Ulysses Bloodstone

Context

Ulysses Bloodstone appeared in 1975, in the back pages of a B&W Marvel Comics Magazine.

It was an okay feature but it didn’t set the world on fire, and the magazine (Rampaging Hulk) never really found its footing even with the popularity of the Incredible Hulk TV series.

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However, Ulysses Bloodstone had a peculiar mix of then-fashionable themes and simple hooks (immortal hunter, global conspiracies, kaiju , super-shotguns, astral third eyes, chaos magic from before time, a Conan-like warrior from the ancient past…). It is both evocative, and useful for in stories (as we’ll explain presently).

Thus, bits of Bloodstone lore have been popping up in the Marvel Universe ever since, particularly after the exciting The Bloodstone Hunt arc in Captain America.

After reading this profile, you should check the profile for The Conspiracy. While this profile focuses on Ulysses, the Conspiracy entry focuses on the plot.

Background

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Of the usefulness of Ulysses Bloodstone

Bloodstone is cool. He’s been around… not quite forever (for instance Conan was two millennia before his time, Atlantis is obviously before still, etc.), but close to it.

Thus, whenever you need a character in the past to tell a story, explain a background bit, set up a scenario element, explain the defeat of your new villain 3,000 years ago, etc. Bloodstone can always be there. He’s been everywhere, he’s done everything, he’s met everyone.

Second, he’s a very simple and straightforward character – the Great Hunter Who Fights Monsters. That’s about it. There are monsters and, by golly, he’s gonna FIGHT ’em and have lots of adventures in the style of the day.

Since he’s so basic he can be a part of any historical genre, from Jules Verne to Atomic Horror, from Norse Saga to the Mahabharata . And in fact it’s probable that in the Marvel Universe, it all occurred and Ulysses was there.

Third, whenever you want to introduce an Ancient Menace of Considerable Power, you run into the suspension of disbelief issue. Why didn’t they conquer Earth before, for instance during the Black Plague  or the Spring And Autumn era  ? Obviously, the answer is “Ulysses Bloodstone beat ’em up”. Problem solved.

See ? Ulysses Bloodstone is cool.

Powers and Abilities

Many of Bloodstone’s powers come from the magical energy within the Bloodgem fragment embedded into his chest. This grants him immortality and superhuman strength. Bloodstone is invulnerable in the sense that he can survive and quickly recover from, any wound short of complete molecular disintegration.

Even being shot or impaled through the heart or brain is but a temporary setback for Bloodstone, who will be ’killed‘ but will get back up after a minute or two.

He has reportedly lost and regrown limbs, and one presumes he’d regrow his head if decapitated (though that may be the best way to incapacitate him for a lengthy period). Bloodstone’s understanding is that he could regrow his entire body from a single living cell.

Bloodstone can somehow move underwater with little hindrance, and hold his breath longer than any other man.

His “hunter’s senses’ allow him to track energy impulses. Our DC Heroes statistics assume that he could hear the faint subsonic buzz of a power cable. This is an interpretative leap on our part, albeit it is the most economical explanation.

After thousands of years Ulysses has mastered virtually every form of combat and martial arts known to man. He also had an impressive array of skills and languages (many of those extinct ; Bloodstone would have been the find of the millennium for any linguist), although he was too rough-edged and distracted by the Helix to become a true master in any of the more intellectual skills.

Bloodstone is also a fantastic hunter and manhunter – with formidable senses and cat-like agility and stealth.

Bloodstone was a big fan of advanced technology. He took particular pride in his abilities as a pilot and a gunman, and enjoying showing off and using the big 1970s computer mainframes in his bases.

He also dabbled in mysticism, mostly for counter-measures against magical enemies. But Bloodstone was more about esoteric ’psychic powers’ and harnessing his willpower than outright magic.

Elsa Bloodstone was once told by a Yangtze banks local that Ulysses knew the area’s culture (Ba folks ) better than most natives. One assumes that Ulysses had detailled knowledge of many more cultures at specific points in time.

Psychic powers from beyond the universe

Bloodstone has a wide variety of minor psychic powers, though it’s unclear which come from training and which are obliquely granted by the Bloodgem and the Exo-Mind.

• He could mentally detonate specially-prepared explosives (and also, possibly, ignite very flammable substances) with his mind.
• He could activate his third eye (appearing as a stylized eye inside a triangle on his forehead), allowing him to see the aura of living beings even in pitch darkness (in DC Heroes terms, Thermal vision), see the true shape of mystical creatures (True sight) or find his way in pitch darkness (Ultra vision). When the third eye is active, it emits a faint humming sound.
• The gem also seems to grant him a ’tracking sense‘ that can determine the shortest path to a Hellfire Helix-spawned monster he has already seen.
• With the gem he can also force an hostile entity contacting his mind into astral-plane -style mental combat.
• It is entirely possible that he had further minor, situational psychic tricks.

Generally, Bloodstone’s psychic abilities were direct references to the heteroclite esoteric stuff popular in the late 1970s. The “perfect spinal light” mentioned in one of the quotes is a good example.

If you’re familiar with the New Age terms as they existed 30+ years ago, have a blast. But note that, with the exception of the third eye all this material is only name-dropped for flavour in the stories. Bloodstone has extensive practice with these “ancient secrets”, so for him it works.

Bloodstone is a very intuitive, perceptive person. He has developed something akin to a danger sense during the millennia. It’s far from 100% reliable — but there doesn’t seem to be false positives either.

