Valiant Comics made an attempt to jump into the superhero game with the first film in their Valiant Cinematic Universe: Bloodshot. Against a budget of $45 million, Bloodshot pulled in $9 million on its opening weekend. There are many factors why the film failed, the biggest being that people are unable to go to movie theaters due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Regardless of box office, though, there's still an undeniably huge issue with Bloodshot and it's that he's as a character that simply doesn't stand out. For audiences to come to the theater for an unknown property, something needs to catch their eye. What makes this more disappointing is that Valiant has a ton of unique and distinct superheroes they could have featured in a film before Ray Garrison, the most notable being Faith, a character who remains distinct even when compared to Marvel and DC characters. So, let's look at why Valiant should've started its film franchise with Faith instead of Bloodshot.

RELATED: Valiant Comics: 10 Essential Storylines That Newcomers Should Read

 BLOODSHOT DIDN'T STAND OUT

Bloodshot is a cool character, but there is little to distinguish him from any other major action heroes. Characters like Wolverine and Deadpool have similar abilities to Garrison but offer more to audiences than just abilities, such as Deadpool's sense of insane humor and Wolverine's tragic life story.

But even outside the superhero genre, the framework for the Bloodshot story isn't anything new. Action films dating back to the '80s have used a similar formula, which makes Bloodshot's character feel like a retread. On top of that, unlike relatively recent sci-fi action films like UpgradeBloodshot on its own didn't receive strong enough word of mouth to garner any attention.

RELATED: Bloodshot: How Valiant Resurrected Its DEADLY Super-Soldier

WHY IS FAITH UNIQUE?

Unlike Bloodshot, Faith is grounded in realism. Faith Herbert -- AKA Zephyr -- is a Psiot, a human born with incredible psychic abilities. On the surface, her ability to fly may seem unimpressive. However, the more she utilizes her power, the more she comes to understand it, realizing her flight is the result of her generating psychic force-fields, which she can also use to fire bursts of wind at adversaries.

But Faith's abilities aren't what make her unique. Faith is essentially a plump nerd who idolizes superheroes and science-fiction, which allows her to immediately adopt other traits of the typical superheroes Despite being a heavier woman, her weight is never shown as a weakness or a joke. For a lot of readers, it's incredibly refreshing to see such a distinct approach taken. It's just a feature, which is how bodies are like in real life. It might sound superficial, but breaking the mold of what superheroes look like is already enough to make a movie stand out from the crowd.

RELATED: Valiant Launches YA Graphic Novel Line Beginning With Faith: Taking Flight

THE HARBINGER RENEGADES

On top of being a fascinating hero in her own right, using Faith to introduce the Valiant Universe brings with it a lot of lore that can be used to establish the world almost immediately. Faith is part of a group called the Harbinger Renegades, a group that opposes the Harbinger Foundation. In Valiant, Psiots are a lot like mutants from Marvel, but they are as much a danger to themselves as others, with one out of four Psiots dying when activating their psychic abilities for the first time.

Enter Toyo Harada, founder of the Harbinger Foundation. His organization on the surface appears to be much like Xavier's School for the Gifted, allowing Psiots to learn how to control and harness their powers. However, Harada also has a secret army of super-powered Psiots he keeps around for his own insidious purposes. This means a lot of Psiots are tricked into becoming personal weapons for Harada, kept on ice and brainwashed until he has a use for them in his continued quest to "fix" the world.

RELATED: Can Valiant Entertainment's Cinematic Universe Really Succeed?

The Harbinger Renegades, obviously, don't like that Harada is conning vulnerable Psiots to use as weapons, and so form a team to oppose them. Now, while Faith is the most popular of the Renegades, the other characters are all incredibly fascinating in their own rights. Charlene Dupre is a stripper with psychokinetic abilities, John Torkelson is a disabled boy whose abilities make him appear like an incredibly large and powerful man and Peter Stanchek, their leader, is simply an incredibly powerful being.

All of this sounds far, far more compelling than a simple action-movie revenge story. Immediately, viewers can understand the stakes, the nuance and the complexity of the situation. On top of that, by starting off with the Harbinger Renegades, fans gain a real sense of how the Valiant Universe functions. Faith clearly offers a far better blend of internal and external conflict that makes the film more compelling, as opposed to just another revenge story like Bloodshot.

Directed by Dave Wilson (VFX Supervisor for Avengers: Age of Ultron) with a script by Eric Heisserer (Arrival) and Jeff Wadlow (Truth or Dare), Bloodshot stars Vin Diesel, Guy Pearce and Toby Kebbell. The film is in theaters now.

KEEP READING: Valiant Teases New Harbinger Series for 2020