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Predator: Bad Blood is a four-issue limited comic book series that was first published by Dark Horse Comics from December 1993-June 1994. It was written by Evan Dorkin, pencilled by Derek Thompson, inked by Keith Aiken, Chris Warner and Thompson, colored by Chris Chalenor, lettered by Pat Brosseau, and edited by John Weeks, Chris Warner and Edward Martin III, with cover art by Thompson.

The story deals with a wildly psychotic Predator who begins a mass slaughter in New Jersey, in turn being hunted by another Predator. The series was preceded by the short-story Predator: Bad Blood short story, produced by the same creative team.

In Dark Horse's Predator comics line, Predator: Bad Blood was preceded by the short story, published concurrently with Predator: The Hunted City and Predator: Blood on Two-Witch Mesa, and was followed by Predator: Invaders from the Fourth Dimension.

Publisher's Summary[]

#1: The New Jersey Pine Barrens have become a slaughterhouse, witness to a hideous spree of murders and mutilations. Ex-CIA operative John Pulnick is accused of the gruesome crimes, but he knows the true identity of the slayer: a creature from another world — a Predator. But unlike others of its species, this alien intruder is no sport hunter, but a blood-crazed psychotic, a butcher of its own kind, an unhinged killing machine. While a massive manhunt sweeps the Barrens, a stalker of a different kind searches for the killer — a second Predator, bent on bringing down the rogue monster.

#2: A special task force sweeps the New Jersey Pine Barrens in search of a psychotic Predator, a blood-crazed butcher bent on killing any living creature it encounters. While the government craves the beast's technology, a team of ex-CIA rogue agents have different plans for the extraterrestrial monster and its human hunters. And if this cast of spooks and psychos weren't enough of a potential powder keg, enter another Predator, here to wreak vengeance upon its unhinged brother — and anything that gets in its way.

#3: The CIA's special task force searches the New Jersey Pine Barrens, hot on the trail of a Predator cutting a bloody swath through the area. Someone else is on the trail too: a team of ex-CIA agents with their own agenda. It's a ferocious pitched battle as the two teams encounter each other, each armed with enough heavy weaponry to take on a Predator. And as the humans square off, so does the Predator — against another Predator, that's tracked its quarry through the depths of space to Earth. Will anyone survive the ensuing insanity?

#4: The New Jersey Pine Barrens echo with the roar of a rogue, serial-killer Predator. He's just taken on another Predator sent to kill him — and now he's gone berserk, attacking anything he encounters. Now, ex-CIA agents Poppa John and friends face a horrific extraterrestrial and the wrath of the U.S. military. Wounded, trapped, with no way out — it's a one-way ticket to hell as they face a Predator who is willing to kill his own kind!

Plot[]

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The Bad Blood.

Following the massacre by a Predator at Body Count Paintball in New Jersey, John Pulnick, owner of the paintball range and ex-CIA member, arrives to find his range swarming with police. Shortly afterwards, a CIA taskforce led by Claude Loudermilk arrives in the area. Claude attempts to remove the cops from the area and detain John, but John escapes and flees into the range woods.

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The Enforcer Predator.

There, he encounters the mutilated bodies of several lawyers and his guard dogs Duke and Medusa, along with an inhumanly large machete lodged in one of the corpses. Suddenly the killer - a Bad Blood Predator that kills indiscriminately - grabs John by the head. Pulnick frees himself by yanking one of its dreadlocks, ripping it off as it throws him. Two cops arrive to help John, but the Bad Blood jumps over John and kills them, the distraction allowing him to escape. Pulnick flees the woods and confronts Loudermilk about the killer, which Loudermilk already knew about. Disgusted, John points his paintball gun at them and bluffs his way into leaving in his truck. Meanwhile, an Enforcer Predator arrives in the woods via a Drop Pod and begins tracking the disgraced hunter down.

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Pulnick, Kelso and the CIA team.

To capture John, Loudermilk's men trick Police Deputy Richard Keslo into apprehending him when John visits. They detain him inside their operating compound, placing the blame for the massacred locals on him while John and Claude discuss their past falling out back when the former worked for the latter. Claude also reveals his team plans to capture the Predator and its ship. After realizing Pulnick was not the killer when the Bad Blood kills two more of Loudermilk's men, Keslo contacts John's old CIA team, consisting of ex-agents Philip Smith, Robert Graves and Mandy Graves (formerly Mandy West before marrying Robert). The trio break into the CIA compound with Kelso's help and rescue John, revealing they'd all gone AWOL years ago after learning how corrupt their employers were but kept in touch. The former agents and Kelso decide to take down the Bad Blood themselves.

