Blood Hunters #2

History

Blood Hunters (Vol. 1) was conceived as a four-issue anthology companion to Jed MacKay's Blood Hunt summer 2024 event, announced and developed under executive editor Tom Brevoort and edited by Martin Biro. Each issue was structured around three rotating creative teams, with Erica Schultz anchoring the through-line 'Once More Into the Darkness' story across all four issues alongside artist Bernard Chang; the Hulk story in issue #2 was handled by filmmaker and comics veteran Kaare Andrews with artist Alex Lins, while veteran writer Ann Nocenti took the Kate Bishop chapter with artist David Baldeón. The anthology format allowed Marvel to seed the Blood Hunters team—Dagger, Elsa Bloodstone, White Widow, and Hallows' Eve—as a prelude to Schultz's own dedicated Blood Hunters Vol. 2 limited series, which launched in August 2024.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published June 5, 2024 (cover-dated August 2024) as the second of four issues in the Blood Hunters Vol. 1 anthology mini-series, a tie-in to Marvel's Blood Hunt summer crossover event.
• Three distinct stories appear in this issue: 'End of the Well' (Kaare Andrews, writer; Alex Lins, artist; KJ Díaz, colorist) starring Bruce Banner/Hulk; 'We Drink to Forget We Drink' (Ann Nocenti, writer; David Baldeón, artist; Javier Tartaglia, colorist) starring Kate Bishop/Hawkeye and her dog Lucky; and 'Once More Into the Darkness Part Two' (Erica Schultz, writer; Bernard Chang, artist; Marcelo Maiolo, colorist) starring Elsa Bloodstone, Dagger, Frankenstein's Monster, and White Widow.
• The Hulk story explores what happens physiologically to vampires who drink gamma-irradiated blood, using Banner's imprisonment by a vampire coven as a frame for parallel childhood flashbacks.
• In the Kate Bishop story, Ann Nocenti scripted a pre-Avengers prologue for the character, placing her in vampire-besieged New York alongside her dog Lucky and a recently turned vampire she helps retain his humanity.
• The spine story by Schultz and Chang introduces Yelena Belova (White Widow) as a vampire under the Blood Hunt's influence; Dagger attempts to cure her using Lightforce healing, but the cure rebounds—infecting Dagger with vampirism instead—a consequence resolved only in issue #3.
• Main cover art by Greg Land (colored by Frank D'Armata); variant cover by Declan Shalvey; lettered by Joe Caramagna; edited by Martin Biro under executive editor Tom Brevoort.
• The 'Once More Into the Darkness' storyline running through all four issues of Blood Hunters Vol. 1 functioned as a direct narrative bridge to Blood Hunters Vol. 2 (August 2024), written by Erica Schultz with art by Robert Gill, which formalized the team of Dagger, Elsa Bloodstone, White Widow, and Hallows' Eve.
• The complete Blood Hunters Vol. 1 anthology (#1–4) was collected in the trade paperback Blood Hunters: Once More Into the Darkness, which also included the Hallows' Eve Halloween one-shot.

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