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Let me start off with shout-outs! Some very nice folks have sent me positive emails on my first columns. So Andy, Chris and Ryan, thank you. I also got an email from Justin regarding my review of Thunderbolts #100. He agreed with my diatribe and you know what?

I AINT DONE YET.

Now, I am working diligently on a piece about the editorial process, specifically at Marvel and especially Team Brevoort. It’ll be ready for my move to Wednesdays. Daron didn’t want Chris and I to ruin your weekend with our negativity, so now we’ll spread it out a little. Won’t that be lovely? Suckers.

No, today I’m still mad about Thunderbolts. Mad as Hell. Mad as a Hatter. Madder than 10 mad things.

I think back to what it was all about…the state of things that opened the door for the Thunderbolts to sneak into our lives and shake things up. The Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Captain America had been jettisoned to Image comics in a fit of lunacy. Well, OK, Image is a pretty cool company, I’ll admit that. But Rob Liefield is the Anti-Artist. And he got the Captain. I touched on this in the first installment of the Nightmare, so lets just agree that it was a VERY surprising move to send the non-mutant and non-Spider titles to a competitor for a year and that the execution was not exactly flawless. Marvel created a void in their lineup that needed to be filled. There was going to be some fallout, some people who didn’t want their Marvel chocolate (and I don’t mean Wesley Snipes) in the Image peanut butter. There was going to have to be something for the these folks who felt betrayed by this wacky decision to read while they waited for the inevitable slowness of Liefield and Whilce “The Background King” Portacio to derail their interest completely.

Enter the Thunderbolts. At least for 21 pages. Because on page 22, we discover that these strange and exciting new heroes are in fact the MASTERS OF EVIL!! These guys used Hercules as a mallet to play Whack-A-Mole. These guys cost the Avengers’ faithful manservant an eye. These guys tore up the only pictures Captain America had of his mother and set them ablaze. They straight up BEAT the Avengers.

And now they’re heroes? Holy Crap on a Popsicle Stick, that was freakin’ GREAT! Are they reforming? Are they up to some kind of nefarious plot? Are they mind-controlled by a lab mouse bent on world domination? We wanted to know–no, we HAD to know! Monthly wasn’t fast enough! Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley made it the most exciting thing Marvel produced in years. We made it a hard-to-find commodity. We made it a Top 10 book. Kurt and Mark assembled the parts, tuned it up, made it purr, and took us for a wonderful ride, all polished and gleaming in the glow of our enthusiastic readership. And then Kurt handed the keys to Fabian Nicieza. And he took it off-roading.

He muddied up the Thunderbolt quarter panels and rear spoiler. He bent the rims and kept the exhaust together with a coat hanger and some Topps baseball card gum from 1978 that he just got around to chewing. He foisted Humus Sapien on us, a character thinly veiled as a FOOM! contest winner (I don’t buy it) apparently named after pureed chickpeas. Humus Sapien probably would have been a big hit on some pita toasts, but in our beloved Thunderbolts it was like letting out a gigantic wet belch in church when Father Jeremy places the Wheat Thin of Christ on your tongue. It’s nothing anyone wants. I can’t think of any other story from the T-Bolts Volume 1 run that Fabian wrote that sticks out to me. His stories jogged in place and maintained the status quo like it was the 11th Commandment. And if that was all he did, if being perfectly mediocre was the worst he did, that would have been…I was going to say fine. But it wasn’t. I was on the verge of dropping it about the time the Fight Club version reared it’s ugly head–and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Most everyone else I knew had dropped it by then. But I was trying to be loyal. I was trying to keep the faith. I clung to the hope that either Fabian would find some source of inspiration or quietly hand the reins to the next guy, maybe some new blood. Maybe this Brian Michael Bendis kid, or that strange Warren Ellis cat who was ripping up the Authority and making X-Man more interesting than he’d ever been. Or a Peter David Thunderbolts run, featuring his unique brand of humor and characterization? Or maybe they could put Mark Waid on the book. His Captain America run with Ron Garney was a thing of beauty. Might a Waid Thunderbolts be as good as Busiek’s? We might never know.

We do know that Fight Club made a much better movie than it did a comic book called Thunderbolts. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea, but I hope he moved on to a different company. Like Enron. We waited patiently for any appearance the Thunderbolts made in other books. And there weren’t many. But then suddenly, a spark of life! Huzzah!

Guess who’s back? Back again? Busiek’s back! Brought a friend! Busiek’s back, Busiek’s back, Busiek’s…what the Hell is Fabian Nicieza doing here?