His intuition borders on being psychic, and apparently being in large, violent cities (like New York City was in the late 1970s) is uncomfortable for him, making him tense and closed.

Since Bloodstone wasn’t mentally dominated by Orrgo when they fought, I would guess that the Exo-Mind can, in emergencies, lend its mental fortitude to reinforce Bloodstone’s. That is just a No-Prize Hypothesis , building upon the documented ability of the Exo-Mind to mentally influence Bloodstone through his Bloodgem fragment, and was never demonstrated on-panel.

Even without such enhancements, though, Bloodstone was a man of great resolve and mental fortitude – and a powerful fighter even in mind-to-mind combat.

Guns, guns, guns !

Bloodstone’s signature weapon is his custom shotgun. This very special weapon is solid enough to be used as a club by a man who can pulverize rock with his bare hands. It fires loads that seem much, much hotter and larger than a normal 12 gauge 00 magnum rounds.

Bloodstone has used numerous variations over the basic, reliable concept of a high-powered shotgun. Sometimes he wields a twin-barelled, break-open sawed-off, sometime it’s a designer clip-fed bullpup riot gun, and at least one version apparently fires using a high-powered power pack in the handle (presumably those are electrically-detonated caseless shells).

Sometimes in the 1950s it was a large, long autoloader or a full-length, custom-built, break-open side-by-side. Our game stats are hazy enough (in particular as to the necessity to reload) to reflect this variety.

Bloodstone chose a shotgun in order to fire speciality shells capable of meeting the rigours of professional monsters hunting. These include :

• Concussive-explosive shells.
• Mentally-detonated explosive shells.
• Propellant shells Bloodstone can shoot at the ground to rocket in the air.
• A special quintuple clip whose projectiles are discharged as a burst. While unloading five shells in seconds is a powerful attack, the recoil is tremendous, even for Bloodstone. Accordingly, this special clip is normally used against huge immobile targets, such as bunkers, the dome of the villain’s secret volcano island base, etc..

Bloodstone also used an arsenal of commercially-available weapons such as throwing knives and .45 pistols, plus some unusual ones :

• The super-knife. This large hunting knife is an advanced gadget. It actually has 3 blades – it’s main blade and 2 wafer-thin blades on each side of the main blade. Although those blades are undistinguishable from the main blade, they can be shot forward with great force.
  The blade can also, with a special button in the pommel, be somehow extended to become a large scimitar. All blades are tremendously sharp and strong – Bloodstone could vertically cleave entirely through a combat robot in one swing, or slash through concrete walls.
• The power glove was a tough leather glove with electrified spikes. It could be used as a cestus, as an electrified cestus, or to electrify conductive melee weapons held in that hand. The spikes could also be shot at a target, trailing conductive TASER-type wires capable of delivering a huge charge.
• A special belt with detachable weapon modules, which was more discreet than the shotgun. See the game stats for details.

Bloodstone Island

This small island is 12 hours away from the US using a high-speed boat. This is where Bloodstone keeps all his stuff and rests between adventures. It sits on the Tropic of Cancer, near the Caribbean.

Presumably it’s either East of Andros Island or West of San Salvador, depending on how fast Bloodstone’s boats are (it was once stated to be in the Pacific, which seemed to be in error).

The island previously hosted a secret base operated by the KGB as part of the network built by Soviet genius the Gargoyle (Yuri Topolov). According to journalist S. Eden it was previously called Largos, but it seems that it had no legal existence (except for being on sea route maps) and that that name was mostly forgotten.

Bloodstone had a small fleet of water vehicles on the island and in ports around the planet. Most are high speed skimmers with a special submarine conversion mode.

There were numerous defense systems on the island, many of which were intended for dealing with giant monsters. The funky Kirbyesque towers could extract giant metallic Doctor Octopus-style tentacles, which could drain energy from what they held. The towers also sported a variety of energy cannons and were extraordinarily robust.

The Bloodstone Island towers included a huge arsenal of ancient and modern weapons. Moving around was usually done via hoverscooter — a thick floating disc with a scooter-like handlebar.

The towers were demolished by a gigantic explosion in the late 1970s, a day or two before Bloodstone was captured by the Conspiracy for the last time. From the caption it would seem that it was an actual nuclear charge.

The island is surrounded by treacherous, shallow reefs, which is why it never drew interest from those who came across it. The skimmers used by Bloodstone ignore that problem. They also can land right onto the beaches – so there’s no need for a port either.

Other bases and equipment

Bloodstone also had several well-stocked mini-bases thorough the world – at least 6 of them. One was in a very unfriendly part of Harlem, one was near Moscow. What happened to the tactical mini-bases after Bloodstone’s death is unknown, but it’s an interesting question.

The Harlem one was accessible from a sleazy bar. It was staffed by a gigantic Black man, William Brandon Montague III, far more commonly known as Billy Brand. Brand appears to be about 6’8” and quite probably has peak human strength and durability. He is bald and wears glasses.

Even before he had his modern bases built, Bloodstone routinely had access to superior monster-fighting equipment. Much of his stuff slightly more advanced than commercially-available equipment.

He generally followed the tech curve. For centuries it was weapons forged by the best smiths and occasional mystical artefacts, by the 1950s it was custom-built high-powered firearms, special tranq darts and giant steel nets.

