Bloodwynd

49 years ago - Mark Bloodwynd is born the son of the keeper of the Blood Gem.

26 years ago - 23-year-old Bloodwynd, having mastered his study of necromancy, inherits the Blood Gem when his father dies & becomes the keeper of it's power.

13 years ago - 36-year-old Bloodwynd is overpowered when the demon Rott takes control from within the Blood Gem, and begins to amass magical power.

11 years ago - 38-year-old Bloodwynd battles Martian Manhunter, who perceives the Demon Rott's influence and frees him.

9 years ago - 40-year-old Bloodwynd first begins to use his magic to protect people, preserving magical balance.

6 years ago - 43-year-old Bloodwynd joins the Justice League.

5 years ago - 44-year-old Bloodwynd is injured in the battle with Doomsday, and withdraws from the Justice League into his own magical realms to tend to his magics.

4 years ago - 45-year-old Bloodwynd is contacted by Rip Hunter, and joins him in space to help Kyle Rayner, tapping into the energies of an entire dead planet to provice the power needed to stop Hal Jordan from breaking time.

2 years ago - 47-year-old Bloodwynd helps June Moone regain control of herself from the Enchantress. He begins working with the Shadowpact.

1 year ago - 48-year-old Bloodwynd participates in the 5th Shadowpact, forging the spells that allowed Mageddon to manifest in our reality where he can be stopped by the collected heroes of Earth. With her team disbanded, he retreats into the Paths Beyond with June Moon, exploring the realms of magic.

Bloodwynd's time with the Justice League was surprisingly short; only 19 issues. It was a severely weird time for comics; the entire industry was experiencing a weird adolescence and didn't really know what it was trying to be. There were new characters springing up everywhere trying to capture a new, fleeting zeitgeist that never really seemed to stick.

Bloodwynd might actually have vanished into the ether of the 90's with the rest of those characters, if he didn't happen to serve in the League at the time of Superman's death. Because of his place on the team during what might be the most important story in DC's history he's still remembered. From there the excellent design sensibility of Dan Jurgens and the specific potential of what this character could have been stands out. It falls to us to see if we can bring that out in our own timeline.

Bloodwynd's Comic History

Bloodwynd appeared for the first time in 1992 in Justice League America #61, the very first issue written by Dan Jurgens when he took over writing duties from J.M. Dematteis & Keith Giffen. He actually kept the team lineup largely the same, only adding two new characters; Superman villain Maxima, and completely original creation Bloodwynd. He was a mysterious character who actively refused to reveal anything about himself, or even what his powers really were.

I can't say for sure, but i have a theory on where the inspiration for this character came from. His first appearance was in April of '92, one month before the release of Spawn #1, Comics were in the middle of a massive upheaval with the upcoming release of Image Comics, and the amount of promotional material for it's launch properties was pretty much unprecedented. Bloodwynd is pretty much an exact one-to-one replica of the public's early understanding of what Spawn was going to be. He's very likely meant to be DC's spin on the flagship Image character.

We did eventually figure out his origins and powers, but only after we discovered that he had, up until now, actually been an amnesiatic Martian Manhunter being influenced by Bloodwynd's Blood Gem, while the original Bloodwynd was in fact trapped inside the gem, prisoner of the demon Rott. Once THAT story was resolved, we learned that he was the descendant of slaves that used black magic to forge their Blood Gem to get revenge on their cruel owner, and who had devoted themselves to containing the dark magic in the gem ever since.

Bloodwynd didn't last for too long in the Justice League, and that really makes up the bulk of his appearances. Ultimately, it was just a weird time for comics, and the parts of this character that work just didn't get a chance to thrive.

Our Bloodwynd Story

So what DO we do with Bloodwynd to make him work? The answer is pretty obvious; we lean into the idea that he is DC's take on Spawn. His powers are loosely defined, but what we DO get is actually remarkably similar to Spawn; flight, teleportation, superhuman strength and durability and unspecified magical energy manipulation with a broad spectrum of possible applications. It's all fueled by a gem that contains its own sub-dimensional prison that houses defeated demons, and feeds off the souls of the dead and on the wielder's own dark impulses, making him have to constantly balance his own capacity for good and evil. Admittedly, most of the appeal of Spawn is his deep mythology, but this character is already situated perfectly to fill a completely unique roll in DC's mythology if simply given the chance.

There are of course some elements that we need to ensure DON'T happen. Having the first 50% of his appearances actually be Martian Manhunter in disguise certainly doesn't add to the character's appeal, but we can actually pay homage to their connection by making him start out as a Manhunter villain. I'm also not sure if it's really a great look to have his powers come from his slave ancestors wielding black magic... but at the same time they used it to find revenge on their cruel owner, so maybe that's actually a cool take afterall. I'm probably not the person to ask.

Bloodwynd's Future

Our timeline for Bloodwynd is actually not that far off from the comics continuity. We're adding his initial encounter with Martian Manhunter. J'onn doesn't have nearly enough solo stories under his belt, so this will make for a cool challenge for him before Bloodwynd finds his way to the Justice League, where he can serve alongside the team the battles Doomsday. Bloodwynd is, after all, one of the two heroes who arrive at the scene of Superman's death, and is even the one who declares him dead.

Afterward, we've actually added a whole second chapter to Bloodwynd's story. In a world like DC where magic users exist but don't always cross over very well into the world of superheroics, the Shadowpact is a group of magic users that all work together to handle magical threats beyond the understanding of regular heroes. Bloodwynd is a fantastic addition to the Shadowpact, and we even like the idea of him becoming closer to the Enchantress while they work together. In our timeline, the team has fulfilled its purpose, casting the 5th Shadowpact spell in the battle against Maggeddon. Some members of their group survived, others did not. We decided that Bloodwynd and the Enchantress would survive together, and depart into the Paths Beyond in an effort to help her better control her magic.

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