Bloodshot #0
Bloodshot #0 (March 1994) is the definitive origin issue for one of Valiant's signature characters, delivering in a single 36-page story the complete account of how mob hitman Angelo Mortalli was sold to the clandestine Project Rising Spirit and transformed into Bloodshot via nanite injection — mythology that had been introduced piecemeal across earlier issues but never told as a unified narrative. It also marks the first appearance of Iwatsu Industries villain Mr. Iwatsu in the Valiant continuity, giving the entire Bloodshot rogues' gallery its organizational anchor. As part of Valiant's broader "zero issue" program, the book arrived wrapped in a wraparound chromium cover by Joe Quesada and Dick Giordano, making it a physical artifact of the early-1990s production innovations that Valiant pioneered and that Marvel and DC quickly imitated. The issue was later collected in the digital Valiant Classic Collection "Bloodshot: The Blood of Heroes" (2021), confirming its standing as essential reading for understanding the character's original continuity.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Bloodshot himself was created in 1992 by writer Kevin VanHook, artist Don Perlin, and editor/writer Bob Layton — with the character's actual name attributed by Layton to artist David Chlystek — debuting in cameo in Eternal Warrior #4 before his first full appearance in Rai #0 that same month. The ongoing Bloodshot series launched in early 1993, and issue #0 was produced roughly a year into that run as Valiant's answer to reader demand for a consolidated origin story, scripted and penciled by VanHook with inks by Dick Giordano and a cover by Joe Quesada. The issue was released March 4, 1994, right at the moment Voyager Communications was being acquired by Acclaim Entertainment, situating it at the precise editorial hinge between the original Valiant era and the Acclaim transition.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Published March 4, 1994 by Valiant Comics as part of the ongoing Bloodshot (Volume 1) series, which ran for 52 issues concluding in 1996.
- Written and penciled by Kevin VanHook, with interior inks by Dick Giordano; the story is titled 'Family Blood.'
- Wraparound chromium cover penciled by Joe Quesada and inked by Dick Giordano — part of Valiant's signature chromium-cover program that influenced the wider industry in the early 1990s.
- First appearance of Mr. Iwatsu (founder of Iwatsu Industries / Project Rising Spirit) in the Valiant Universe, though he appears as a mention only in this issue.
- Presents the full origin of Bloodshot (Angelo Mortalli): a mob hitman betrayed by the Carboni crime family, delivered to Project Rising Spirit, and transformed into a superhuman weapon via nanite injection.
- Features guest appearances by the Eternal Warrior (Gilad Abrams) and two generations of the Geomancer (Buck McHenry and Geoff McHenry), weaving the origin into the broader Valiant shared universe.
- Collected digitally in 'Bloodshot: The Blood of Heroes' (Valiant Classic Collections, March 2021), available via Kindle, comiXology, and DriveThruComics.
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Reprinted in Bloodshot #1 (1994)
Key issues in Bloodshot
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