He’s also known to have had sealed crates full of custom-made shotgun ammunition designed for supernatural warfare (silver crucifixes buckshot, wooden stakes, holy water, etc.). Bulky, old-fashioned, custom-built UV projectors are also stockpiled (to try and exploit vulnerabilities to sunlight – and yes, they may look old but they work fine), though each weight about 20 kilos with batteries.

In the same vein (he he), Bloodstone owns several holy water pressure drencher, not unlike a modern pressure washer, and a stockpile of holy water bombs. As a professional manhunter, Bloodstone also always had the latest and most powerful tracer bugs.

Decades after Bloodstone’s death, his friend Adam (aka the Monster of Frankenstein) revealed that Ulysses used a magical “early warning system”.

That was actually your typical magical Middle Eastern oil lamp with a djinn inside. Bloodstone formulated his first wish so that the lamp would always grant wishes to be taken right to the place where a monster hunter would be the most needed (though that’s the only kind of wish it’ll now grant). The lamp would also glow and flash when danger was afoot somewhere on Earth.

History

The history of Ulysses Bloodstone begins well before his birth, and in another universe.

There the binding force of reality is not order but chaos, resulting in “an universe of suffering and squalor”. Despite this ever-renewed entropy, 5 elders of great power emerged and decided to conquer other universes. They wanted to make these dimension like their own – for them the misery of their existence was normal, and thus a good thing.

To this end, they harnessed or created an entity called the Hellfire Helix. The nature of the Hellfire Helix is unknown. For years it was surmised to be a sort of pinhole through which magical energy flowed into our universe, but this description has been stated to be a lie. In any case the Hellfire Helix holds great power, and has its own independent intelligence and interests.

The Elders wanted the Helix to create in Reality-616  five guardians, which would fill the same role as the Elders did in the chaotic universe. Specifically, these guardians would execute on a ritual calling upon the Hellfire Helix to alter the laws of Reality-616 to make it more like the Elders’.

The Helix had no special interest in the project, though. It decided to play its own little games instead. This insubornation may have saved Reality-616, which otherwise may well have perished. What the Hellfire Helix did exactly is unknown — the vision in which Bloodstone learned of this was interrupted at this point.

The Bloodgem and the Exo-Mind

The Hellfire Helix actually emerged during the final stages of the Big Crunch  of the universe that existed *before* Reality-616. When it appeared it was locked into a large gem, the Bloodgem.

One assumes that there were mystical reasons why the Hellfire Helix energy needed to be present in Reality-616 during its very creation for the plan to work.

The Bloodgem had something akin to an intelligent operating system, a mystical artificial intelligence that was an extension of the Helix. It was called the Exo-Mind, since it was an outer consciousness for the Hellfire Helix. Apparently, the Exo-Mind chiefly operated on the Astral Plane.

The Bloodgem — and the Exo-Mind within- – are but one of the things that somehow survived the collapse of the previous universe and the birth of Reality-616 in a big bang. The most famous of these entities from beyond time is Galan of Taa, who became Galactus, but there were also several gemstones.

These gems, including the Bloodgem, are considered to be major artefacts. They were assembled at least once in a configuration called the Lifestone Tree. The Bloodgem reportedly “spawned” another gem of great power, the Star of Capistan, in the distant past.

As far as is known nothing happened for eons. Then a warp drive accident resulted in the Bloodgem falling on Earth. At this point, the Hellfire Helix created, via the Exo-Mind, the first of the five guardians.

Eighty-first century, B.C.

• The date of Ulysses Bloodstone’s birth was originally given as the LXXXI^st century, BC.
• Secondary sources also listed the neighbourhood of 8250 BC, pushing things back by two centuries.
• A late XX^th century psychic once read Bloodstone as having been 20,000 years old, but there were other small inaccuracies in this psychic reading so this number is presumably erroneous.
• A secondary source stated that Bloodstone was from “the dawn of the Hyborian Age”, which would be at least 15,000 B.C.

For comparison’s sake :

• The skeletons found at the famous Cro-Magnon  grotto in Dordogne are roughly 33,000 years old.
• The time of King Kull was 20,500 years ago.
• The Great Cataclysm occurred 18,000 years ago.
• The times of Conan the Barbarian were 12,000 years ago.

Bloodstone’s place of birth was originally unspecified, though the tribals there were fair-skinned. Secondary sources later stated that it was the area that would much later become the Scandinavian region. At that point the area was still called Northern Vanaheim, as it was during the Hyborian Age.

The man lived as a tribal hunter, with a fur loincloth and a stone-tipped spear. His original name is lost to time, though from dialogue it may have been the equivalent of “Blond Hair”. Apparently he was the master hunter of the tribe and their main provider of meat, skins, etc.

Subsequent events were shown by the aforementioned not-entirely-reliable psychic reading. One night the master hunter saw a meteorite strike a nearby mountain. That intrigued him, and from then on he tended to hunt in that area. That meteorite was presumably the Bloodgem landing on Earth.

Quest for eldritch fire

The hunter later spotted a strange robed figure near the mountain, and stalked it as it entered a grotto. After walking across some strange structures, the figure reached a sort of temple with an enormous red gem on the altar.

The figure was revealed to have a sort of invertebrate-like head. It called itself Ullux‘yl Kwan T’ae’sny (spelled Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn in all subsequent stories), the first guardian of the Bloodgem. Ulluxy’l forced the hunter to stand before the gem, telling him it would grant immortality and power.

