Marvel’s Blood Hunt crossover has met its end, and the Smash Pages Kill Krew — myself, Shane Bailey and Tom Bondurant — are here to put the nail in its coffin with our final “Bloodhunting” roundtable. You can read our thoughts on the first issue here, the second one here and issues three and four here.
Please note there are SPOILERS in this discussion related to the story and its repercussions, so you may want to avert your eyes the same way the citizens of the 616 did when their beloved sun returned. OR DID IT? Find out below.
JK: And here we are, at the end of Blood Hunt … sort of? I don’t know, I didn’t feel like I was really reading an “ending” here, as it was more like a set-up for what’s to come. But I’ll get into that in a bit; what did you guys think of the final issue?
Shane Bailey: I totally agree with you, this issue kinda made Blood Hunt seem like a prequel to a larger event? It all seemed kinda rushed to get to that point. There’s this huge problem that troubles the whole Marvel universe and the way we left it last issue, the heroes really needed Doom’s help. So Doom really needs to do something special and go out of his way to end the threat, right? Nope, in the words of Ryan George, “Super easy, barely an inconvenience.” And then it’s over. Blade’s kid stabs him and then so does Miles. We get the G.I. Joe movie scene panel of “Duke’s alive; he was just in a coma” with Blade and zero fallout from the whole thing, at least in the main series. Everyone should be traumatized.
But we just get a “Glad that’s over” in a couple of panels and a message from Doom before everyone can move on that would seem like it would disrupt the whole Marvel universe, right? At least on Earth?
I mean, “regular Joe’s whole family was just killed by vampires, but let’s move on.”
I was hopeful, but they didn’t stick the landing on this series, as like you said, it’s not really an ending, but an escalation.”
Tom: It surprised me because I don’t remember Marvel doing this sort of “event linkage.” Granted, I don’t read a lot of Marvel events, but didn’t one lead into another back in the Dark Avengers days? This seemed like — and please forgive me, True Believers — a real Dan DiDio move. It would be like the assembled DC magic-users of late 1985 saying “Okay, we helped you defeat the Anti-Monitor, now we’re taking over.”
Up to that point I was happy with it. I agree with Shane that Miles should have some trauma going forward, and I presume he’ll be dealing with that for the next little bit. Apparently the Doctor Strange book is going to be taking another extended break, which makes sense; and there’s going to be another Avengers book spinning out of BH. Otherwise, I am not in a position to judge the extent of the fallout.
Again, though, on its own I thought Blood Hunt was fine. It hit a nominal amount of event-book marks, it was scary in the right places and triumphant in others, and it emphasized some less-hyped (at least to me, the casual Marvel fan) characters. I am looking forward to the Doom event — the RDJ announcement has to be a coincidence, but Marvel must be loving this moment — because it also has great crossover-event potential. I’m just not sure why Blood Hunt needed to end on that cliffhanger.
Shane: Overall, I agree with you… It was fine. It was sort of an ending, or new beginning to several books. Closed off/expanded on some long running continuity with Jubilee and others in the spinoffs. Broadened the amount of named vampires and types of vampires running around, and set them up as a more recurring enemy with one less weakness. It really did a lot when you think about it. I just think on its own, because of its ending and its spinning out of so many other books, the actual story is kinda thin. It’s a summer action movie without a lot of depth. Which isn’t necessarily bad. I’m just kinda disappointed with the fake-out ending it had, even though I think it will eventually lead to a better and bigger story.
Plus with the whole marketing stunt thing with the “too bloody for norms” version, I think it will be remembered as more Atlantis Attacks than Infinity Gauntlet. It’s a very pretty bloody explosion summer movie event comic.
JK: To answer your question, Tom, Secret Invasion led into Dark Reign, which wasn’t really an event, but more of a thematic publishing initiative, I guess you might call it? Kind of like a Dawn of DC vs. an Absolute Power. Dark Reign was defined by Norman Osborn running his version of SHIELD and of course having his own Avengers team, and that dark shadow fell over several Marvel titles. I’m guessing this Doom era will be more like that, something open-ended that might impact a few specific books, like Amazing Spider-Man, and serve as a backdrop to others.
But getting back to the end of the crossover, I think a good ending for an event series does leave things open for new stories and some status quo changes (even if they turn out to be temporary) but still provides a satisfying conclusion to the event itself. I think this one did more of the former at the expense of the latter. Having Doom save everyone had a lot of build-up, and like you said, Shane, it was … just super easy. Also in issue #4 we had the big return of Moon Knight, and his army of undead Moon Knights showed up to … well, I’m not really sure what they did, because it was all off panel, except for a couple scenes where Moon Knight tried to help the Avengers and they just kind of failed. I think the ending would have felt better if the actions of the heroes had made more of an impact on it, versus all of them admitting defeat right before Doom’s magic saves the day.
This is probably a small gripe, but I also wish this issue had come out the Wednesday before Comic-Con, instead of after. Seeing the “One World Under Doom” teaser pretty much told us how all this was going to wrap up.
Overall, though, I have to say Blood Hunt was a satisfying story and comic event. It looked great; it moved quickly, for the most part; it presented a credible threat that heroes had to rise to the occasion to defeat, even if, ultimately, we got a similar ending to what we saw with Secret Invasion and the rise of Norman Osborn. I just wish the ending had landed a bit better and felt like a conclusion instead of just the passing of a baton to what’s next.
