More comic book adaptation mania… here's another, titled Bloodstrike, a 1993 publication from Rob Liefeld (creator of Deadpool, Cable and X-Force) who launched Image Comics in 1992, with the debut of the popular Youngblood franchise, which has gone on to sell 70 million copies worldwide. He's also worked for Marvel.
Bloodstrike centers on a top-secret, super-powered assassination squad deployed by the US government; nothing new there right? The twist: all of the members of the squad are dead… but alive, thanks to a government program called Born Again that brings them back to life by injecting them with vampire blood.
So, essentially, they are a vampire assassination squad; and, they're heading to the big screen, courtesy of Adi Shankar's 1984 Private Defense Contractors production company. Shankar, by the way, is the man behind movies like The Grey, Killing Them Softly – the upcoming Brad Pitt project- the Judge Dredd reboot, Allen Hughes' Broken City and the recently-announced all-female version of The Expendables.
Bloodstrike, launched in 1993 via Image comics, has sold over 30 million copies!
So what's in it for us here at S&A? Well, not that I know a damn thing about Bloodstrike, but Google is my friend! And thanks to my friend, I was able to determine that one member of team Bloodstrike (I counted at least 6), is a brotha! And his name is Chapel.
What did I learn about brotha Chapel?
– He is said to be the only member of the squad who is actually alive, and not a vampire.
– He started out as a supervillain in another comic series, but later became a superhero in this one.
– He is a known smoker and womanizer, who is proficient in unconventional warfare.
– Throughout his career Chapel (aka Bruce Stinson) was instilled with several chemicals which in turn would give him various superhuman abilities. Unbeknownst to Chapel, he was also injected with a type of HIV which could be activated by his superiors by a special serum, to keep him in check. Ok then!
– And here's one really interesting connection to another black comic book character: at one point Chapel was ordered by his superior to murder his friend Al Simmons. They both were employed by Operation Knightstrike. The order was given because Al Simmons was a suspected spy. However, Al Simmons didn't quite die, and became the dark vigilante Spawn. And when Chapel learned of Simmons' transformation, Chapel blew his own brains out. Great! So he dies eventually. Not quite… He later returned from the dead, and became Lord Chapel, a horseman of the apocalypse in service to his mistress Calcifer. But it gets even more complicated. However, I won't spoil it anymore than I already have.
– He's said to be volatilite at times, and tows the line between moral and immoral choices.
So there ya have it. Ben Stinson, aka Chapel, summarized.
The obvious question now is, what black actor should play him? Because that's going to come up eventually… assuming this project is seen all the way to production.
No ETA yet.