In a daze, the hunter made it back to the villagers, who greeted his empty hands with hostility. Ullux‘yl telepathically had a mammoth attack the community, and the master hunter killed it – with his bare hands.

Using energy powers for emphasis, he hunter then exhorted the others to follow him back to the cave to also receive the power of the “wise and ancient gods”. It is unclear whether that was the hunter speaking or Ullux‘yl using him as a conduit.

The whole tribe followed the hunter to the grotto and the temple. Ullux‘yl then launched the ritual, in which he would use the humans to properly channel the power of the Bloodgem into himself and become like unto a god. Ullux‘yl’s scheme may have been a product of the Hellfire Helix’s decision not to accomplish its mission.

Thinks went awry. While the master hunter had the mental fortitude to withstand the Azathoth -like visions the Bloodgem brought, the rest didn’t. They started thrashing madly about, breaking the alignment. Realising that the red energies were killing his people and he had been duped, the hunter hurled himself at the gem and blew it up using energy powers.

The entire mountaintop was destroyed in the explosion. Fragments of the Bloodgem were shot all over the world. One large fragment didn’t get that far – it flew right into the hunter’s chest and embedded itself into his breastbone. This did imbue the hunter with power and immortality, leaving him the only apparent survivor of the huge detonation.

Suspecting that Ullux‘yl had also survived, the hunter swore to find it and kill it. He assumed that Ulluxy’l was some sort of monstrous sorcerer, out to use the Bloodgem to do terrible things.

Ullux‘yl, on his end, worked on finding and reassembling the Bloodgem. He was apparently saving the large, geometrically perfect fragment in the hunter’s chest for last. Reassembling the Bloodgem would take thousands of years, since the fragments had landed in places well beyond what the physical force of the explosion alone could explain.

Furthermore, people would occasionally stumble upon and use fragments for their own goals – the best known example may have been the Mad Merlin, aka the Maha-Yogi.

This is the time…

The events in the next hundred centuries are mostly known through scattered, context-free flashbacks. Their tenor is that Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn generally kept several steps ahead of the man who now called himself Bloodstone, whilst still collecting fragments.

Ulluxy’l conjured up an endless variety of otherdimensional  monsters and sent them to attack Bloodstone. Though the man always killed the monsters in the end, this successfully delayed and distracted Bloodstone and let Ulluxy’l work.

During the whole time, the Exo-Mind was still active and influencing both Bloodstone and Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn through their respective fragments. It had chosen Bloodstone as a vessel of sorts since it wanted to see the world and experience the evolution of human cultures.

The Exo-Mind’s influence was subtle and it clouded Bloodstone’s mind a bit (not that Bloodstone was a great and deep thinker to start with) in order to prevent the hunter from questioning certain odd aspects of his existence.

The unwitting role of Ulluxy’l, beyond slowly rebuilding the Bloodgem, was also to keep Bloodstone active, fighting and moving around. Apparently it was the Exo-Mind who summoned the monsters employed by Ulluxy’l, perhaps also duping him as to the workings of his summoning rituals.

The Bloodgem’s influence also hardwired Bloodstone’s desire for revenge into his brain so he would keep adventuring and fighting on and on, fulfilling the Exo-Mind’s need for an eternal vessel.

From time to time, when despite all the Exo-Mind’s efforts Bloodstone had nothing special to do, the immortal hunter entered suspended animation for several years or even decades. Presumably the manipulative Exo-Mind arranged it so Bloodstone came across methods of suspended animation.

Generally speaking, Bloodstone was everywhere and did everything. Ancient Egypt, the Greeks, the Romans, the Normans, the Renaissance, etc. etc. Most of the flashbacks are centred on Western cultures and in particular those who were most influential in the emergence of the United States of America, so one suspects ethnocentric bias from the chroniclers.

Howbeit, it is possible that Bloodstone preferred areas where a big White, blond guy didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

…and this is the record of the time.

Of particular note among the known flashbacks are :

• Thousands of years ago, prehistoric men in fur loincloths were dominated by Orrgo, a space alien with god-like telekinetic and telepathic powers who reportedly conquered the Earth. Somehow resisting the powers of the all-powerful Orrgo, and wielding a glowing spear (presumably a mystical artefact), Bloodstone repulsed the alien god and freed primitive humanity.
• At some point in the distant past, Bloodstone fought the great dragon Fin Fang Foom.
• In the 1780s, Bloodstone was in America, where he met a blacksmith called Steven Rogers, a supporter of democracy and independence who soon joined the Continental Army. Bloodstone was sceptical about the whole thing, having already seen attempts at shifting power toward the common man fail.
  Rogers would later become the first Captain America. Inspired by his resolve and fire, Bloodstone gave it a whirl and joined the Continental Army.
  That was rather late in the course of the War of Independence, and Bloodstone’s presence likely didn’t change much in the course of History. He did save the life of the Revolutionary-era Captain America at least once, though. Another friend of the cause, occasionally fighting along with them, was Wallace Worthington, ancestor of the present-day Angel (Warren Worthington III).

