Infiniti’s relaunch of Blood Squad Seven has hit a snag, as one of their members has gone rogue. Can the team be saved before it even debuts? Your Major Spoilers review of Blood Squad Seven #3 from Image Comics awaits!

BLOOD SQUAD SEVEN #3

Writer: Joe Casey
Artist: Paul Fry
Colorist: Francesco Segala
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Editor: Sonia Harris
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 24, 2024

Previously in Blood Squad Seven: The truth revealed! A serpent in the garden! As rot from deep within threatens to take down the new team before they’ve even launched, drastic measures are taken to control the story – no matter who has to die in the process! And introducing, Ripcord 3. 0!

DON’T SAY THE “Y” WORD

Thirty years ago, Blood Squad Seven was the premier super-team of the times, and this issue opens with one of their long-ago missions, as Blokhedd, Man of War, and team leader Tachi wrap up a successful mission. Cut to the present, where a middle-aged Blokhedd is now a television host, finishing up the latest taping of his home renovation show, when Tachi arrives for a visit. Tachi brings the news that the Blood Squad Seven team is being rebuilt, only to find that neither man has been asked to return. As for Erika Richmond, the former Infiniti and leader of the team, she has problems of her own, as what Ripcord claimed was an invasion of shapeshifting aliens was, in fact, just a plain old murder spree. With her team only half-staffed, she now has to figure out how to bring down one of their own without destroying the tiny bit of goodwill she has built.

After all, Blood Squad Seven didn’t end well last time.

A HISTORY THAT WASN’T

The fun of this book for me is in seeing Casey and Fry stitching together the history of a team that doesn’t exist, taking actual vintage Image characters like Infiniti and Ripcord, swirling in a few expies like Blokhedd and building a better Youngblood than the actual Youngblood ever got to be. I am a bit worried by the plot, in that having everything fall apart this early emulates those 1994 Image superhero books by beginning to tear everything down before it’s ever actually built up, but Casey is a writer who thrives with chaotic situations.

The art here is actually my favorite part of the exercise, as Fry successfully conveys that 1994 Tachi and 2024 Tachi are the same man, decades apart, while the mother-and-daughter team of Infiniti and Infiniti share similar faces but are always distinct. The muted coloring conveys the “smoke-filled room” aspect of the Blood Squad Seven’s black-ops requisite, but with the next issue promising an explosion of superhero violence, I’m hoping to see a similar explosion in the use of color.

BOTTOM LINE: LOVING THIS, EVEN AS BRUTAL AS IT IS

There’s a lot of blood and a lot of chaos in the pages of Blood Squad Seven #3, but much as with my review of Local Man, the retro-worldbuilding here appeals to me, both in Fry’s interestingly dark and moody art, and in the recreation of an Image shared universe that fell apart by 1996, earning 3 out of 5 stars overall. If you’re not reading Blood Squad Seven, you should check it out soon, as I hope to see it blow up the way Invincible did at the end of the first arc.

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