By Chris Tresson

Hello, Comic Bastards readers. I’m about to review Bloodshot U.S.A #3 from Valiant Entertainment. The last issue wasn’t all that great for me (from what I remember of it), and I really didn’t want to review this one because of that but I thought I’d give it a go anyways. Let’s see what Jeff Lemire and Doug Braithwaite have in store for us with this one… Here we go. 

So I just finished reading it and I— I have no idea what I just read. This is a very, very weird issue and I’m completely baffled by it, haha. thought we’d be at a point in this miniseries where shit was going to kick off and everyone would be kicking ass. Not the case here. This issue is mostly just a conversation between Bloodshot and Deathmate whilst some weird ‘Twin Peaks-esque’ fuckery was going on. The final page is even more of a head fuck. I’m lost. I have absolutely no idea what is going on with this miniseries. 

What little momentum this book had left over from the last issue is completely killed off in favor of some weird-thing that didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense to me. Is this my own fault for not really knowing all that much about the characters or the universe? Maybe. But it didn’t feel like that when the series started. The last two issues seem to just push me out of the series entirely and I haven’t got a clue as to why… I can’t even explain the weird thing that happens to you because it’s all that really happens in this book, haha. I haven’t really got anything else to write about this part of the story… I’m wondering now though if, like Scott Snyder, Jeff Lemire now hit those heights where publishers will pretty much let him do whatever he wants because his name sells books regardless of what he writes.

I guess I can comment on the art… I like the art, I’ve said that every time I’ve reviewed an issue of this series, but this issue’s art was boring for me. It looks good as it always does, but what Doug Braithwaite is having to draw is utterly shite! It’s a waste of the man’s talents making him draw this shit. There’s like two/three pages where he’s actually drawing stuff I’d like to see him draw and the rest is a load of lame bullshit...It’s like hiring Salvador Dalí to come over to your house so he can paint your spare bedroom one solid color… I’m really disappointed.

This is it for me. I’m not reviewing the last issue of this series because words will probably fail me again when I come to sit down to write the review. At this point, I’m not hopeful that the story is going to get anymore exciting. I will probably read it just to see how far off the deep end it goes. If you’re this far into the story yourself, you’ll probably want to see the conclusion, too…  

Score: 2/5

Bloodshot U.S.A #3
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Doug Braithwaite
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment