Thunderbolts: The Great Escape

Thunderbolts (2006) (Collected Editions) #14

by Jeff Parker (Writer), Kevin Walker (Illustrations), Declan Shalvey

Baron Zemo returns - but which Zemo is it?! In the midst of their greatest escape in history, can the return of Captain America's best fiend push the Thunderbolts into making a devil's pact with a certain Red Menace? Meanwhile, Luke Cage and Songbird's hunt for the T-bolts continues!

Collecting: Thunderbolts 163-168

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Fiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published April 11, 2012

About the author

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Reviews

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is my favorite of Parker's Thunderbolts work yet. Finally the Bolts have been pulled out of the way of crossovers and tie-ins and all the stuff it seemed Marvel was forcing on it. Now Parker's free to tell a straightforward superhero story focused almost exclusively on fun.

There have been a million time travel stories, in comics in particular. The thing I loved about Parker's take on it, hurling the dysfunctional team of Thunderbolts through history, is that it doesn't try to say anything new about time travel in the process. He instead embraces it as just a joyful container for a lot of great ideas, never really focusing on the whole "Will this break the world?!" stuff all that much. Instead, we get the Thunderbolts fighting Nazis, investigating Jack the Ripper, and just generally careening through time, getting into as much trouble as they can. It's a blast to read, and the art matches it perfectly.

I've loved Kev Walker's pencils on this title, but even when he takes a break halfway through this book, the storytelling didn't suffer. This is just a solid, fun superhero book well worth your time. You don't really need to know much about the team going into this, other than the fact that they're lost in time. It's a great standalone and solid entryway. I liked it, ok?!

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, it kinda bums me out to say this, but this volume of Thunderbolts just didn't hit the same way the others did. We've got the escaped team messing with time travel, which sounds cool on paper, right? The first story, where they run into the Invaders (Cap and Namor), was actually pretty fun. It had that whole "be careful not to fuck up the past" vibe, which I always dig. But then things kinda went downhill.

The next chunk of the book takes us back to Hyde's time, and it's got this whole Jack the Ripper thing going on, but honestly? It was just… dull. Like, really dull. Even when Luke Cage finally comes back into the picture towards the end, and the story picks up a little, it still felt like it was missing that spark, that fun energy the first few volumes had in spades.

Overall, this one just didn't do it for me. It felt like it was trying to do some cool stuff, but it just didn't quite land. So yeah, it's a 2.5 out of 5 for me on this one. Hoping the next volume gets back to the good stuff!

[Richard Guion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in advance by reading the single issues of the comic series. My favorite volume thus far. The team of super-criminals makes a break for freedom but somehow get lost in time! The first arc has them in World War II, where they fight the Nazis with the Invaders (Captain America, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Human Torch). Man-Thing is dormant for this volume, but Satana is very much active and has a whopper of a scene with Namor. The team tries to return to future, only to get thrown even earlier back in time, to the era of Jack the Ripper.

[Holden Attradies · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've actually read some of the volumes near this one so I almost understood what was going down here. That being said it was a pretty self contained volume, and one of the easiest to follow. The two time travel stories in here were some of the best I've seen done in superhero comics, and Satana had a REALLY awesome scene with Namor in the first story.

One thing I don't understand about Thunderbolts is why Songbird is not a more central character. I mean, she is, but in these newer volumes she almost comes off as a background character and she rarely gets to shine.

[Thomas Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time travel usually a tough sell for me but this one is really fun. Part of me wonders if Parker sends them back in time so he can duck having to continually tie this book into whatever broader crossover drama is going on at the time.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, the time-travelling story at the heart of this volume drags. I think the biggest problem is that the characterization is really flat; we don’t even get a good understanding of why Fixer did why he did. There’s also a much lower spectrum of consequences in the whole setup. As a result, the highlights of this volume are the scant views of the Thunderbolts in the present (and Troll!).

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeff Parker is criminally underrated and I really like Kevin Walker's art, but over the years I have come to really hate time travel stories and this here also revisits Jack the Ripper.
AGAIN!
I don't know how often Marvel has gone there but all these stories just don't match up.
That aside I enjoyed it enough to not absolutely hate on it. Therefore three stars.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely enjoyable collection of stories that charts the Thunderbolts' earliest trips through time. Who'd have thought that a series with no A List characters could be so well written and so much fun?

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeff Parker and Kev Walker are criminally under-rated. Great work here on the first three parter, The Golden Age Thunderbolts. The rest is good but it's fill in artists and Walker's vision is missing. Quite enjoyable on the whole.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was fun time travelling but I'm waiting to for the energy of the previous volumes to return.

[Frans Kempe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Thunderbolts are cought in the past while trying to escape. They faces of against nazis and travel to London during Jack the Rippers time. Nice touch to the series.