Dollar Comic Review: Bloodstone 101

You know who I feel bad for? Mark Hale. Based on Elsa Bloodstone's appearance in Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen's sure-to-be awesome NextWave, he bought and read every issue of her 2001 debut miniseries.

He could've just waited for me to do it for him.



Bloodstone 1-4
December, 2001 - March, 2002
Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Pencils and Covers: Michael Lopez

The Plot
Elsa Bloodstone is hot. Seriously. I've read this series three times now, and that's pretty much the only fact that sticks with me, thanks in large part to Michael Lopez's cheesecake-laden pencil-work. Here, see for yourself:

Hot.
Hot!
HOT!

See what I mean? There is, however, slightly more to it than that. Remember how you all loved it when Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning took some time off from writing Warhammer novels and doing some darn fine inking, respectively, to write stories about future teenagers in space? Well, they also did this. Buffy--sorry, Elsa is the daughter of Bronze Age monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, and since he finally kicked the bucket about thirty years back, she and her mom are moving into his creepy old house. Mom has apparently never read Lovecraft, and wants to turn it into an antique/curio shop, while Elsa is content to lounge around in belly shirts speaking faux-British until she runs into the Monster of Frankenstein, who lives in a basement.

He's an okay guy, though, and it turns out he's the mansion's caretaker. He gives Elsa her father's lightsaber--sorry, bloodstone choker, and she gets wrapped up in the whole monster hunting deal while her mom dates the Dark Shadows-esque family lawyer, Charles Barnabus. Thanks to her father's love of slavery (really, although it's just a genie), Elsa's whisked away for encounters with smooth-ass Marvel Dracula and N'Kantu, the Living Mummy, completing the Famous Monster Trifecta and moving on to the Blade II bonus round of taking out the Nosferati. See, the evil vampires have a plan to infect Dracula with Ebola (?!) and then drink his blood (?!), but Elsa and her Crew are able to foil it, and everything works out okay.

Highlights

• Elsa's father, Ulysses Bloodstone, was an immortal from the time of Conan, who assumed various identities over the years, including Captain Ahab. This was not, unfortunately, the identity he assumed when he fought ORRGO THE UNCONQUERABLE. That would've been badass.
• When we first see Elsa's mother, she's six months pregnant with Elsa's baby brother. Considering that Ulysses has been dead for quite some time, and Elsa makes references to not really knowing him, we can assume he's not the father. The problem? The father is never mentioned. Not even a hint. And then she starts dating a creepy lawyer.
• Despite the fact that he appears on the cover of Essential Monster of Frankenstein in a nice fur-and-loincloth ensemble, Adam (that's the Monster) dresses a lot like Marty McFly.
• On the cover to #2, Elsa appears to be wearing a bra designed by Stark Industries, for the reasons discussed above. It never actually appears in the story, but she does spend most of the issue obeying Dave Campbell's "Four Points of Contact" law.
• When asked what his eternal undeath is like, N'Kantu the Living Mummy replies: "A lot like life, only colder." No joke here, I just think that's a pretty good line.
• Let's take a look at Nosferatu's Master Plan: He's not getting the same high he used to from regular blood, so he decides that the best course of action would be to infect Dracula with Ebola which, since he won't die, will just make him bleed more. Admittedly, I'm a noted expert on Master Plans, but I can spot a fatal flaw in this one even before you throw a gun-toting monster hunter. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm not, but Ebola is transmitted through the blood.
• Considering that it's the introduction of a new character, Bloodstone's pretty open ended. By the last page, Elsa's got her team of monster-hunters, a kickass hideout, and plans to attend college in the fall. And yet, we don't see her until four years later, when Warren Ellis sends out an email asking for forgotten Marvel characters. This, Elsa, does not bode well.

Defining Moment


And that's real conversation for your ass.