Thunderbolts #124 Review

Writer: Christos Gage
Penciller: Fernando Blanco

I have to admit, when Norman Osborn was made the head of the Thunderbolts, I was dubious. For one thing, Norman Osborn should be dead, as he was from Amazing Spider-Man #121 until issue #418, which is a long time to be dead, especially by comic book standards. Moreover, he was brought back during the dreadful clone saga, and, let's face it, that is a story best forgotten. For another thing, he doesn't really fit in the Thunderbolts milieu. For the most part, they are Avengers characters, and a Spider-Man villain doesn't really fit, especially as the head of the group. So, when I saw he'd taken over, it struck me as a terrible idea, bringing back an outdated villain into a context in which he didn't belong.

This issue proves that I was wrong in my judgement. As the Thunderbolts have spiralled deeper and deeper into madness, having Norman Osborn at the head of the group has proved almost prescient. This issue has given us a great sense of how someone like Osborn is the perfect head of a group of supervillains composed of psychopaths and madmen. For one thing, he fits right in. The scene at the beginning in which he slaughters a group of Skrulls posing as Spider-Man is one of the funniest moments I can remember in the Thunderbolts. After the massacre, with green-blood splattering and Osborn cackling in massive type, he regains his composure and clears his throat: "--Hurm. Well. That was surprisingly therapeutic". He seems perfectly happy to be a little insane. If he were too sane, the book would become very mean, very quickly, as a sane character manipulated and used less stable characters. Because he himself is a little mad, his manipulations seem almost...fair.

The rest of the issue is spent with Osborn masterfully handling a series of personel crises as he must reign in the insecurities and murderous tendencies of one Thunderbolt after another. Penance has to face a group of Skrulls posing as victims of the Stamford explosion, and Osborn helps him realise what is going on because Penance is so obsessed with the disaster. Since Penance has memorised the faces of every single Stamford victim and the Skrulls apparently haven't, he is able to figure it out. Venom prepares to eat civilians, and after being appropriately threatened, and Venom puts them down, pretending it was all an act in an especially unconvincing lie. Bullseye kills Andrea Struker, who it turns out wasn't a Skrull as everyone assumed, and Osborn manages to use her death to turn her brother, Swordsman, into an even more dangerous weapon. One of the funny aspects of Osborn's management skills is that he says almost everything with the same level of calm. When it looks like Radioactive Man is going to explode, he evenly says, "Dr. Chen, can you keep from exploding for a few more minutes?", and when Songbird is getting completely pummeled, he says, "...Songbird looks like she could use assistance". Wactching Osborn calmly handle his out-of-control team in the middle of pure chaos is fantastic farce.

My only real criticism of this issue is that it lacks a lot of the sense of fun of the last issue. No one seems quite as gleeful as they did in the previous issue, which had the same sense of manic freedom as the escape scene from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". In this issue, by contrast, the insanity of the characters has reached a fever pitch that prevents the reader from really identifying with them. They've reached the point at which they don't really seem human anymore, and aside from how Osborn is handled, none of the characters are really sympathetic in any way. Most of all, the character of Bullseye is beginning to both me, though he did before during Ellis's run. While the other characters simply largely imbalanced, a genuinely psychopathic killer doesn't really fit in and isn't very funny. Everyone else seems like they are contantly battling their inner monsters, whereas Bullseye just is a monster. In a farce, one doesn't want a character that is simply so unpleasant to read.

On the whole, then, this is a very strong book. It doesn't quite reach the heights of the last issue, but develops Osborn's leadership skills in a way that is very entertaining. At the end of this issue, it sounds like Osborn plans to take over America. That makes sense, and fits with the very first premise of the book. I really think it will be fun to see him try.

B+

Thunderbolts #123 Review

Writers: Christos N. Gage
Penciller: Fernando Blanco

Marvel's most disfunctional superhero team finally gets involved in the Secret Invasion by attacking the Skrulls in Washington. In doing so, they provide us with one of the most fun superhero comics to be written in recent years, and Gage shows us that he has complete understanding of the Thunderbolts franchise after only two issues. At the end of Secret Invasion #1, Captain Marvel attacked Thunderbolts Mountain, but instead of killing the Thunderbolts, Norman Osborn uses a little pop psychology to undermine his confidence. From the Captain Marvel comic, we know that te Skrull Captain Marvel's encoding didn't quite work, and he really believed he is Captain Marvel. Delivering a great line, "I know something about not being sure if you're really pink...or green", Osborn persuades him to instead attack his own Skrull allies.

One of the nice thing about Gage's run, as opposed to Ellis's run, is that Gage seems to be having a lot of fun with the idea of supervillains in charge, whereas Ellis's run sometimes came across as cynical and even a little mean spirited. Here, the characters are gleefully sociopathic, working together partly because they have to and partly because it's fun. Almost every character is completely off their rocker, but Gage has the remarkable ability to make is seem as though the team and even the effectiveness of the team make perfect sense. Osborn comes across as an incredibly effective leader, even (or especially) of madmen, whose broken psychology makes them easier to manipulate than ordinary people with complex desires. Pulling out an automatic rife, he declares "We're at war", and they head into battle.

