| Elsa Bloodstone | |
|---|---|
 Elsa in Nextwave. Art by Stuart Immonen. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Bloodstone #1 (December 2001) |
| Created by | Dan Abnett (writer) Andy Lanning (writer) Michael Lopez (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Elsa Bloodstone |
| Species | Human (empowered) |
| Team affiliations | Midnight Sons Avengers Nextwave Fearless Defenders Doom's Avengers |
| Abilities |
|
Elsa Bloodstone is a character appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. Created byDan Abnett andAndy Lanning, and Michael Lopez, the character first appeared inBloodstone #1 (December 2001).[1][2] Elsa Bloodstone is the daughter of the previously establishedMarvel Universe characterUlysses Bloodstone and the sister ofCullen Bloodstone. She has been a member ofNextwave,Midnight Sons, andFearless Defenders.
Elsa Bloodstone appeared in theMarvel Cinematic Universe /Disney+ television specialWerewolf by Night, portrayed byLaura Donnelly.
Elsa appeared as the lead character in theBloodstone mini-series (December, 2001 - March, 2002) and was created by writer duoDan Abnett,Andy Lanning and artist Michael Lopez.[3][4] She is introduced as the daughter ofUlysses Bloodstone and she is a monster hunter just like her father. The miniseries further detailed her origin. Despite her similarities withBuffy the Vampire Slayer, both have claimed to have never seen a full episode of Buffy and were "determined to steer clear of Buffy at least while we're doing Bloodstone."[5]
She was a team member in the twelve issueNextwavemaxi-series. At first presented as a counter-terrorist group made up of superheroes and former superheroes, but it is later revealed that their employers were being funded by a terrorist group.[5] TheAll-New, All-Different Marvel refresh of their main line of comics, made it part of the main continuity, which was previously disputed.[6]
Elsa and her family featured in the four issue miniLegion of Monsters, that was collected in Bloodstone and the Legion of Monsters.[7] In 2012, she appeared inWolverine'songoing andAvengers Arena which introduced her long lost brotherCullen Bloodstone, who was trapped in an alternate dimension by their father.[8][5]
In Aug. 2013, Elsa joined a team of superheroes known as theFearless Defenders. At the time of her joining, the roster consisted ofValkyrie,Misty Knight, Annabelle Riggs,Warrior Woman,Danielle Moonstar andClea.[9] The following year, she was part of theDoctor Doom's Avengers team in the pages ofAvengers World, written byNick Spencer, they were tied in to line wideAXIS storyline.[10]
During theCivil War II event, she showed up in theA-Force comicbook.[11][12]
She was one of the main characters in the 2017'scompany-wide crossover story arcMonsters Unleashed, the crossover included a huge cast of superheroes, that consisted of theAvengers,Champions,Moon Girl andDevil Dinosaur,Guardians of the Galaxy,Inhumans,Kid Kaiju, the Leviathon Tide, and theX-Men.[13][14]
In the limited seriesDamnation,Wong summoned her to be a member of a new version of theMidnight Sons alongsideBlade,Doctor Voodoo,Ghost Rider,Iron Fist, andMan-Thing, a superhero team focused on supernatural phenomena.[15][16] She returned inKelly Thompson'sJessica Jones, she aided the titular character in the first storyarc.[17]
Elsa lives in Bloodstone Manor with her mother Elise and ally Adam theFrankenstein Monster. She has befriended Charles Barnabus, a pureblood vampire lawyer and executor of the Bloodstone estate.[18] Together along withDracula they defeat Nosferatu and his scourge of vampires.[19]
Pursuing a monster-hunting occupation, she begins an onlineblog to create an electronic encyclopedic reference guide for the numerous monsters and alien beasts in theMarvel Universe (published by Marvel asMarvel Monsters: From the Files of Ulysses Bloodstone and the Monster Hunters).[20]
Elsa Bloodstone has also appeared inNextwave, but the series' connection to the Marvel Universe is unclear - it was initially out-of-continuity[21][22] and was later implied to be the adventures of tourists fromEarth-A.[23][a] However,Civil War: Damage Report suggest that at least parts of the adventures of the team were set in the main continuity: the others may have been delusions brought by constant use of drugs, mental conditioning and deceptions by theirH.A.T.E. employers. Her delusional state could also account for her "memories" of being routinely subjected to abusive monster-hunting training by her father, like being left alone in childhood with a robotical nanny programmed to torture her whenever she wasn't able to reply to a question regarding monsters, or being forced by her father to kill monsters, as atoddler, armed with simplecutlery.[24][25]
The character elected to suspend her college studies upon being recruited byDirk Anger of H.A.T.E. to fight Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction (UWMD) alongsideMonica Rambeau,Tabitha Smith,Aaron Stack, andThe Captain. Shortly after this recruiting Elsa and her teammates found H.A.T.E. to be funded by theBeyond Corporation, which is in fact a terrorist organization.[26] Using the stolen Marketing Plan of Beyond, the Nextwave squad traveled across the country destroying hidden UWMDs which includedFin Fang Foom,Mindless Ones, andForbush Man.[27][28][29]
