Advance Review — ‘Blood & Thunder’ #6 Tackles Some Big Questions About Humanity
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
This first story arc concludes with a battle against the big bad. But that confrontation flips the switch on readers’ understanding of the characters – in the process asking several unresolved questions about the nature of humanity. Pretty heady for a funny book!
Overall
8/10For millennia, artists and philosophers have struggled with defining what it is to be human. Why are we here? Who put us here?
As Image Comics’ Blood & Thunder wraps up its initial story arc, the creative team drops heavy questions like those on their readers. Interestingly enough, it poses many of them in the middle of a very one-sided fight. And as you might expect, the book doesn’t attempt to answer those questions – at least not yet anyway. That kind of philosophical navel gazing may or may not be what interests comic book readers, but it dominates this issue along with plenty of action.
That story, written by Benito Cereno, add a bit of depth to an issue where not a lot happens. That’s not a condemnation at all — the first arc all leads up to this confrontation between bounty hunter Blood, her AI weapon Thunder, and the being known only as “the prisoner.”
Cereno flips the script during this confrontation giving the would-be antagonist more intelligence and compassion than his leading lady. The prisoner is the one questioning Blood about the chase and her motivations. Blood’s role here is more of an automaton who can barely utter a coherent sentence. Even the gun Thunder sounds more human, which is Cereno’s point. Why exactly he is making that point, though, it still to be determined.
It’s an interesting take on things, and hopefully it will pay off in future issues. That’s not always been the case with this series. Earlier in the arc, it inexplicably took a sharp left turn that didn’t feature the titular characters. With that part of the story seemingly completed, that tangent feels even more like a wasted chapter or two than it did when it was originally published.
With so much action packed into the issue, artist E.J. Su must have had a lot of fun this time around. There are plenty of splash pages and large panels showing Blood’s largely futile attempt to stop the prisoner. It’s good popcorn visuals.
The next arc gives the creative team the opportunity to reset things a bit, and hopefully to reconsider what has worked and not worked in the series first six issues. Time will tell if that time is well spent.
Blood & Thunder #6 will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms on Wednesday from Image Comics.
