Which, in a mediation regarding PTSD, is heavy as hell. His technologically-based immortality means he’ll live with his trauma forever. (As an aside, if Marvel would take this approach with Deadpool, his value as a three-dimensional character would increase exponentially.) Even when he wants to die, he can’t. Yet he carries on, because he knows that to quit is to let his demons win – but also, because the nanites in his body physically won’t let him. Throughout this series, Camp has made it more than a little clear that Bloodshot is held pretty tight in the grip of his own past, and not without good reason: he’s seen and done a lot.
This comic pulls absolutely no punches, narratively or otherwise. In fact, Camp’s thesis posits that the more a soldier sees, the more vulnerable they become to being taken by PTSD. Writer Deniz Camp and artists Eric Zawadski (seamlessly tagging in for a departing Jon Davis-Hunt), Jordie Bellaire, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have produced a hard-hitting, unflinching look at the toll being a soldier can take on anyone, no matter how much they’ve seen or done. This is the painful, sometimes tragic reality Bloodshot Unleashed #4 masterfully addresses. Sometimes, the cycle of PTSD leads to veteran suicide. Day-to-day life becomes a recurring trek back to the battlefield, and the veteran finds him- or herself in a state of constantly reliving their worst moments. PTSD sends the mind into a loop of painful memories, triggered by anything even the most tangentially related to the event. The one we hear most about is post-traumatic stress disorder, which can lead to a wide variety of behaviors: paranoia, mistrust, anger, uncontrolled sadness, and more. Trauma from the battlefield can manifest in a multitude of ways. And sometimes, veterans’ experiences are shared as actions more than words. That doesn’t mean force or pressure them to talk about things they don’t want to. There’s the obligatory (and often empty) “thank you for your service.” But all too often, what we forget to do – or what we don’t do – is take time to listen to them. But by the same turn, once those soldiers become veterans, we’re too quick to forget them.
We live in a country that trumpets we should support the troops, loudly and often, as a matter of perfunctory, de facto patriotism. Bloodshot Unleashed #4 is not an easy comic to read.
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