• In what I surmise was the 1830s, Bloodstone (as “Captain Ahab”) hunted a white giganto (much smaller than, say, the giganto that attacked New York City early during the Fantastic Four’s career) aboard the Pequod. He fought it with a boarding sabre.
  Obviously, this tale was one of the main sources of inspiration for the literary classic Moby Dick, which was based on a number of real-life incidents.
• In the Old West, Bloodstone ended up operating as the Redstone Kid (presumably an itinerant gunslinger). I don’t think that this matches a character in an actual cowboy comic.
• Ulysses Bloodstone adventured on the famous Leng Plateau . Traditionally that would occur during the 1920s.
• For several years, starting in 1933, Bloodstone was particularly active. He roamed from the Savage Land to Monster Island and clashed with an impressive collection of monsters and creatures, from living mummies to abominable snowmen and from mole people to dragons. At this point he was helped by his “faithful Oriental chauffeur and sidekick”, the great kung fu fighter Fat Cobra.
  Amusingly, it is thus possible that in the Marvel Universe, the fictional adventures of the Green Hornet and Kato were inspired by reports about Ulysses Bloodstone and Fat Cobra. One of their battles was thwarting Lord Nosferatu and destroying his Nosferati forces in Berlin, torching their airship base in mid-air above town.
• Bloodstone presumably fought on the side of the Allies during the second World War. As of this writing the only recorded encounter during that era was with the Blonde Phantom.
• Ulysses Bloodstone reportedly knew and liked Howard Stark, with whom he worked during the early 1950s and beyond. It is possible that the authorial intent was that the 1970s adventures where Bloodstone and Tony Stark worked together could be retconned as having featured Howard Stark instead, in order to maintain the sliding ten-year time scale.
• In 1956 Bloodstone, then operating as “Frank”, was summoned to Mombasa, Kenya, by his friend Kasenga. Kasenga had encountered a gargantuan mutant army ant, which they named Grottu (“demon”). The telepathic, evil giant ant had reportedly been created by atomic tests.
  ”Frank” had Mombasa evacuated before Grottu and his billions of army ants entered, then discovered that the insects intended to commandeer ships and go conquer. To thwart them, Bloodstone had his allies set a trap as he challenged Grottu. Luring the titanic six-legged one into the trapped warehouse, ”Frank” had Grottu covered in sugar.
  The army ants in Mombasa rushed into eat the sugar, seemingly killing Grottu. A later retelling of the tale replaced the sugar with molasses – this may have been the correct version.
• Whilst his American friends returned home and Kasenga was helping the authorities in Mombasa, “Frank” investigated the suspected Communist atom bomb tests behind the genesis of Grottu. He ran into a tyrannosaurus, and during the fight was helped by the Wakandan warrior woman Zawadi.
  Bloodstone and Zawadi never solved the mystery despite following the trail all the way back to the Wakandan mountains. Nevertheless, the pair remained buddies and she came to New York City with him, where she joined the Monster Hunters.
  The other two members were “Michael Curry” (actually the Eternal Makkari) and Dr. Druid (Anthony Druid). This small club was founded by Makkari, then a NSA agent, as an answer to the many giant monsters that had been appearing recently. He suspected that this was a Deviant plot.
  In their first case the Monster Hunters stopped Gorgilla in New York City, after the giant ape damaged Yankee Stadium (thus proving its above-average intelligence and taste ) and climbed the Statue of Liberty. Communist agents, as was the style of the day, were behind the attack and were arrested, but the Hunters determined that yet another man was behind the Russians.
  After the Deviant brain mine on Gorgilla was destroyed, the titanic animal regained its free will, and the Monster Hunters flew it back to Borneo. The Monster Hunters eventually discovered Monster Island, that the Deviant Kro was indeed behind many of the giant monster encounters that were chronicled in 1950s comic books.
  Most of these ’monsters’ were actually Deviant mutates – specimen with abnormal genetics even by Deviant standards. They defeated Kro’s plot and several monsters, though their actions unwittingly resulted in one Harvey Elder becoming the Mole Man.

• In 1957, the Monster Hunters (now counting Namora of Atlantis among their ranks) allied with the First Line heroes to investigate a “monster” case that turned out to be the result of an alien invasion – as was the style of *those* days. Time marches on !
• It was reportedly Ulysses Bloodstone who repulsed the 5-dimensional conqueror Diablo outside of Trinidad in 1960, by convincing him that all humans could easily destroy smoke creatures such as Diablo. The truth about this encounter has been disputed, though, and it may have been embellished.
• It was probably in the early- to mid-1970s that Bloodstone noticed a new player – some agency that was neither him nor Ulluxy’l was collecting Bloodgem fragments. He would eventually identify this agency as the Conspiracy.
• Bloodstone likely fathered Elsa circa 1972 (?). It is unknown when and how exactly he met her mother Elise, a British woman. He left Elise when Elsa was 2, and moved to a large Boston manor that he started filling with many of his curios as a future gift for Elise.
  The manor occasionally hosted some of Bloodstone’s friends and allies, such as the Monster of Frankenstein.
• Bloodstone and his buddy the Monster of Frankenstein (aka Adam) occasionally fought evil creatures together during the 1970s.
• An interesting titbit is that Bloodstone apparently went to significant lengths to have a tiny Bloodgem fragment set into a choker and mystically shielded from detection though unknown means.
  This choker was specifically intended for Elsa. It was set to activate the powers she had inherited from Ulysses. Since neither Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn nor the Conspiracy ever found that fragment, the stealth enchantments must have been pretty good.
  Whether Elsa was a special case, or Bloodstone had numerous offsprings all with the potential for superhuman powers, is unknown. It is possible that all of Bloodstone’s children were potentially gifted, but Elsa was the only one who was correctly exposed to a Bloodgem fragment to have her abilities activated. Since this entry was written another descendant, Cullen, has emerged.
• Somewhen in the mid-1970s, Ulysses Bloodstone allied with N’Kantu the Living Mummy for an unrevealed adventure.

