A Bit Of A Blunted Bite: Reviewing ‘Blood Hunters’ #1

While the ancient vampire Varnae’s eternal night Blood Hunt has ended, there is still some messy aftermath to deal with. Enter a whole new team of heroes, anti-heroes, and questionables bent on dealing with lingering vampire problems.

Dagger (sans Cloak), Elsa Bloodstone, White Widow, and Hallows Eve are ready to clean up the town in Blood Hunters #1. A new event-coda miniseries from Erica Schultz, Robert Gill, Rain Beredo, and Joe Caramagna.

For a big time Marvel event, Blood Hunt was pretty fun overall. Having reviewed the whole thing, I was keen to see what this miniseries could do with the fallout from the event. Unfortunately, I definitely found myself not having anywhere near the same levels of fun. Not even a fraction really.

It’s a valiant attempt, and Schultz makes some solid moves in regard to dealing with the once fearsome (fully new) Bloodcoven and vampires as a whole. At the same time, the forced chaos of this team just feels exactly that…forced. Bloodstone being a monster hunter is her whole deal, but Dagger can heal vampires. Their butting of heads just gets a bit tiresome and makes Elsa out to be just a blood thirsty person that  would rather murder vampires (who more often than not are pure victims, not born monsters) rather than save them.

Hallow’s Eve and White Widow, at this point, are sort of just there. Especially once Miles Morales/Spider-Man swings in and semi steals the show. As the Spider-Men tend to do. Of course, we know that Elsa can’t kill him at the end (he has a whole solo series and has Spider-Man plot armor thankfully), so the cliffhanger is kind of shruggable.

Vampiric stories, no matter the focus, always come with horror tonal vibes. Gill captures that pretty well, adding enough grit and roughness to the overall detailed work. Each movement has weight and presence on the page, allowing everything to feel real. Characters themselves have a lot of good attention to detail, varying looks and appearances, while having a bit smoother appearance than other aspects. Paneling choices help make the action feel even more frantic and energetic, as it should in this case.

Being a horror centric type of tale, mixed with super heroics, the color palette of Beredo is a bit murkier. Heavier uses of dark, shadowy, toned-down colors throughout. Letting some flashes of lighter more vibrant tones pop up here or there for specific heroic beats. A lot of the overall setting pulls in more gray tones to give the city that common urban appearance. It also allows the other colors to stand out more, even the darker ones, just by contrast.

Character voices have a unique feeling to them because Caramagna just has that touch with lettering. Really allowing the font, bubble choices, and more create accurate and resonating voices in our minds. Pumped full of emotional weight with very clear volume, tone, and intent at all times.

Blood Hunters #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.