Valiant just launched their new reader-friendly line of comics this week with Bloodshot, part of the Valiant Beyond initiative, taking the near-immortal, nanite-powered weapon and pitting him against vampires powered by a variant of his own blood. But the celebration of a new line has hit a serious fumble, at least online, thanks to allegations of “transphobic” content in the issue.

While comic writer Zoe Tunnell wasn’t the first to point out the dicey dialogue, a skeet on BlueSky gained a ton of traction on Friday afternoon, after she posted the following:

Said Tunnell, who has written Blade Maidens for Dark Horse and the Godzilla Valentine’s Day Special for IDW, among other books, “I pride myself on my professionalism in comics. I don’t talk s**t about books I don’t enjoy. I am happy when folks get gigs even if I wish I landed them. So when I say the transphobic bulls**t in the new BLOODSHOT #1 comic is disgusting and should have never made it to print. Shameful shit

In the panels included, it details how, in the book, the Yakuza’s connection to the government promotes a “nuero-marketing lobby to normalize blood consumption. And that’s messing with the minds of the younger ones. They sell fake blood as a trendy drink.”

Fine so far, but the next panel shows Bloodshot killing someone with “B-S,” aka the Bloodshot nanite-derivative, with the following narration: “There are kids who want to be bitten to become vampires because their favorite influencer says they are one. And parents who force their children into that irreversible change… just to feel modern… and believing that they’ll be thankful for it when they grow up.”

As Tunnell did, so did multiple other posters on BlueSky interpret the narration as an explicit mapping onto anti-trans messaging, that kids want to become trans because of influencers, and parents are forcing kids to be trans — neither of which is factually accurate, in any way.