Advance Review: ‘Blood & Thunder’ #13 Stages A Prison Break And Regains Its Footing

Is there anything more gratifying than seeing someone or something that has lost its way find itself again?

Blood & Thunder started off a year ago centered around a bounty hunter Blood and her sentient gun Thunder. The pair were sent after the most dangerous prisoner in the galaxy, whom Blood eventually befriended. She was sent to the same prison as a result, which is where this new story arc kicks off.

That older story started off well enough, with a little mystery dabbled in for good measure. But the creative team stumbled, particularly in the second arc, with several highly questionable choices, including issue endings that were so bizarre that readers thought there were pages missing from their copies.

Writer Benito Cereno and artist E.J. Su seemed to have taken stock of all this and regrouped — at least for now. This issue is probably the best of the series to date. It centers on Blood’s (sans Thunder) attempted escape from her asteroid prison. Think The Shawshank Redemption gone horribly wrong.

Su gets to have a lot of fun, since the issue is packed with action. In fact, Cereno creates only the bare minimum plot and framing as is necessary and lets Su do the heavy lifting. Su’s resulting visuals are his strongest to date. It’s like reading a print version of some of the crazy fight scenes from the Daredevil streaming series.

The only area of concern is the ending, which again feels abrupt. Still, it’s wise to give the team the benefit of the doubt, at least for now. Hopefully this is the beginning of the story’s turnaround, not the end.

Blood & Thunder #13 — written by Benito Cereno, illustrated by E.J. Su, colored by Msassyk, and lettered by Rus Wooton — will be available Wednesday in comic book stores and on digital platforms from Image Comics.