Reviewer: Kevin S. Mahoney
Story Title: “Modern Marvels”
Written by: Fabian Nicieza
Co-Plotter: Kurt Busiek
Art by: Bill Sienkiewicz
Penciled by: Tom Grummett
Inked by: Gary Erskine
Color Art by: Chris Sotomayor
Lettered by: RS & Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
The Thunderbolts were one of the highlight concept titles of the 1990’s. What if a team of second rate yet experienced villains actually managed to turn it around and go straight? How would they cope with the world? Could the world cope with them? That fundamental ethical conflict, combined with in-depth characterization of its core members, and some of the best cliffhangers in comics, kept the title well above the industry’s standard of quality for almost seven years. Then the unnecessary “fight club” reboot happened, the core team was more or less ignored, and the book’s new direction proved to be a complete and utter flop. Luckily, fans of the series pushed long enough and hard enough to get the team a new mini-series (co-starring The Avengers) which was equal parts homecoming and vindication for its long-suffering fans. The not-at-all-unanticipated success of that miniseries brought about the rebirth of a real Thunderbolts title.
The New Thunderbolts is seven issues old, and progressing nicely. The returning characters: Atlas, Songbird, and Mach IV all have undergone changes since the end of the miniseries, not all for the better. The new teammates, especially Radioactive Man and Photon, are having trouble integrating into their new environment. A couple members don’t seem all that eager to reform, which will most likely lead to some interesting backstabbing (one of the best aspects of the original book) and tension down the line. The book has featured quite a few surprises, (Strucker) and even contains two ongoing mysteries. So if the seeds sown so far bare fair fruit, the book will stand tall against any well-plotted team book on the stands.
This issue is an atypically slow one, more a primer on the current team than a coherent plot. Each team member is profiled and analyzed by a television roundtable containing an ex-criminal mastermind, a superhero historian, and a cute newscaster. It’s a neat device, and the working blog link certainly helps familiarize readers with these lesser known characters, but the space it takes to talk about the new Thunderbolts certainly drains the momentum from those actual characters. That’s not to say there’s not developments this issue; one team member quits while another two seem to begin playing both sides of the moral line. And those are substantial developments, but they happen too quickly to savor. Even the humorous moments of this issue feel like throw away lines. This issue feels like a tease, and real fans of these characters don’t need it; they’ve stuck around waiting for these concepts and characters to get proper respect. It’s almost as though the writing team decided to lure in some new readers while risking the established fan base; it’s a good short term stunt, but repeating it too frequently would make this book very stagnant.
The art this issue is as ruptured as the plot. Two separate and disparate art teams for the profile pages and the live action scenes make the whole issue a jarring and incongruous experience. The Sienkiewicz pages are too stylized to follow who is speaking in some cases. They are so awash in dark colors as to appear murky. The Grummett splash pages are exactly the series’ standard. Slick and familiar, those profiles show what a standard issue of T’Bolts ought to look like. These scenes are intercut throughout the issue, which could lead to either frustration or epileptic fits. The art only highlights the “can’t have it both ways” aspect of this issue. It’s a shame that a tale obviously intended to draw people to this book seems to work just as hard repelling them.