Don’t know why, don’t need to know. Inexplicably, Fabian and Busiek tag-teamed the Thunderbolts miniseries that led into the current series. I thought the mini was pretty good, but was it because Kurt was back, because Fabian only got a credit because he wouldn’t let go of Kurt’s coattails, or because I was just so Thunderbolts-deprived that it didn’t really matter if it was any good or not? I was a Thunderbolts addict, I’d been shivering in the fetal position for a couple years and I needed my fix.

Now I’m on a One Stepâ„¢ plan for recovery. And it’s a simple step–right on Fabian Nicieza. There’s no reason the Thunderbolts can’t be great again. Except for Fabian. There’s no reason Jolt couldn’t be back to inject some heart and a moral compass into even the current team. Except for Fabian. There’s no reason for the events of Thunderbolts #99 and #100. Except for Fabian.

Let me sneak a quickie review of #99 in here, because I went back and glanced through it again after reading that #100 train wreck. The short form: disturbing. Not disturbing like a Garth Ennis plot, disturbing like “Marvel doesn’t have this book in the Max line but this bit actually got through?” By this point, if you’re still reading, I’ll assume you don’t care about spoilers or have already read the offending issues. There’s actually very little of the Thunderbolts in #99. A couple pages of Songbird and Nighthawk talking, and a couple pages of Mach IV and Techno setting up their team’s subplot for the finale in #100. The rest is another drawn-out bit of boredom featuring the new Swordsman (Andreas Von Strucker) battling Zemo over Baron Von Strucker. Remember Andreas? As Fenris, he and his sister Andrea had to touch each other to activate their bio-energy blasts. It’s revealed–here’s the disturbing part I mentioned–that Andreas flayed the flesh from his sister’s corpse, tanned it, and wrapped the human leather around the handle of his sword so his powers would still work! Dammit Fabian, that’s not interesting, that’s just gross, you sick bastard! Seek a psychiatric professional immediately! “Oh but it wasn’t my fault! The Purple Man made me do it! And Zemo controlled the Purple Man, so it’s his fault!” Whatever, Fabe. At this point, I just want to throw up. By the way, genius, how does the power work when he’s wearing a glove in every panel? He’s still not touching her directly! And I swear if you ever respond to any of this and try to use “unstable molecules” as your excuse…

I reviewed Thunderbolts #100 earlier this week. I got an email from Justin today–he’s a long suffering reader of the T-Bolts who has had enough. After that ending, after seeing two people with no previous emotional attachment flaunt their sudden romance over the grave of someone one of the parties apparently had feelings for in stories past, he’s moving on. He is spending $2.99 a month on something else. Maybe Civil War? Perhaps the new Blue Beetle? The choice is his. And while I applaud Justin for moving on and voting with his wallet, I’m somewhat afraid. It’s the fear that keeps me from dropping this garbage. It’s not the fear of a sudden toilet paper shortage, the Fabian runs will keep my bum clean and supple for months. it’s the fear that if I don’t buy it Marvel won’t FIX it, they’ll just CANCEL it.

I’ve had so many books I really enjoyed die quick deaths. Granted most of them were at DC: Xero, Young Heroes In Love, Resurrection Man, Chase. But it’d be my luck that the first month I skip Thunderbolts, it’ll get whacked like a goodfella. So I buy it and I hope that eventually Troy Hickman or Gail Simone will get the assignment. Or somebody new, with a fresh perspective and an appreciation for the spirit and quality Busiek imparted on this team of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

I don’t fear change. I fear change for change sake. Thunderbolts has been twisted and yanked around over and over because Fabian basically has nothing to say. The build up to #100 and the milestone chapter didn’t do anything but kill a character he squashed any interest in long ago. The sudden budding romance doesn’t mean anything. It’ll probably disappear as fast as it appeared. Fabian Nicieza is done. Any energy he leeched from Kurt Busiek–twice now–has faded. It’s the responsibility of his handlers to either hit him with the paddles–CLEAR!–or declare his run dead, mark the time, pull the sheet up and start again. It’s up to Tom Brevoort and his editorial staff to steer the Thunderbolts ship away from the rocks and back to the deep blue seas of success.

Or is it? What exactly does Team Brevoort do? Thunderbolts isn’t their only book and it’s not the only one with problems. Next week, I’ll try to figure out what’s going on in the Brevoort offices.

Until then I’m sitting hear with my guts churning over a terribly difficult decision. Do I buy Thunderbolts #101? Is Justin right? Is it time to jump off the sinking ship before it comes to rest on Namor’s doorstep? Or do I keep reading Fabian’s methodical disembowelment of the team that proudly held down Fortress America for the Avengers? Do I robotically hand over my $2.99 for another bitter disappointment? I won’t know until next month, and I’ll be sick to my stomach until then.

Welcome to my nightmare.