She suffers constant abuses by her teammembers, like being confronted byTabitha Smith about her European origins and accent (referred even in theNextwave Theme Song as her main characteristic), and constantly ogled byAaron Stack, attracted by her large chest.[30][31]
Elsa joined up as part of Iron Man and the government'sFifty State Initiative. Elsa has been identified as one of the 142 registered superheroes who appear to have signed theSuperhuman Registration Act and become part of the Initiative.[32] She later returns to her monster-hunting adventures: still with her brasher mind-set, seen in her Nextwave days, she vows solemnly to never have children on her own, since she feels the responsibility of being a Bloodstone too heavy to be forced on another living being. Instead, she chooses to end her legacy once and for all, completing the task of freeing humanity from monsters before dying.[33]
As part of theMarvel NOW! event, Elsa Bloodstone is shown as one of the teachers at the Braddock Academy (the British equivalent of theAvengers Academy), where she takes her brotherCullen Bloodstone to attend.[34]
She gets involved with theThunderbolts, when Punisher steals her magic regalia to battle teammate Ghost Rider[35] and again when the team needs magical assistance from her andW.A.N.D. in order to battle Doctor Strange.[36]
Elsa Bloodstone is later recruited to join theFearless Defenders.[37]
Elsa later appears in the pages ofAvengers Undercover where she visits Cullen and argues with him in the S.H.I.E.L.D. detention center afterHazmat seemingly killed Arcade inBagalia.[38]
During the "AXIS" storyline, Elsa Bloodstone is among the heroes recruited by an invertedDoctor Doom to join his team of Avengers. They attempt to protect the innocent citizens ofLatveria, who had nothing to do with their monarch's latest problems.[39]
During theCivil War II storyline, Elsa appeared inOuray, Colorado, where she defends the town from an infection that is turning the populace into a swarm of giant bugs. She befriendsNico Minoru who is running fromCaptain Marvel due to a vision of the future predicting she will murder an innocent woman named Alice. Elsa takes Nico to meet her contact, Janine, who is harboring survivors and looking for her missing daughter, Alice. Captain Marvel,Medusa,Dazzler and Singularity arrive and argue over whether to apprehend Nico or not. Eventually they split into two teams: one to find Alice and the other to protect the civilians. Elsa, Nico, and Captain Marvel search for Alice in an abandoned mine and are attacked by a giant bug which infects Elsa. Nico learns the bug is Alice who begs Nico to kill her since she is the one infecting the people. When Nico refuses, Elsa threatens to murder Captain Marvel to force Nico into committing murder to stop her transformation into a monster. Medusa, Singularity, and an infected Dazzler are overrun by bugs and regroup with the others just as Bloodstone infects Danvers. After Dazzler infects Medusa, Minoru casts a spell to transform Alice back into a human but it does not cure the rest of the populace. Alice explains that she must be killed and Minoru reluctantly casts a death spell on Alice which transforms the infected back into humans. Alice then reemerges in her final form and tells A-Force that she is no longer a threat as she now has greater control of her powers.[40]
During theMonsters Unleashed storyline, Elsa is seen inPeru and finds a prophecy that tells of the Monster King all the monsters fear. She then discovers that a kid named Kei Kawade is somehow responsible for the invasion and pays him a visit. Elsa then takes Kei to theInhumans to examine his abilities. When another wave of monsters arrive, Elsa and other heroes protect Kei from monsters attacking the Triskelion, a S.H.I.E.L.D. base off the coast of New York City.[41]
During the "Blood Hunt" storyline, Elsa Bloodstone saves Dagger from a vampire attack.[42]
Elsa has exhibited superhuman strength, speed, durability and endurance, and a regenerative healing factor.[43][25][44] She appears to possess all of the abilities her father once had. In addition, she has demonstrated immunity to vampire bites (her blood will kill a vampire if consumed and the original Bloodgem fragment itself is anathema to vampires).[45][5][46]
Some of her powers were bestowed upon her by the Bloodgem fragment she wears on a choker,[43][47] although she does not appear to be wearing it in flashbacks to her childhood training sessions.[48] Elsa has also inherited at least some of the Bloodgem's power genetically from her father.[49][50] She has also been portrayed as an expertmarksman.[50]
Elsa is able to fire energy blasts from her right hand,[51] and claims that her father ripped off her original hand and replaced it with an apparently magical one.[52] This power was never utilized previously and has not been used since. No explanation has been offered to date.