The Conspiracy ascendant

Slices of Bloodstone’s adventures were chronicled in some detail between 1975 and 1978.

In 1975, a giant monster (the Dweller from the Depths) attacked San Francisco. Having been influenced by the Exo-Mind to intuit that something was up in the area, Bloodstone was already there and opposed the Dweller. He realised that the creature was agitated due to some form of influence from a blind man playing the flute, and knocked out the man, who seemed possessed.

He was indeed – the possessor later left the blind man and attacked Bloodstone, resulting in a second monster attack on San Francisco in as many days. See the short entries for the Dweller from the Depths and the possessor for details.

During this case, Bloodstone met enthusiastic actor Brad Carter and his frequent director, monster mashes specialist “P.D.Q.” Werner. Sensing that Carter was tied to his destiny, Bloodstone apparently joined Werner’s unique moviemaking crew for a few months.

According to secondary sources, it may have been during that time that Bloodstone discovered Bloodstone Island, and staked a claim to it.

At that point, the Conspiracy stepped up its efforts to round up all Bloodgem fragments. They located and procured all that were left, and got serious in their attempts to capture Bloodstone and take his gem.

Whilst returning from Brazil on a cruise ship, Bloodstone and his aide Brad Carter were thus attacked in quick succession by altered agents of Ulluxy’l and by a huge monster called Goram, which damaged the ship (presumably, that is why Bloodstone doesn’t take commercial airplane flights).

The powerful Goram sensed the Bloodgem fragment that Bloodstone and Carter had recently found, and repulsed Bloodstone long enough to leave with it.

During the aborted cruise, an ex-girlfriend of Brad Carter, freelance journalist Samantha Eden, tried to interview Bloodstone. The hunter agreed then gave her open access to his archives. A lot of what is now known about Bloodstone comes from Eden’s work.

Bloodstone was also interested in her Rolodex and PR skills, and further suspected that he could use her contacts and previous investigations to shed some light on the Conspiracy.

The heroic age

As Bloodstone and Carter were taking Eden to Bloodstone Island, the base there was attacked by Goram. The monster had handed over the fragment found in the cruise ship, and had been sent back for more, since Ulysses Bloodstone stored many Bloodgem fragments on his island base.

Coincidentally, an agent of the Conspiracy — the super-mercenary Killer Shrike (Simon Maddicks) — was observing the island. After Bloodstone used the island’s defensive systems to capture Goram, Killer Shrike swept in and freed the giant monster. Carter shadowed the fleeing Goram aboard one of Bloodstone’s submarines, while Bloodstone subdued Killer Shrike.

Bloodstone then investigated the recent disappearances of numerous scientists, suspecting that it might be the doing of the Conspiracy. Eden suggested that he contact Tony Stark. Uninterested in wasting time requesting an appointment, Bloodstone broke into the Stark Industries’ historic plant in Long Island to find Iron Man and/or Stark.

After the mandatory misunderstanding and blows, Bloodstone and Iron Man compared their data and discovered that the kidnappings were probably the work of renegade scientist Centurius. They also found the likely location of Centurius’ base.

After warning S.H.I.E.L.D., the two heroes stormed Centurius’s base. The hard-fighting Bloodstone eventually confronted Centurius, but was amazed to find Ulluxy’l in the room.

Ulluxy’l had come for the Bloodgem fragments procured by Centurius, but the renegade scientist betrayed him. Centurius apparently destroyed Ulluxy’l using a special canon with a Bloodgem fragment as its lens.

As Iron Man finished vanquishing a giant flying monster, S.H.I.E.L.D. started bombing and storming the base, and Centurius fled. Bloodstone recovered Carter from Centurius’s gaols, and left.

Whilst meditating, Bloodstone’s astral form was yanked upward and, for the first time in 10,000 years, he was put in mental contact with the Exo-Mind. It revealed to him the tale of the Hellfire Helix, the Elders, etc. The vision was interrupted by Brad Carter, who worried that his boss was under mystical attack.

Twilight of the hunter

The Conspiracy continued to try to capture Bloodstone. Their next move was to turn his next hotel room into an elaborate death trap. Simultaneously, Bloodstone Island was nuked, a multi-megaton explosion razing its mighty towers and wrecking the defensive systems.

At this point, Bloodstone had decided to go public, as he acknowledged the new power of global media and the changes in the world. He hired journalist Samantha Eden as his PR person, and filled a claim with the UN for Bloodstone Island to become a sovereign nation.

His plan was apparently that, if he had to play a bit more by the rules as the world got better organised, he’d make some space for himself to remain unconstrained.

The baffled U.N. General Assembly never heard Bloodstone’s full pitch, though. After the nuclear attack on Bloodstone Island, the Conspiracy recovered Bloodstone’s store of Bloodgem fragments. Between those and their own, they had enough to reconstruct the full Bloodgem – provided they got the last fragment in Bloodstone’s chest.

The Conspiracy sent an enormous humanoid, the elemental demon called Sharzan, to the UN to capture Bloodstone. Sharzan was successful, and teleported with a captive Bloodstone back to the headquarters of the Conspiracy. There Kaballa, leader of the Conspiracy, kept the hunter mystically stupefied. He told Bloodstone the truth about how the Exo-Mind had manipulated Bloodstone all along.

