Thunderbolts #119 Review

THUNDERBOLTS #119
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato

How the hell did Ellis make Swordsman a complete badass? He needs to be permanently mind controlled by those telepaths in the basement because, while his creepy sister fetish was a bit interesting, he was basically known for being the guy Steel Spider punked, face smeared across a building and threw into a TV.

This issue has him tearing throw a platoon of guards and going to toe-to-toe with Venom - and winning. Yes, the same Venom that was eating arms and painted the base red with guards last issue. I'm putting the horse before the wagon here, as this fight ends the issue, but it was just too awesome to leave until the end of the reveiw.

After their bloody confrontation with guards, Venom and Swordsman meet up in a hallway. Venom wants to eat Swordsman and Strucker just wants to get rid of anyone in the way of his new reich. Basically, it boils down to the telepaths making them fight. Early on, it looked like Strucker was going to go the way of the Steel Spider, or even the guards from last issue, with Venom getting a few good swipes and crushing blows in, but the tide quickly turns as Strucker impales Venom. No problem, right? Venom's taken the sword before and symbiote should protect him. Well, last time Strucker's sword hit Venom, Swordsman wasn't holding it. With his mutant powers channeled through the sword, the symbiote is incinerated and the all to human Scorpion is impaled underneath to end the brutal encounter. I have no doubt Venom will recover through some symbiote healing mojo, but it would be nice to see this lead into a return of Eddie Brock as Venom.

Some other noteworthy goings on would have to be Osborn's apparent return to being the Green Goblin and Samson's insane mental defenses. The Goblin doesn't appear in this issue, but Osborn stormed out of his office ranting about taking care of things himself and showing them how it's done. In Samon's case, one of the telepath's decided to try and take a look inside his head, but being a psychiatrist somehow grants him the power to detect people messing with his head and he uses the power of gamma induced RAGE to expel her from his mind somehow. It was pretty cool to see, but doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

Verdict - Must Read. The plot is still a mystery to me, as we have no idea why these telepaths are doing this, how they still have their powers / why no one noticed they had mental powers before or who they are. It's basically just been Venom and Swordsman tearing everyone a new one. Great stuff, but we're going to need some story soon.

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