Thunderbolts #110
© Marvel
Mania Grade: A
Issue: 110
Authors: Warren Ellis, Mike Deodato, Jr.
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99
Issue: 110
Authors: Warren Ellis, Mike Deodato, Jr.
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99
"Thunderbolts" #110
By: Kurt AmackerReview Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Tony Stark and the other heroes supporting the Superhuman Registration Act have enlisted a cadre of villains to capture those superheroes that oppose the measure. Though the new team maintains ties with the old Thunderbolts that disbanded with the death of Baron Zemo, Marvel has effectively fashioned an entirely new team with the same name. The new Thunderbolts work as the enforcement arm of the government’s Commission on Superhuman Affairs. Though led by a publicly redeemed Norman Osborn and populated by a cast of infamous villains, the team finds itself embraced by the public and the media. In this first issue, Osborn enlists Bullseye and Moonstone – the latter as the field team leader – and uses their interviews as a reintroduction of the Thunderbolts for the reader. This issue begins an arc in which the team hunts B-list Captain America sidekick, Jack Flag, who has semi-retired. The team learns of him after he dons his old mask to fight a gang trying to rob a neighbor.
Warren Ellis uses this issue of Thunderbolts to comment on the public’s willingness to embrace scoundrels and criminals, so long as they work for the “right” side. Ellis’s skepticism regarding both public judgment and the media’s trust of leadership shines through. News anchors heap praise during a public broadcast of the Thunderbolts en route to capturing unregistered superheroes. They accept the team as aspirant heroes and Norman Osborn as a redeemed man. The Thunderbolts even have action figures and a commercial that shows them defeating a plastic Captain America. All the while, a simple patriot like Jack Flag finds himself on the wrong side of the law for helping a neighbor.
Ellis brings his usual dark, literate integrity to the Marvel Universe. His political leanings show clearly enough, but the story largely avoids hand-wringing and soapbox-climbing gestures in favor of showing the media at its very real worst – when it accepts the rationale of those in power without question. Everyone, regardless political affiliation, should see the problem with that.
I’ve always enjoyed Mike Deodato, Jr.’s art. He turned in strong work on Amazing Spider-Man a couple of years ago, and he brings a gritty realism lacking from so much comic art. The first few panels with Bullseye will chill anyone with a soul. Thunderbolts looks great, and I look forward to the rest of Ellis and Deodato’s run on the series. Pick this one up.
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Oh..and I want an action figure of Captain America that yells. It'd be sweet...