Kaballa also revealed that the first, and apparently only guardian that had been created by the Exo-Mind had been Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn. Ulluxy’l had always served the plan of the Exo-Mind by being Bloodstone’s eternal nemesis.

The still mystically stupefied Bloodstone was then killed when the Bloodgem fragment was carved out of his chest by one of the conspirators.

However, the version of the events that Kaballa had been given was also incorrect. What Kaballa had understood was that the Exo-Mind was done with using Bloodstone as a vessel, and wanted to destroy Ulluxy’l and Bloodstone then switch to new vessels.

In actuality, all the Exo-Mind did during the “Ritual of Joining” that repaired the Bloodgem was to drain the Conspiracy’s life forces. It used those to create a crystalline golem-like body for itself out of the Bloodgem.

The resulting creature, as indestructible as the Bloodgem itself, started roaming around in Manhattan. The Exo-Mind’s goal all along had been to have its own body and tap the power of the Hellfire Helix to its own ends. The Exo-Mind seemed triumphant – but that didn’t last.

Even dead and without the gem, Bloodstone revived. Bloodgem energies had permeated his body for so long for it to die.

Disoriented and with many of his instincts reset back to the moment where his tribe was killed, Bloodstone stumbled upon the Exo-Mind. Confusingly realising that this entity was responsible for the death of his people, Bloodstone astrally projected within it. He quickly reached its core — the Exo-Mind.

The Exo-Mind was thus destroyed by its own manipulations. 10,000 years of burning desire to avenge his tribesmen allowed Bloodstone to do the impossible and crack the Exo-Mind open with an imaginary spear. Once within the Exo-Mind, the primitive walked toward the Hellfire Helix and also destroyed it in the name of vengeance.

The golem that the Exo-Mind had created from the Bloodgem reverted to ordinary glass and shattered.

As for Bloodstone, all that was left behind in the street was a clean skeleton.

Enjoy the silence

The story of Bloodstone was not over, though. It takes more than death to stop the eternal monster hunter.

The destruction of the Bloodgem-based golem had once again dispersed Bloodgem fragments all over the world. This time around it was apparently but a half-dozen large fragments. Once again they were not dispersed according to any possible physical trajectory, and they held considerable power.

One of Bloodstone’s allies, the vampire Charles Barnabus, became the executor of the Boston estate. Yet, one assumes that Bloodstone didn’t plan his death, given how improbable such an even was after millennia.

It is likely Barnabus had to work long and hard — perhaps even study to obtain an appropriate law degree — before starting to put the enormous holdings of Bloodstone in order. These efforts paid off as they provided an income for Elise Bloodstone, and led to Elsa Bloodstone discovering her heritage and becoming a monster hunter.

Meanwhile, Bloodstone’s skeleton was stored in a crate at the American Museum of Natural History, not too far from whence it stopped moving. A Bloodgem fragment reappeared in his breastbone – it may have flown there during the explosion of the Bloodgem golem, though no embedded gem was visible when Ulysses Bloodstone’s skeleton stopped moving.

In the late 1980s, Baron Helmut Zemo learned about Bloodstone, and gained a rough understanding of what the Bloodgem was. The madman was determined to use it to resurrect his father Heinrich, and sent Batroc’s Brigade to the AMNH to steal the skeleton and its embedded fragment.

Zemo also hired the “psychic detective” Tristram Micawber, who ’read‘ the skeleton and told the story of Ulysses Bloodstone (with some minor inaccuracies) to his employer.

It was discovered that Bloodstone’s breastbone could be used by Micawber as a dowsing device toward the other fragments. Zemo, Micawber and Batroc’s Brigade embarked on a quest to rebuild the Bloodgem.

This classic quest proved a success, though Zemo and his contractors (Georges Batroc, Zaran the Weaponsmaster and Machete) were opposed at every turn by Captain America and Diamondback (Rachel Leighton), who used Bloodstone’s skull as their dowsing device.

When Zemo tried to resurrect his father, the corpse was possessed by a revived Exo-Mind. It was now out to accomplish its original mission and ravage reality itself. These catastrophic events ended up with the Zemos being lost in an active volcano, and with the Exo-Mind destroyed again when the deadly mercenary, Crossbones, slew it with a crossbow bolt.

The Bloodgem was likely scattered anew, as per the previous two times.

Description

Bloodstone is a large, muscular man. He keeps his hair long and unbound. In the disco-dancing 1970s, Bloodstone wears a white hunting-style jacket with a variety of storage pouches and loops for weapons and ammunition. The vest is open over his chest ; he wears leather boots and Army green hunting pants.

His daughter once described 1970s Bloodstone as “what if the Bee Gees  and Fabio  mated”, and well… it’s dead on target (Fabio’s career started 10 years after Bloodstone’s death, but he would have been perfect for the role).

Ulysses Bloodstone’s stride, jumps, landings, etc. are often compared to those of a feline. He has considerable natural presence. Other descriptions of Bloodstone in captions seem intended to evoke Conan or Doc Savage.

When Bloodstone uses a whole lot of Hero Points  on one action, energy flows from the Bloodgem fragment on his chest. It pours into his hands and in front of him until he produces the HPs-backed effort. Gemstones in the inside of his bracers also glow – so perhaps Bloodstone was carrying 2 smaller Bloodgem fragments on his person.

Personality

Bloodstone is difficult to fathom. His personality changes over the millenia, and it appears to continue evolving and changing as if he were in his 30s. For instance, the Ulysses Bloodstone of 1956 did not have the same vibe as the one of 1975. Thus, you can portray him as you like, without too many constraints.

