Alien Books, the publisher of the Valiant comics line, and writer Mauro Mantella have received widespread criticism for a passage that appeared in Valiant Beyond: Bloodshot #1 that featured “thinly veiled transphobic metaphors,” as one comics creator put it.
The comic’s creative team includes Mantella and artists Fernando Heinz Furukawa and Juan Pablo Massa. It’s part of a line-wide reboot of the Valiant line, called Valiant Beyond, that was set to kick off earlier this year but was delayed due to the bankruptcy of Diamond. Valiant’s comics are now distributed by Penguin Random House via IDW Publishing.
What should have been a big launch for the publisher, as Bloodshot was the first Valiant Beyond title to hit comic shelves, was marred by panels whose words mirrored a false but common refrain by anti-trans bigots. For context, the comic features Bloodshot in a Japan plagued by vampires. “There are kids who want to be bitten to become vampires because their favorite influencer says they are one,” Bloodshot’s interior monologue reads. “And parents who force their children into that irreversible change just to feel modern … and believing that they’ll be thankful for it when they grow up.”
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