Thunderbolts #121 Review

THUNDERBOLTS #121
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato

As you can tell from yesterday's Comic Boo Moments of the Week, this issue was jam packed with kick ass moments, like Songbird vs. Green Goblin, Samson / Penance vs. Moonstoone and Bullseye taking care of business, and it capped off an amazing, if delay ridden, run by Ellis and Deodato. It truely is a shame to know this is the last issue.

If you've been following Thunderbolts all along, you'll know we have a group of telepaths locked up in Thunderbolt Mountain and they are messing with everyone's heads, causing them to go nuts, fight each other and kill everyone in the base.

This issue wraps up that storyline with the previously mentioned fight sequences. There's not much else happening in this issue besides that and Ellis simply gives us lots of action, amazing dialogue and then rushes in for the touchdown by having Bullseye, fresh off surgery for his spine, waltzing into the holding cells and picking off each telepath one by one with some scalpels he picked up on the way, inadvertently saving the day as he had only wanted to go kill some people while the power was out and figured the prisoners were expendable.

I found Deodato's art was rushed and a little off compared to the previous issues. Actually, it might just be the story, itself, which was rushed, causing him to try and fit more into the few pages he had left than his art actually being weaker, as it still looks fantastic.

I loved Bullseye "saving" the day, but, after all the build up and chaos the telepaths caused, they just get offed so casually, almost like an after thought from Ellis, who just realized he had to finish the storyline with only a couple of pages remaining.   

In fact, my only complaint for the issue, aside from it being the last from the current team, is that it felt rushed. I loved Bullseye "saving" the day, but, after all the build up and chaos the telepaths caused, they just get offed so casually, almost like an after thought from Ellis, who just realized he had to finish the storyline with only a couple of pages remaining.

It's a small nitpick and I really don't care all that much, as I enjoyed the entire Caged Angels arc immensely, but it's definitely a complaint worth mentioning.

Verdict - Must Read. It's not stop action as the Thunderbolts kick the crap out of each other before Bullseye finishes off the "villains", all with beautiful artwork. If this doesn't turn your crank, I don't think any super hero comics will.

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Thunderbolts #120 Review

THUNDERBOLTS #120
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato

Man, they shouldn't release the Thunderbolts one-shots so close to the infrequent appearances of the actual book. It just makes the one-shots seem so much worse than they are and goes to show that very few are as twisted or insane as Ellis is.

As predited, Venom didn't suffer any fatal wounds in his epic battle with Swordsman last issue and the symbiote is actually repairing him as we speak. Swordsman seems to have regressed to a more childlike state as he stumbles aimlessly through the compound and the telepaths are ramping up their plans and now forcing the Tbolts to target civilian workers.

Oh, and Norman Osborn was awesome and has my vote for president. As witnessed throughout this storyarc, he's gradually been losing it, probably due to the telepaths, messed up meds by Moonstone and general Goblin insanity. This issue sees it come to a head as he goes to collect his Green Goblin costume and equipment from storage in one of the more entertaining naked dictations I've read as Norman makes mad plans for presidency, bemoans having to do everything himself, from knocking up (god, why are they referencing this?) and killing the blonde girlfriend (Gwen Stacy for those not in the know) to running the Thunderbolts. It's a great scene and you can look for it, and many other Goblin related scenes, in the Moments of the Week.

Once fully garbed in one of the cooler renditions of the Green Goblin costume to date, Norman begins searching for Swordsman and Venom to put a stop to their tantrums. He stops casually to ask two guards where they are and they can barely spit out an answer before he takes off, cackling all the way, to kill Venom and Swordsman. We later see him catching up to Swordsman, who is practically whimpering like a child, and verbally berates him, saying things like he was born when a pig coughed and so on before absolutely tearing into him with bombs and those razor sharp batarangs. We find Swordsman, later, crucified, with the batarangs pinning him to the wall, near death and bleeding profusely as we cut to Norman, who's about to slaughter the entire complex population thanks to the telepaths' prodding.

The other Thunderbolts weren't forgotten either. Radioactive Man wants to give everyone cancer and, before he can do anything, one of the guards starts bashing him in the back of the head, knocking him out. Songbird questioned him and he said he didn't want cancer and Songbird agreed and complimented him on a good job before leaving. Moonstone was pushed towards going after Doc Samson and Penance, who are still having a casual chat about him becoming Speedball again. I'm not sure how they will stop these telepaths, as everyone seems to be insane, incapacitated or under their control at this point, so I hope Ellis has thought that far ahead and we don't get some rushed conclusion.

Verdict - Must Read. It was another deliciously insane issue of Thunderbolts and makes me sad that Ellis has made enough money off of us and is going to go do other stuff now. Might want to trade wait on this one if you haven't been picking the series up, but it is definitely another amazing issue of Thunderbolts.

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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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Thunderbolts #118 Review

THUNDERBOLTS #118
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato

Remember when Venom ate that guys arm? That was pretty cool, but how could Ellis possibly top that? Well, this issue answers it by having Venom eat everybody! Well, not everybody, but definitely a couple guys. And no, not just arms, but the entire body, piece by piece. However, I get the sneaking suspicion that Venom might not be a Thunderbolt member much longer...

This issue takes a different turn than what I was expecting based on last month's issue. I thought the prisoners were going to use their powers to escape and kill the Thunderbolts, but they were no where to be seen this issue. They might be responsible for Swordsman's actions, there was no indication of it here.

Not that that's a bad thing though. There's a lot of incredible stuff that happened this issue. Norman continues to go insane. Not sure if this is due to Moonstone's messing with his pills or from the prisoners, but he's the only one seeing that Green Goblin mask and is quickly cracking under all the pressure this issue. Next up is the Zeus blowing up in the hangar, killing multiple guards in the process. It was later revealed to have been caused by Swordsman, which I'll get to in a bit.

