Deathstroke The Terminator Annual #2 (1993) Bloodlines Deathstorm Part 1

[pyrotwilight]

Here we come to the final stretch of the Bloodlines epic. The Outbreak and Earthplague have passed, now the Earth faces its Deathstorm. The Parasites have become public knowledge, though that has helped the heroes very little thus far. 

In this part we get to meet the heir to a weapons manufacturing company Andrew Van Horn.

18 pages of a 56 page story.

Also an ad for the Bloodlines event that I found when I my friend showed me a copy of the Giant Sized Atom Special #2 that I borrowed to get a scan of.

 

Good lord, who is that dashing mysterious Super figure? I'll admit it's not much of a Bloodlines ad but it is kinda striking. 

Now back to your regularly scheduled Bloodlines chapter.



Ever wanted to see France? Well here we go.

Two fellas working at the Metropolis airport are loading a plane headed to Paris, France. One "mysteriously" vanishes...

 

 

And so Venev stalks her prey, The Terminator. 



You can clearly see the divide between father and son here. Good ol' dad loves making a name as a munitions salesman, and his son Andrew wants to turn the company into a force for ecological good.

Gunther gets a nice surprise though from an old friend.



Andrew sad, goes back to see his his friends and partners in his ecological efforts, Benjamin and Yvette. 



Oh such thin foreshadowing. 



God, I'm always creeped out by stuff like that second to last panel in movies where the villain pops up from the background/behind a door and slowly slinks to the victim.

 

Benjamin and Yvette get worried after Andrew hasn't come back in a timely fashion and go to find him. Andrew has finally woken up and after a quick bout of confusion remembers that someone killed his father, but he can't remember who. 



Pissed off Andrew decides to take things into his own hands and go after the killer, arming himself to the teeth with tons of the armor and weapons his dad manufactures. 

 

I do appreciate that even Andrew points out how ridiculously armed he is. But at least he has a legitimate reason for it. And so Andrew takes off to find the killer and then believes he found him when he finds...

 

And cue the two getting into a relatively long fight. Slade survives some of the more deadly blows thanks to his new armor, which he received from Andrew's dad before he was killed.

Andrew however was in a losing battle when suddenly he manages to blast the Terminator with a surprising weapon.



 

 

We then go into a bit of a lesson of how Gunfire's powers work.



Yep, he agitates molecules which allows him to fire energy out of said object until it loses its structure and breaks apart. Though he needed an object to do so some later appearances have shown him doing it from thin air, presumably meaning he figured out how to agitate molecules in the air as well. To a degree it's similar to what Jubilee from the X-Men did with her powers. 

Cue the two following the trail and coming upon Venev.



 

 

And our tale ends with an epilogue mirroring the opening as a plane crashes on the tarmac of the Metropolos airport. 



Gunfire was one of the New Bloods who was probably most easy to use around the DCU. Being the CEO of a company (now that his father has passed) he could easily pop up in stories across the DCU. He could just as easily fight criminals or go into plots about people who have become unhappy about his company no longer selling weapons (presuming Andrew stopped that now that his father didn't control it). He also had the fun of a character who was a newbie and had cool flashy powers. 

He's still alive in the DCU and he had a 14 issue series that launched after Bloodlines ended though I haven't seen any of it so he did well compared to many of the other New Bloods.                     

Comments

[okkult3000]

Just think: Someday, his successor will accidentally turn his ass into a grenade and end their noble lineage.

[pyrotwilight]

Well, it wasn't a lineage or Gunfire's successor at least not really. It was a kid who was an idiot, got his hands on something relating to Gunfire and was able to make an icon of power from it.

[jcbaggee]

I read that issue of Wizard, too :D

[thatnickguy]

Gunfire may have had some success, but his 1 Million counterpart certainly did not. =D

"My ass! I turned my ass into a grena..." BOOM!

[filthysize]

Garth Ennis has the superpower of finding the dumbest way to portray a superhero's powers.

[shanejayell]

The only reason I remember this character is that he was mercilessly mocked in DC One Million. Is that bad? ^__^

[pyrotwilight]

I blame Ennis. ENNISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. :_;

[kalindashepard]

It's never just you, this is the first time I've even seen the original. The "I turned my ass into a hand grenade" line was the first thing I thought of when I saw the post.

[icon_uk]

I'd have said his power was a lote more akin to Gambit than Jubilee.

IIRC Gunfire featured in "Cry for Justice" as one of the European heroes that Prometheus attacked to show how badass he was, cutting both his hands off at the wrist and possibly killing him.

[pyrotwilight]

(Well, technically it was in the Faces of Evil Prometheus One shot that lead into Cry for Justice and though disarmed he was still shown as alive. Though two of the other New Bloods didn't fare well at all.)

[icon_uk]

Ah thanks for that, I just remembered sighing heavily at the "jobbing" aspect of the scene, and didn't commit much of it to memory.

[q99]

That was a pretty good one.

And back before Slade went pure villain too.

[filthysize]

I used to have a few issues of his solo title. It was an incredibly standard action story. There's basically no difference if he has superpowers or if he's holding a regular gun. They even do the "out of bullets" cliche all the time with him going, "Oh no, I have nothing to turn into a gun!"

Though the one scene I remember most from the series involves that exact plot device. He's cornered behind a couch in some guy's living room by armed henchmen, going "Come on! There must be something here I can use!" Then he grabs a snowglobe and lobs it like a grenade, killing all the baddies. I don't know why, but I still chuckle when I remember that.

[heckfire]

DEATH BY TCHOTCHKE!

[swingbound.livejournal.com]

There's just something amusing that Deathstroke flies commercial.