Bloodstrike #4

Oct 1993 · Image · 1.95 USD; 2.65 CAD

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“Down Time”

About this Issue

Bloodstrike #4, cover-dated October 1993, is the series' dedicated character-study issue — a deliberate pause in the team's mission cycle that gave writers Keith Giffen and Eric Stephenson room to reveal who these resurrected government assassins actually were when the shooting stopped. Issued in the middle of the early Image Comics explosion, it represented an early attempt within Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios line to push beyond pure action-spectacle storytelling and give the undead operatives of Project: Born Again genuine interiority. The issue also introduces the supporting character Max Sutherland in his first appearance, adding civilian texture to the Extreme Universe's Washington, D.C. setting.

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writer, artist Keith Giffen · writer Eric Stephenson · artist Chris Alexander · inker Chris Ivy · inker Marlo Alquiza · inker Jonathan Sibal · colorist Byron Talman · colorist In Color · letterer Kurt Hathaway · cover Dan Fraga, Marlo Alquiza

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History

By issue #4, creative stewardship of Bloodstrike had already shifted away from Rob Liefeld to the writing team of Keith Giffen and Eric Stephenson, with interior art by Chris Alexander, Chris Ivy, Marlo Alquiza, and Jonathan Sibal — a transitional arrangement typical of the busy, often chaotic early Extreme Studios publishing schedule. Liefeld remained involved as a plotter on the concurrent backup feature 'A Tale of the Knight,' drawn by Chuck Jones and Mark Pacella, which ran as a serial across multiple issues of the series. The series itself had launched only six months earlier in April 1993 as a spinoff of Youngblood, built around the high concept of a black-ops team whose members were all killed-in-action servicemen resurrected by a secret military program.

Trivia · 8 facts

Cover-dated October 1993, published by Image Comics under Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios imprint.
Main story titled 'Down Time'; written by Keith Giffen and Eric Stephenson, with interior art by Chris Alexander, Chris Ivy, Marlo Alquiza, and Jonathan Sibal.
First appearance of Max Sutherland, a supporting character in the Extreme Universe, occurs in this issue.
First appearance of the Loose Ends Bar as a named location within the Extreme Universe.
The issue is a character-focused 'day off' story showing the Bloodstrike team members — Cabbot Stone, Deadlock, Fourplay, Shogun, and Tag — outside of a mission context; Cabbot's opening scene, in which he destroys his own quarters in a rage after a shower, became one of the book's early character-defining moments.
Includes the third chapter of the backup serial 'A Tale of the Knight,' plotted by Rob Liefeld with art by Chuck Jones and Mark Pacella — a story that ran serially through the first several issues of the series.
The issue is part of the original 22-issue run of Bloodstrike Vol. 1, which was followed by a 2012 revival (issues #26–33, written by Tim Seeley) and a 2018 Michel Fiffe miniseries.
Supreme (Ethan Crane) does NOT appear in issue #4 — his guest appearance and the near-destruction of the team occurs in issue #5 (November 1993); any catalog linking Supreme or Ethan Crane to issue #4 should be flagged as potentially mislabeled.