One of Claude's teams follows a blood trail to the Bad Blood's hideout and are quickly killed by the Predator himself, whose developed a grudge against John (shown by his reaction to a photo of John). Another team locate the Bad Blood's ship, finding inside the remains of six Predators it tortured, killed and ate. However, while accessing the ship's computers, one accidentally triggers a boobytrap set by the Bad Blood. The explosion destroys the ship, kills the agents, injures the Enforcer - who was also close by investigating - and wrecks the Enforcer's plasmacaster. John and the former agents notice the explosion and encounter the Bad Blood, but the confrontation is interrupted by a CIA combat team, who attempt to apprehend them. Before the two groups can start shooting, the Bad Blood begins slaying the CIA team.

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The Enforcer surrounded by Pulnick's team.

The Bad Blood is in turn ambushed by the Enforcer, who almost succeeds in impaling the rogue Predator with a spear. Their personal duel is interrupted when the Enforcer is shot by one of the CIA soldiers, giving the Bad Blood the upper hand as the CIA team retreats. However, the wounded Enforcer is saved when John, having noticed that the Enforcer only attack the Bad Blood, has his team shoot the Bad Blood, causing it to flee. While the Enforcer and the team are in a standoff, John gets them to lower their weapons. The Enforcer peacefully leaves to tend to his wounds and the group find Kelso has disappeared. Learning a larger CIA combat team is on the way through a stolen CIA radio, Pulnick and the team grudgingly move on without Kelso.

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The Enforcer is stabbed with its own mask by the Bad Blood.

It turned out Kelso was taken hostage by the surviving members of the first CIA team. Before they can leave, the Bad Blood catches up and kills them, saving Kelso for last and taking his head. John and his colleagues run into a large CIA combat team with two helicopters, one of which Loudermilk is on. A firefight ensues once again, with John's team taking out some of the CIA team before taking cover from the helicopters. Philip is wounded trying to shoot one of them down with his bazooka. Elsewhere, the Bad Blood finds a shack and kills the three mountain men and their dog who live there. The Bad Blood then takes a short rest, making trophies of his victims and even eating the men's flesh. The grotesque meal break is interrupted by the Enforcer's arrival, and the two resume their battle to death.

During the fight both take several wounds, destroy each other's Smart Disks and set the shack on fire before the Enforcer disarms and overpowers his adversary. But as the Enforces is about to strike the killing blow, the Bad Blood grapples the Enforcer, removes his spiked bio-helmet and seriously wounds the Enforcer with it. The Bad Blood then impales the Enforcer with his own spear and does a victory dance on his chest until he hears the arrival of Loudermilk's team; drawn by the burning shack, they abandon John's team as the Bad Blood is their top priority. Before they arrive, the Bad Blood steals the Enforcer's Wrist gauntlet and locates its Drop pod. It then turns the tables on Loudermilk's team by hurling the Enforcer's spear at one helicopter, impaling the pilot and causing it to crash and explode, leading Loudermilk to retreat. Leaving the Enforcer for dead, the Bad Blood reaches the Pod and sets coordinates for the Enforcer's Mother Ship to land nearby. Meanwhile, the badly wounded Enforcer attempts to pursue the Bad Blood and encounters Mandy. Desperate, it splices pre-recorded audio to tell her of his mission and the Bad Blood's intentions, giving her a tracking device to find the pod. Mandy accepts and mercy kills the Enforcer Predator at his request.

Right after the Mother Ship is alerted, both John's and Claude's teams also arrive at the Pod and a free-for-all breaks out. The psychotic alien climbs a tree and leaps onto Loudermilk's helicopter. It kills everyone, takes Claude's head as a trophy and jumps clear as the chopper crashes. Immediately, John and the other rogue CIA agents surround and attack the Bad Blood themselves. Philip tries to shoot the Bad Blood with his bazooka but is hit by the Bad Blood's netgun. The net detonates Philip's phosphorous grenades as it contracts, the explosion killing him and setting Robert on fire. The Bad Blood impales Robert, crushing the left hand of a distraught Mandy when she charges in to help her husband then throws her aside to focus on Robert. John shoots at the Bad Blood, and the alien rips Robert's body in half and attacks him. John hits it with the butt of his shotgun, only for the Bad Blood to pick him up and start crushing him to death. Pulnick distracts it briefly by shoving Kelso's severed head in its mouth before being killed when the frenzied Predator disembowels him. The Predator savagely mauls Kelso's head before remembering Mandy's presence. Her pistol in her uninjured hand, Mandy shoots the Bad Blood in the head several times as it charges her, finally killing it and ending its rampancy.