The main constant is the Hellfire Helix clouding his mind through the Bloodgem fragment, but the effect if subtle. It inhibits his ability and desire to entertain complex abstract thoughts (and he wasn’t a deep thinker to start with, especially by the standards of modern humanity). But that should *definitely* not be understood as him being stupid.

He’s very competent, cunning and experienced. Simply he doesn’t normally bother meditating about who he is, what his life means, trying to make sense of his unique existence, etc. He just lives, fights and adventures, as is his nature.

The Helix also inhibits his ability to make long-term plans. Bloodstone almost entirely reacts and engages on quests based on what he learns and what happens around him. There’s no meticulous, long-term strategy – which again, definitely doesn’t mean that he’s dumb.

Amazingly, the Exo-Mind has maintained the full emotional significance of the loss of his tribe in Bloodstone’s mind for thousands of years. The anger over this has not dulled one bit thanks to this influence, and is still painful and infuriating for Bloodstone. Thus his resolve to destroy Ulluxy’l never, ever waned, which is exactly what the Exo-Mind wanted.

Bloodstone has often been the grim and gritty hunter with no sense of humour (especially in the 1970s). But at other points of his life he came across as a playboy “of no fixed address” having fun and, of course, fighting monsters (especially in the 1950s).

He has been given to speeches and practical political consideration about democracy stemming from his experience (like during the 1780s) and to unusual strategies about demanding political recognition of Bloodstone Island (2 centuries later). Again, don’t feel too constrained by how you portray him at any given point in history.

1970s

In the 1970s, as the intense rock-hearted hunter, Bloodstone seldom explained… anything that he was doing, to anybody, and was generally a loner.

Much of the “grim, laconic lone hunter” attitude of Bloodstone back then seems to have come from his feeling that he had lived and fought for so long that his humanity was slipping away. He felt that he was becoming mechanical, unemotional and uninvolved.

During these years, much of his communication was giving orders to his staff and allies. Though he’s a good leader and not needlessly authoritarian, he cannot treat ordinary people like peers.

Bloodstone is filthy rich, and he’s an enormous tipper.

His tactics have also been varied – from special allies, special weapons and good but simple plans to just wading in and hammering the giant monster with whatever he has on hand, hoping to eventually hit something sensitive. He’s a hunter, an explorer and a mighty barbarian warrior, after all – canny but occasionally moody.

And anyway he knows he’s invulnerable – though he’d rather do the job like a man rather than have the Bloodgem pull him back together.

Despite being a hunter, Bloodstone didn’t seem terribly interested in killing people. He usually used less-than-lethal attacks — for instance mentally detonating his shotgun fire close to, rather than within, his targets. Monsters are a different matter, though.

For those for whom the only exposure to Bloodstone was the flashbacks in Nextwave, these do not match anything that was ever seen about Bloodstone in comics. The standard take about these flashbacks is now to consider that the Nextwave Squad members, including Elsa, were not in their normal state due to drugs and conditioning from the Beyond Corporation.

Thus the stuff about Ulysses Bloodstone was probably neurotic reimagining by a drugged Elsa, who in reality never knew her father.

Quotes

“You ! Blasted telepathic emanation…!”

“I probably owe you a lot of explanation, Ms. Eden. But I don’t know where to begin… or what you’ll believe. I am a hunter of men and monsters, and I have lived for 10,000 years. I have watched the world grow and mature – and may well watch it die. And I have lived a single burning purpose so long, I’ve lost track of the man inside me.”

“So it begins again… moving, always, moving, never knowing, following impulses… then they appear. The monsters. The creatures. Pitiful misfits of the schemes of nature. And again I am here — for such is my destiny… the destiny of Ulysses Bloodstone !”

“Not so lucky at all, monster. The damned stone in my chest won’t let me die.”

“You’re good, Killer Shrike. You’ve trained your body well and your talons are formidable. But I’ve trained for 10,000 years. And, if you think I’m going to be stopped by a mere hired assassin… you can forget it !”

“Have it your way, Iron Man ! I am not noted for having a great deal of patience.” (fires shotgun – CHOOM ! CHOOM !)

“We have at least one similarity – in the heat of battle, I prefer to speak with action !”

“[Finding] where [they are] ? That’s my department. I’m a so-so detective — but I’m one Hell of a man-hunter.”

“Pits of living parasitic energy ! Used to be one of Ulluxy’l’s specialities.”

“The energy is increasing, but I realise its true power… it’s not physical energy, as it feels. It is attacking me within, climbing the base of my brain, crushing me internally. It is a war of wills — my one perfect spinal light, focused — against the combined mindforce of the Conspiracy. Theirs is the uncontrolled energy of chaos ; mine the ordered light of the astral ether.”

DC Universe History

Vandal Savage and the Resurrection Man already have their story arc, so having Bloodstone interfere might not be the best. He might be placed just as is, really, with occasional encounters and alliances with the classic DC historical heroes (such as the Viking Prince, the Golden Gladiator, Arak Son of Thunder, the Shining Knight, etc.).

Use him to plug whichever hole you have in your timeline, really – no need to be sophisticated about it, it’s Bloodstone.

Alternatively Bloodstone might be an immortal Thannagarian mutant who ended up on Earth (or Rann, or wherever you need him) a very long time ago.

By Sébastien Andrivet and Jackson.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.