You have well-established credentials as both a novelist and comics writer. What made Bloodshot - and by extension, the Valiant Universe - a project that you gravitated toward?

DS: It all started, as these things tend to do, with a beer.

Okay, maybe it started a few weeks before the beer, but I remember the beer the most, because it was over a few beers at San Diego Comic Con that editor Warren Simons and I really started to dig around Bloodshot’s history to see what made him tick. I’d written a few titles for Warren during his time at Marvel – he was the editor who brought me aboard, in fact — and I was excited by the idea of working with him again. But once we really started talking about who Bloodshot is, and was, and what he might want now... well, my brain just went into overdrive. He’s my favorite kind of noir hero: tortured, yet determined to do the right thing, no matter what kind of horrible things he may (or may not) have done in the past. I’ll admit that I missed the original series back in the day, but once I caught up and saw the creative possibilities, Warren would’ve had to put a bullet in my head to get me to back off.

By his very nature, Bloodshot is an amorphous character, someone who – at least at first – lacks a distinct personality. How do you get inside the head of a man who doesn’t even know who he is?

DS: See, that’s the best time to jump into someone’s head — when he’s trying to figure it all out, too. Both the reader and the hero are starting at the beginning. I love amnesia stories, unreliable narrator stories, missing time stories, paranoia stories... so it’s been great fun to blend all of these flavors in a balls-out, stomp-the-accelerator action-adventure saga. Bloodshot is like a blend of The Bourne Identity and Robocop with plenty of Memento and Commando in there, too.

In his original incarnation, Bloodshot had an array of abilities - rapid healing, enhanced strength, and communication with machines. Have you toyed with his power set at all and perhaps added something new to his arsenal?

DS: Oh yeah. You’ll see a new trick or two in the first issue. Nanomachine technology has come a lonnnnng way in the 20 years since Bloodshot first appeared... Also: Bloodshot can still communicate with machines. But he’s stuck with a dial-up connection. (Kidding! Maybe.)