Bloodstrike (team)

Bloodstrike is a fictional team of action/adventure super agents, originally published by Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios of Image Comics in the 1990s.

Bloodstrike was a top-secret, super-powered assassination squad deployed covertly by the United States government. All of the members had already died before becoming members of the team; they were brought back to life by the government's Project: Born Again.

The main character and team leader was Cabbot Stone (brother of ex-Youngblood member and Brigade member Battlestone). Other members were the four-armed Fourplay, the ex-villain Deadlock, the power-armored Shogun, and the enigmatic Tag, who could force people to "freeze in place" by touching them.

At one point in the second series, in an effort to revamp the Bloodstrike team, the government added the recently-HIV-positive character of Chapel onto the team. This made him the only living member of the team. It was as a part of the Bloodstrike team that Chapel blows his own brains out all over the street (in a beautiful two-page spread) upon finding that former friend and Youngblood team member Spawn has returned from the dead.

Eventually the team's government supervisor, Noble, was revealed to be a member of The Covenant of the Sword, a villainous cyborg conspiracy. Noble's exposure (and death) resulted in the demise of all of Bloodstrike's members except for Cabbot. His memory was erased and he was renamed Bloodstrike as the comic became a solo (rather than team) book.

"Bloodstrike" ran for 22 issues. There was a special issue 25 printed (after issue 10) as part of the "Images of Tomorrow" event that ran through several titles being published by Image at the time. During issue 25, the Bloodstrike title changed dramatically as Bllodstrike became the name of a solo agent. Fans wonderedFact|date=May 2008 how the book got from "point A to point B", but issues 23 and 24 do not exist. It was later revealed that Cabbot Stone was the masked individual named Bloodstrike.

After the "Bloodstrike" series concluded, a sequel titled "Bloodstrike: Assassin" ran for 3 issues (plus an issue #0) featuring art by Karl Altstaetter. The character of Bloodstrike returned once again in "Cabbot: Bloodhunter". Only the first issue was printed, though parts 2 and 3 were printed as backup stories in the pages of "Supreme".