It's been too long since Mr. X has killed, and he needs his next fix! Ghost has taken notice, and sees an opportunity...while Scourge is seeing things that no one should! Add in the selfish intentions of Paladin and Ant-Man, stir with a stick of dynamite and...BOOM! You've heard raves about Parker's ATLAS (heroes pretending to be villains)...but now it's time to let him loose on some real fiends!
Thunderbolts finally ended in Siege with half the cast just wiped out. You could tell Jeff Parker was just over it, like "Screw these guys, new idea time," which he did right after. But honestly, those deaths, except for that one headshot, just felt...meh. Didn't really care who made it or didn't. It was more of a whimpering end than you'd expect from a comic that was pretty decent, even if it got kinda stupid sometimes.
The Thunderbolts go up against the Agents of Atlas, that is quite amusing. The Seige storyline, not so much, but the team disintegration does continue. I've worked out why I don't like this version of Thunderbolts, no strong women on the team, it use to always have two.
I kinda feel like I'm picking up on unsure territory with Thunderbolts, having not read anything since Warren Ellis's run that overlapped with the aftermath of Civil War. That's a pretty big gap in Thunderbolts history. Luckily, Jeff Parker, who is just taking over with this book, doesn't seem too worried about the previous history, either. He jumps right into the team dynamic (which basically does not exist), portraying the current Thunderbolts lineup as a bunch of psychopaths, madmen, and cowards who don't get along with each other even a little bit. Now, dysfunctional, combative teams are a favorite of mine, so normally I'd be into this. But this team isn't dysfunctional. They actively hate each other and refuse to work together. They end up trying to kill each other about every 5 minutes. With utter lunatic Scourge as their "leader," the team just kind of flops around from battle to battle, surviving more by the miracle of writing than by anything they do together.
Now, all of that sounds pretty useless. And it is. But the thing is, Parker inherited this crappy team of assholes. He's just writing the team dynamic that already exists, and somehow making it moderately interesting despite it all. I applaud that. I also really enjoyed the finale of this book, which feels like where Parker really started steering this ship toward where he actually wants it to go. His use of the Mighty Avengers as the Thunderbolts main enemy is a great fit, and having those guys enter the fray as someone to root for basically fixes the book in its latter half.
After a long battle in Asgard in the eponymous Siege tie-in, the Thunderbolts as we've known them throughout this book are done, and it feels like big plans are on the horizon from Parker and his team. I'm excited to see what he does with a team of his own creation that (hopefully) actually functions to some degree. I don't want to keep reading a series where I just wish all the characters would get killed.
I had almost given up on the Thunderbolts title. Warren Ellis' run was great, but Andy Diggle's run, to be brutally honest, sucked. But thank goodness for Jeff Parker, who completely saved this title for me with this trade.
First off, I love that Quicksilver kicks Mr. X's rear in a spectacularly awesome way. Seeing the speedster as a "hero" again (instead of being the latest whipping boy or pining after his still-missing sister) - and seeing him being quite forthright about his abilities in the fighting arena - made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Thank you, Jeff Parker, for realizing how awesome Quicksilver can be and actually utilizing him as more than just background filler!
Seeing the various conflicts that the team members are facing and involved in was also interesting. I liked watching Ghost, who seems to be playing for both sides, and I enjoyed Paladin's crisis of conscience. And Ant-Man, who rather reminds me of Deadpool in a way, did his teammate a real solid. And he went into instructor mode with Cassie. I loved it.
Watching the Thunderbolts break down was a good read, and this is probably my favorite Thunderbolts trade since Ellis left the title.
Strong writing from Jeff Parker makes this book an enjoyable read. It's hard to give it more than three stars since I am not familiar with the book (The only other thing I read was Ellis' stories) or the characters on this team. But Jeff made the transition relatively pain free and I could follow the dynamics of the team. I don't really love the premise of "a team of villains" but I guess this is Marvel's answer to Suicide Squad. It was fun to see the interactions and back stabbing and the guest appearance by The Agents of Atlas (who Parker helped create). Overall - not a deep read but fun nonetheless.
No one on the current Thunderbolts team is a likable person and none of them can be trusted. The agents of Atlas are not all that much better. A battle between the two teams is, therefore, a natural!
This is definitely a new writer. The problems with this title is that the team is a grab bag of characters that never really come together in any sense.
Agents of Atlas is a nice throw in. They are actually a team and that makes how much the T-bolts aren't a team that much more apparent.
The Siege tie-in is a nice finish to this era of the Thunderbolts and Parker clearly has a better idea for the future.
A decent start to Parker's tenure on the book. I never could get into the villain characters under Osborne leadership but I did love me the three crossover issues with Atlas and I hear the next storyline, "Cage", is the real game-changer, not to mention the debut of a new artist on the title that I'm really looking forward to, Kev Walker.
Decent journeyman storytelling, but nothing spectacular. I *want* to give Parker more credit - I've met him in person, he's a really nice, decent guy - but this stuff while fine just doesn't seem *inspired*. Good enough art, but doesn't have a lot to work with.
It wasn't terrible, but I felt like I didn't know who anyone was. I enjoyed reading about Ant Man though. That's about it. It's my own fault in a way since I picked up this novel thinking that it would be a nice self-contained story. Nope.
A little scattered, and the Agents of Atlas crossover in general is weak. However, this remains a nice finale for Osbourne era Thunderbolts. I'm looking forward to the next one.
A very good lawful/chaotic evil scenario where the villains need to get a powerful artifact but they are also trying to kill each other or get rich. Quite fun.