She has been shown to use a removable Bloodgem on a choker as well as a number of artifacts gathered by her father. These include a lamp which contained agenie whom Ulysses had enslaved years ago. This serves as an early warning system, lighting up during times of supernatural crisis, and transporting him to said crisis. InNextwave, she carries a guitar case with a false cover, containing twoUzis and a rifle.
Elijah Beahm ofThe Escapist asserted, "Above all else though, what makes Elsa an attractive character for adaptation is her versatility. You can put Elsa Bloodstone virtually anywhere, and she’s still authentically herself. She’s been everything from the last woman on Earth fighting zombies during the Battleworld crossover to partnering with Jessica Jones on a PI case."[53] Deirdre Kaye ofScary Mommy called Elsa Bloodstone a "role model" and "truly heroic."[54]
Chris McMullen ofSpace.com ranked Elsa Bloodstone 4th in their "5 Marvel Characters Who Deserve Their Own Show" list.[55]CBR.com ranked Elsa Bloodstone 3rd in their "10 Best Members Of Marvel's Legion Of Monsters" list,[56] and 10th in their "10 Most Powerful Members of Marvel’s Midnight Sons" list.[57] Matthew Jackson ofThe A.V. Club ranked Elsa Bloodstone 8th in their "15 Marvel superheroes and villains we want to see in the MCU" list.[58] Darby Harn ofScreen Rant ranked Elsa Bloodstone 9th in their "10 Most Powerful Marvel Comics Horror Characters" list.[59]
As she is a young, female monster-hunter consumers have speculated that there must be some influence fromBuffy the Vampire Slayer, when asked about this the authors claimed "neither of us have seen an episode ofBuffy all the way through! I know we're missing out on some great TV but we've determined to steer clear of Buffy at least while we're doing Bloodstone."[60]
In an archaeological expedition, Elsa and her team find the stone statue ofFin Fang Foom.[61] She sells this statue to Tony Stark for the opening of his new casino only for the statue to release the actual dragon himself from his stone tomb.[62]
Elsa Bloodstone alongside the other members of Nextwave show up "in a purely superfluouscameo" in the third issue of theMarvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness to saveAsh from azombifiedPower Pack, before being "Ruthlessly dispatched off-panel in the most humiliating and degrading ways imaginable" moments later.[63]
During the "Secret Wars" storyline, a variation of Elsa Bloodstone is the commander of super-powered soldiers manning a wall called the Shield that keeps the threats of the Deadlands, Perfection, and NewXandar from the rest of the Battleworld domains. A teleportation accident leaves Elsa far from safety, hunted by powered zombies in the Deadlands and with a strange human girl she dubs Shuttup in her care.[64]
Elsa Bloodstone appears in theMarvel Cinematic Universe /Disney+ specialWerewolf by Night, portrayed byLaura Donnelly.[65][66][67] This version is the estranged stepdaughter ofVerussa Bloodstone.[68]
| Title | Material collected | Published date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloodstone & The Legion of Monsters | Astonishing Tales: Boom Boom and Elsa #1,Legion of Monsters (vol. 2) #1-4,Marvel Presents #1-2,Marvel Monsters: From the Files of Ulysses Bloodstone & the Monster Hunters, material fromMarvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular #2,Girl Comics (vol. 2) #2,Rampaging Hulk #1-6, 8 | September 2017 | 978-1302908027 |
| Death of Doctor Strange Companion | Death Of Doctor Strange: Bloodstone #1 andDeath Of Doctor Strange: Avengers #1,Strange Academy Presents: The Death Of Doctor Strange #1,Death Of Doctor Strange: Spider-Man #1,Death Of Doctor Strange: White Fox #1,Death Of Doctor Strange: Blade #1,Death Of Doctor Strange: X-Men/Black Knight #1 | March 2022 | 978-1302933104 |