Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: The Games People Play
Written by: Fabian Nicieza/Kurt Busiek
Penciled by: Tom Grummett
Inked by: Gary Erskine
Colored by: Chris Sotomayor
Lettered by: Comicraft
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
The Skinny
Two new Thunderbolts show up as The Thunderbolts crash the United Nations to give Namor, the Submariner a piece of their mind. Unfortunately the T-Bolts and Namor find themselves targeted by a bunch of random tech villains including Joystick, who have been hired to kill Namor as part of “The Games”. When the battle goes against the villains, Joystick and company have their armor set to explode which causes her to take up the Thunderbolts and their offer of sanctuary in exchange for her agreeing to stop fighting them.
Vivisection
OK, so far the new Thunderbolts series has started with a thud and not a bang. The absence of fan favorite personalities Fixer, Baron Zemo, and Moonstone are hurting the book and the “shock twist” ending to New Thunderbolts #1 underscored the book’s lack of depth. Having Baron Strucker be the new financial backer isn’t helping things. Strucker is a pretty one-dimensional villain as it is and if the notion of “The T-Bolts backed by a Osama Bin Laden-like terrorist” is the big shock direction driving the book, then they could have chosen a better evil villain to take Baron Zemo’s spot as the evil puppet master.
This is underscored in the confrontation scene in between Mach-4 and Baron Strucker in this issue. The clichéd nature of their interaction was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Mach-4 and Baron Strucker both are playing each other with the knowledge that Strucker is going to do something bad that the T-Bolts are going to stop from happening and in the end, the Thunderbolts are going to walk away with Strucker’s money with no harm to their reputation. We are given no new shades of grey in the scene to make it be a major plot point to watch. Strucker tells Abe that he knows that the T-Bolts are going to eventually bring him and Hydra down and that Abe is given the contrived “I’m working for you because I know you are up to something (as seen by the map of Manhattan prominently shown in Strucker’s office) and as soon as I find out you are SOOOO going down…”.
Adding to the plot is the one-dimensional nature of Baron Strucker himself. It’s clear that he’s being used simply because he’s a terrorist in the Marvel Universe but as terrorists go, Strucker is WAY behind the times in terms of being presented as a viable big bad in the Marvel Universe. Sure he blew up SHIELD headquarters but that’s been about 15 years ago and hasn’t been mentioned in ages. It’s like The Leader nuking an entire city to create a group of gamma radiation powered flunkies; it’s been ignored for so long with no real attempt to bring Leader to justice that it’s lost its shock value whenever a writer brings up Incredible Hulk #345.
Speaking of useless, the issue also sets up Purple Man as a future big baddie as he prepares to unleash a “contrived plot device to bring Hawkeye back to life” against the T-Bolts. In terms of stupid villains that should have stayed dead, Purple Man is at the top of the list. The whole point of the character was that he was a lame villain who never used his powers for any thing big or evil (Conception of Purple Girl non-withstanding) and who ultimately got smoked by Doctor Doom, who saw Purple Man’s power for what it could be used for and killed Purple Man in his exploitation of said power.
Meanwhile we have Speed Demon and Joystick joining the team; it’s pretty obvious Speed Demon is joining so as to become the team’s new loose cannon, which has potential but probably won’t be exploited since the writing team has made a huge point of having Mach-4 be “Mr. Morals and Ethics”. Which means bringing in a dude who was Abe’s chief hatchet-man flunky in the pages of the early 1990s classic “Deadly Foes of Spiderman” mini-series most likely will be ignored with very little being made of the fact that Speed Demon and Beetle were once a–holes-in-arms with regards to doing evil things just because they could….
And Joystick….. Talk about a wasted roster spot. Joystick is a one-dimensional character who’s only known because of a one-line joke about how she doesn’t wear underwear under her costume. Why have her show up? Why not bring Diamondback, Asp, Black Mamba, Diamond Lil,. Gypsy Moth, or another more well-known female villain with a heart of gold onto the team?