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Mandy is left the sole-survivor of the slaughter.

As the CIA team is recalled, the rest of the Enforcer Predators arrive with their Mother Ship. Overwhelmed by everything that happened, Mandy initially mistakes their arrival for an attack and tries to shoot herself. But the Enforcers Predators aren't hostile to her; they acknowledge Mandy's role in the Bad Blood's defeat by treating her wounds and giving her a ceremonial necklace as a gift before leaving the planet with the Predator bodies and technology.

In the aftermath of the event, Pulnick and his team are all blamed for the murders within New Jersey, though only John is identified by the news. Mandy, in hiding, is seen in her quarters introspectively staring at the stars with her hand still bandaged.

Characters[]

Reprint History[]

Predator: Bad Blood, along with its prologue story from Dark Horse Comics, was eventually collected and reprinted as part of Predator Omnibus: Volume 3 in June 2008.

The complete comic was released digitally through Dark Horse Digital on April 17, 2013, reusing Derek Thompson's cover art from Dark Horse Comics #12.

Marvel Comics[]

Following Marvel Comics' acquisition of the rights to Predator comic books, the comic was collected as part of Marvel's Predator: The Original Years Omnibus Volume 1 collection, alongside many other early Dark Horse stories. The collection was released on December 27, 2022.

Behind the Scenes[]

Bad Blood was preceded by a prequel short story, also called Predator: Bad Blood, published in Dark Horse Comics #12-14. While this is not unusual (several other Predator and Aliens vs. Predator series were preceded by similar namesake prequels), what is unusual is that the short story was never collected as an issue of the main series. In fact, the prequel story was not collected until it was included, as part of the main Bad Blood series, in Predator Omnibus: Volume 3.

Chris Warner, who doubles as co-inker and co-editor in this series, started as an artist on Predator: Concrete Jungle, the first Predator limited series, in 1989. He would go on to provide art for various Aliens and Predator series, write a portion of the long-running Aliens: Colonial Marines series, and eventually become the editor of both the Aliens and Predator comics lines at Dark Horse in 2009, his current position.

The CIA Special Task Force depicted hunting the Predators in Bad Blood may be members of the OWLF taskforce, as seen in the film Predator 2, or the Task Force shown hunting Predators in Predator: Race War. In fact, Bad Blood's task force commander Claude Loudermilk may be the same blonde, be-suited special agent known only as "Blondie" in Race War. At the end of Race War, Blondie mentions that next time things will be personal between him and the Predators, and Loudermilk expresses the same sentiment during the showdown at Bad Blood's climax.

Bad Blood writer Evan Dorkin previously served as artist on Dark Horse's second popular Predator miniseries Predator: Big Game.

In San Diego Comic Con Comics, issue 3 from 1st August 1994 (collected DHC stories), is included Predator pinup, art by Derek Thompson - unused sketch in Bad Blood comics.

Trivia[]

  • A goof within the series is from some panels that show the Bad Blood's point of view. His vision is presented as infrared, despite his lack of a Bio-helmet (it was destroyed during the crash-landing in the prequel story). It's especially egregious as the Bad Blood is able to see photographs clearly enough to identify faces after having mace sprayed in his eyes, and spot a spider among leaves despite spiders being cold-blooded.
  • Despite the premise, Bad Blood is the third work in the franchise to depict Yautja on Yautja violence (the second was the novelization of Predator 2 and the first was the Aliens vs. Predator (comic series) from 1989).
  • Bad Blood is arguably the first comic to depict a Yautja eating (the aftermath of a Yautja's meal is shown in Predator: Big Game), and the only one depicting a Yautja eating human flesh. However, given the Bad Blood is a dangerous criminal even by Yautja standards - to the point of cannibalism, it's highly unlikely that typical Yautja eat humans despite their willingness to hunt and make trophies from sapient life.
  • The comic's plot likely influenced the 2018 feature film The Predator, which revolves around a fugitive Predator who crash lands on Earth while on the run from another Predator who is pursuing it (albeit for theft rather than murder). They also clash with government operatives interested in their technology and a team of rogues assembled by the protagonist. However, the Predator roles are reversed, with the fugitive Predator having a code of honor and being willing to work with humans like the Enforcer Predator and the Upgrade Predator being more like the Bad Blood (he killed unarmed victims, mauled a severed human head, enjoyed carnage and died the same way as the Bad Blood - gunshots to the head with a pistol after a showdown in a forest).

Gallery[]

Issue covers[]

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