloodlines comics, except maybe Hitman would likely not get many readers. Hopefully some can find there way there eventually though. Hell, at least the remaining Superman titles Bloodlines annuals, since they tie into the death/return of Superman arc.

And IAnd @Jay_Kay, you are sort of right. In Hitman 1,000,000 a civilian gained his powers from his eyepiece or something like that and that civilian blew himself up when his ass turned into a hand grenate. not the real Gunfire.

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I remember when the Bloodlines annual event happened. I thought it was the stupidest cash grab I’d seen. It was the main reason I stopped buying comics for about 20 years. I mean, it was so contrived and stupid…

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More contrived and stupid than similar Image-y things from the other publishers that wanted their slice of the “They’re grim, ripped and don’t care!” pie? That’s a tall leap for sure.

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:grinning: Don’t believe me? Read it.

The alien parasites which come to Earth feed exclusively on human spinal fluid. Yeah, that’s right; human spinal fluid. Why? Because if they actually ate the human victims, then the victims couldn’t become superheroes. I mean, duh!

The aliens are huge hulking, bloody skeleton-like things. And they have tiny, smiling horse skull heads. This is obviously difficult for the various artists. So they always look pretty ridiculous.

But they’ve got a tiny mouth inside their normal mouth (just like the Alien movie franchise). Why? Why not. It’s super cool because… well, it’s cool… and you’re stupid… so there…

Usually, they dismember their victims while they feed. Why? Who knows. However, in the few instances where they don’t gruesomely tear the victim limb from limb, a shiny, new superhero pops out. Are there any new superheroes with missing limbs? Of course not… that’d be silly. I mean, seriously, what fanboy wants partially eaten superheroes. And fanboys are definitely the audience here.

And these aliens always land near a city with a superhero. I mean, ALWAYS. For example, there are three parasites for the entirety of Europe. There’s a couple dozen for the US, but the rest of the world gets a tiny handful. I mean, I don’t think there’s any aliens in Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, or any of the oceans.

Luckily, the three aliens in Europe all land together, so it’s easy to contrive a story where it’s all wrapped up nice and clean. Strangely, three aliens land in Gotham City. It’s a bizarre coincidence that there are also three Batman titles… or is it?!

Bah-bah-bumm!

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I invite you to peruse this site:
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Bloodlines_(Storyline)

Check out any of the individual stories. I dare you to find a story that doesn’t sound ridiculous. :smiling_imp:

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I have Roughly 30 comics from this comic book line Stored away in a comic box I have forgot about I am going to have to pull them out and re-read them

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It’s probably a sign that as a newer DC Comics Reader (Started with Rebrith) I have no idea what the f*** you’re talking about.

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@harley, oh I believe you. Bloodlines does appear to be overblown and contrived. I just got to thinking of the other silliness in comic books at that time too. So much goofiness then. Some of its fun and some of it is…not fun, to put it charitably.

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@vroom, I hear you. I don’t know if Bloodlines measures up to Liefeld, but they definitely eat from the same bucket of glue.

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Ok the reason the aliens never came to Australia is obviously because they knew the Tasmanian Devil would MESS… THEM… UP! You know why there are so few stories about him fighting crime in Australia… because the criminals knew not to mess with him! If you want to be safe in the DCU… you move to Australia!

Seriously though, I would not disagree that the stories are all ridiculous (at least the ones I read and/or remember reading, but don’t hold out the ones I didn’t were diamonds in the rough), but as others have said, a lot of… I would dare say most comics from DC at that time were ridiculous. Yeah, the Death of Superman happened then, and Vertigo thrived then, but there were a lot more goofy overly violent or both stories at the time.

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That’s cuz of Image man! They got pouches, eyepatches, muscles bigger than their heads, more pouches, tons of variant covers, more muscles and other ridiculous anatomy, and extreme grim n’ grittiness (“They’re heroes! But not because they want to be!” Oooh, someone get me a pair of BK British Knights shoes, that team of heroes is off the hook!), Rob Liefeld selling Levi’s jeans (it’s true, sadly), and so much more! Image ain’t your dad’s comics, no man, they’re YOUR’S! The Image Age is NOW!

sigh Well, that was fun. Honestly, some of the books from that period are fun and genuinely creative (namely those from Wildstorm along with Spawn), some are blatant ripoffs of other popular comic properties from different publishers and some are just hilariously awful.

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It’s pretty amazing how fast the industry tanked (in terms of story quality). They went from genre-defining Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Death of Superman, Vertigo, (and that’s just DC); to complete crap in about the years.

It’s easy to point fingers at Image for setting the tone; and it’s easy to point fingers at Marvel for flooding the market. But honestly, the whole industry jumped into that mess together. Amazing!

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That’s supposed to be “three years,” not “the years.”

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There’s a book I read about twelve to thirteen years ago called “The Dark Age of Comics” or something similar (I sold it a long time ago and only read it once) that was fascinating in its coverage of that era.

I randomly found it one day at Border’s while perusing their trades. Worth tracking down if you’re interested in an unbiased account of what happened in the comics industry in the early 90’s.

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I think Image may have helped set the tone, but some of that was already present in Marvel especially even before Image. How I think Image did affect stories for the worst as a whole was that they showed comic artist and writers could create their own stuff, make huge bank doing it, and have complete control and merchandising over their creations. So slowly a lot of writers and artist left wanting to be the next McFarland or Liefeld in terms of business.

So DC and Marvel had to replace them with less experienced creators, and stretch the ones that did stick around further, and the stories suffer.

I think it also is part of why Bloodlines failed. In theory creating that many new characters should have provided more then one that got success (Hitman). But most creators didn’t want to give DC their best creations that they then didn’t own and had no control over, when the option to possibly get it as a creator owned character and become rich off of it was there. So I think most didn’t give DC their best ideas, hence the lackluster and often ridiculous ones we got.

Not knocking Image. It did a lot to help comic creators get paid well and gave writers and artist an option besides the big two. But I think their initial run did not help as far as quality.

Although the jakked up heroes with anti-hero tendencies was part of 90’s culture too.