The battle is, quite simply, hilarious. Penance of course inflicts pain on himself in order to destroy a Skrull ship. Osborne decides to ram one of the Skrull ships, which may not be the tactically most sound decision, but is certainly the most fun. Venom is dropped into a sea of Skrulls, and of course enjoys eating as many of them as he possibly can, but may end up eating some civilians as well. Bullseye acts like he's a little kid in an arcade game, and is happy for the chance to have an "unsupervised field trip" in which he can murder as many Skrulls (and even some of Osborn's troops) as possible. Everyone is utterly convinced that Swordsman's sister is a Skrull, but they let it pass because they are useful in the fight. Radioactive Man nearly explodes. Moonstone decides to betray humanity in exchange for power. Finally, Osborne sees a bunch of Spider Clones, and the maniacal Green Goblin laugh returns as he prepares to lose his mind again, which seems to happen on a regular basis.

While Grant Morisson is exploring the depths of evil and its meaning in Final Crisis, Gage here is examining the other side. He is making evil fun. Somehow, though, he manages to avoid the mean-spirited satire of books like Preacher or even Ellis's run, and instead manages to turn the chaotic nature of sociopaths into the premise for a truly manic glee. The madness of the Thunderbolts has been fully unleashed, and seeing each character rampaging about, doing more damage to the Skrulls than anyone else gives the same sense of fun that one has when destroying sandcastles or knocking over blocks. Somehow, this book isn't mean-spirited. Gage loves writing this book, and it comes across on every page.

I also want to compliment Blanco's art. He has a lot of fun drawing alien technology and high-tech backgrounds, and there is plenty of opportunity to do that here. He provides a real sense of the layout inside Osborne's ship, for example, and it comes across as a real place. The characters are well drawn, and the cackly look on Bullseye's face is classic. I have two little quibbles, though. Is Moonstone supposed to look completely naked from behind? I know her suit is white, but there is more than one scene where I had to do a bit of a double-take because the lighting makes it look like she's wearing no clothing. Also, Blanco seems a little uncomfortable with architecture, and even though they are fighting in a city, there are few buildings. In the large spreadpage, you'll notice that he carefully puts any buildings behind alien ships, while the most visible part of the ground is a field.

This is one of the best Thunderbolts comics in years. I can't remember enjoying one as much since the origin story of Radioactive Man a few years ago. Gage is having an absolute blast writing the characters and I am having just as much fun reading about them.

A-

Thunderbolts #122 Review

Writer: Cristos N. Gage
Penciler: Frank Martin

Warren Ellis is off the Thunderbolts. I'm honestly not sure whether that is good news or bad news. Warren Ellis is a great writer, capable of interesting ideas, and his run on the Thunderbolts was very engaging. The Green Goblin's monologue as he dons his costume in issue #120 was one of the funniest speeches in a comic book ever.

However, at the end of the day, the book has veered so far from its original premise that it has lost a lot of its charm. The original premise (well, since issue #13) of the Thunderbolts has been largely lost. A group of supervillains pretend to be heroes so as to take over the world, but end up enjoying it so much they decide to become heroes for real. It was a premise that created a lot of clever moments and very interesting stories as some of them live up to their potential, and others do not.

Now, the group is largely composed of unlikable criminals and psychopaths. That can be occasionally funny, but by-and-large it's very hard to be engaged with a book with unlikeable characters. Songbird and Radioactive Man are really the only old-school Thunderbolts left. The others are either so evil or so insane as to be virtually unreadable in the long run.

The question then is: who will most inspire Gage, the new writer, Nicieza or Ellis? So far, it looks like mainly Ellis, as Gage tries to pick up on the sense of humour that drove Ellis's book, which is unfortunate. Moreover, he doesn't do it as well. When Moonstone calls Samson a "sanctimonious ivy league surrender monkey", the writing even sounds a little desperate. Moreover, do we need any more creepy implied twin incest? I thought that Loeb had proven definitively that it is a horrible idea in Ultimates 3.

A couple points are funny, but more because they are having fun at the expense of Ellis's concept: when Osborne and Moonstone simultaneously ask each other whether or not the other killed Songbird's mother, Gage seems to actually be having fun at Ellis's expense, and it is the funniest moment in the book. At times, Gage finds his voice, which seems to be in having fun at the expense of the idea of evil characters.

Hopefully, Gage will use the Secret Invasion as a chance to break away from Ellis's style, partly because it is a tone that can only be carried on so long, and partly because he isn't especially good at it. He does seem to be putting into the mouths of the characters justifications for turning away from the Osborne and Co. Psycho Brigade premise, and now we have the Secret Invasion to distract everyone for a while. Andrea Strucker has a great big "I'm a Skrull" sign on her forehead, and it will be interesting to see how everyone reacts to the news.

Overall, this is a weaker version of Ellis's Thunderbolts, but shows some promise. Gage will hopefully be with the book for a while, and I do hope this book can recapture some of its original charm.

B-