Venom, who I talked about briefly above, went insane and started killing and eating entire platoons of guards. Apparently the symbiote is tired of Scorpion blaming it for killing and his being a general pussy and is taking control of his body, which led to the various eatings and killings. Finally, Swordsman undying love for his sister has caused him to go insane, shave his head and start calling himself Baron Strucker, after his nazi father. He's bought off dozens of guards at the base and started taking it over so that he can force Norman to give him the clone of his sister. Again, not sure if this is because of the prisoners doing a mind job on everyone or if Ellis is just dismantling the team he put together.

There was one thing I didn't really understand. There was a scene that showed random anti-Thunderbolts posters with random sayings on them, kind of like "Thunderbolts are the secret police". Showed them in subways and on bus stops and other assorted places. Something to do with the current storyline? Future story? Beats me.

Verdict - Must Read. This issue was just plain awesome. Everyone on the T-bolts is losing it and I'm loving it. Venom hasn't been this good since he was first introduced and this arc is shaping up to be better than the last one.

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Thunderbolts #117 Review

THUNDERBOLTS # 117
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato

Wow. After the long break, I was a bit iffy on whether Ellis would be able to keep me engaged in this story. However, Ellis blew the doors off with this issue and I believe it's easily the best of his run.

This issue sees Doc Samson, psychiatrist and former Hulk ally, coming to the base on behalf of Tony Stark to see what the current situation with Penance is. Ellis does an excellent job with him and this is probably the first time Samson has appeared bad ass, as far as I can tell. As Samson meets each former villain, Ellis projects the various mental images Samson has in regards to how he feels about each villain. This results in some awesome, "SAMSON SMASH", style scenes, where Samson imagines wailing on Norman Osborn or Moonstone, people he knows are villains getting a free ride in the current post-Civil War Marvel Universe. You can look for some of these panels in this week's Moments of the Week.

As for the actual Samson and Penance meeting, there was some actual character development for Bleedball. Up until now, I don't think Penance has had more than a panel or two in each issue and I had begun to wonder if Ellis just didn't know what to do with him. I enjoyed the final, "let's go have some beers and talk about this like guys" moment between the two and look forward to the follow up next month. The only concern is that this doesn't seem to line up with what's going on in Jenkins' Penance: Relentless mini-series in any way, shape or form. Ellis' version is far superior, despite Jenkins having "created" Penance, so I'll just ignore Relentless in favour of Ellis' version like I had originally planned.

On the new Scourge of the Underworld [note: all the new villains captured last issue are victims of the previous Scourge] side of things, it looks like most of the captured villains have mental powers of some kind and are planning an assault from within Thunderbolt Mountain. It seems like they have been manipulating people from within their cells since they arrived and at the end of this issue, they have Norman Osborn either seeing things, in this case his Green Goblin mask in his desk, or have somehow managed to have it planted there physically by someone else. Not sure who's behind this group or what their overall goal is aside from killing the Thunderbolts, but this arc is progressing nicely and I'm dying to find out more.

Before I finish, I have to applaud Ellis for his work with Songbird and Radioactive Man this issue. I felt they were sort of side characters in this book recently, when once they were the stars of it, and it appears Ellis is addressing that with this fun bit of interplay between the two that really hearkens back to the previous creative team's work with the characters.

Verdict - Must Read. The book is worth it alone for the "SAMSON SMASH" and Radioactive Man's, "The Glowing Love God" line when Songbird makes fun of his former diaper-like costume. Add in the excellently paced issue that progresses the storyline while featuring a lot of character moments and you can't go wrong with this book.

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Thunderbolts #116 Review

THUNDERBOLTS #116
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato

I have a love/hate relationship with Thunderbolts. I was one of the avid and loyal readers of the Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza version of the Thunderbolts and find myself upset that they were kicked to the curb so Millar could have something that "impacts" and "changes" the Marvel Universe with his Civil War title.

This makes me quite jaded and biased towards the current interpretation of the team, but I do give credit where it is due, as Ellis and Deodato have done an excellent job with the book since taking over.

However, it is not my Thunderbolts and I really wish they had changed the name or at least restarted with a new volume to show that they have nothing to do with the old version.

That said, Ellis and co have their first arc under their belts and are ready to really kick things into gear. It looks like they are building Penance up to be their scape goat and are touting him as their Hulk-like menace to go chasing after if they need any public favour. We also see the fallout of last month's arm-eating incident by Venom. It appears most people are just giving up on sight as they do not want to be eaten.

Also, prison 42 is mentioned as being overcrowded already and talks of storing people at the Thunderbolts' base are being discussed. This strikes me as odd as 42 was designed for super powered non-registrants or villains. I do not think they have captured that many people that it would be filled already.

The end of this book introduces a new character by the name of Mindwave that uses telekinetic powers to beat up several police officers in a police station before promptly surrendering to the last cop standing so that he can be taken away by the Thunderbolts when they show up. I wonder if this character is someone we know posing to get close to the Thunderbolts or infiltrate them somehow. Also, that makes two people this issue that surrender and are captured by the Thunderbolts, which almost seems to me to be building up to some kind of inside job or subtle plot point that might mean something later.

Either way, this was a decent issue, but still sticking to the highly decompressed template of previous Ellis Thunderbolts issues. Pick it up if you are interested or currently reading Thunderbolts. Otherwise, it is more of the same from Ellis' version of the team and it honestly reads much better in trade format if you want to wait a few months for it.

Verdict - Check It

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