Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo: Born Better (4 of 4)
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Pencils: Tom Grummett
Inks: Gary Erskine
Colours: Sotocolor’s J.Brown
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
The Long of It
Last week I had yet another week off from my reviews (Quelle surprise, I hear you collectively say in your worst Inspector Clouseau French accents), but this time I had a real reason. Sadly I was attending the funeral of my grandmother. We had been pretty close, and in fact I lived with her for a year, so unsurprisingly I had neither the time nor inclination to worry about anything else last weekend. Sorry, but there ya go.
However, in the meantime, I’ve started something a little different. From now on, I’ll be doing The Long and Short Of It on a request basis. If there’s anything you want me to review, then get along to the Forums, find the relevant thread, and make the request. Then, the idea I like the most will get picked and that’ll be my week’s review. If you’re not already hanging about in the Forums anyway, you should be. So get there straight after you’ve finished reading this. This week’s winning suggestion comes from A_Faceless_Name, who suggested ‘When it comes out the “Zemo Born Better” trade, or even issue 4 this week.’ And since I’m allergic to trades, it’d better be Issue 4. The reason I chose this over other suggestions is pretty simple. Redemption. Since I absolutely butchered one of Fabian Nicieza’s last issues on Thunderbolts, and I’ve given the series itself a chance to hit back with Warren Ellis, I thought it was only fair to let Fabe do the same. Particularly as he’s taken the rest of the main creative team (Grummett and Erskine) along with him. So, here we go with The Long and Short Of It for Zemo: Born Better.
Firstly, I should say that there is no need (thankfully for you if, like me, you’re not so keen on having brain haemorrhages) for you to have read the last few issues of Fabe’s run on T-Bolts for this book to make sense. It’s not overly continuity-heavy. All you need to know is that Baron Helmut Zemo has been thrown into the time-stream, and is desperate to get back to his own time. And he does so in periodic jumps along the timeline of his own genetic lineage. The Barony of Zemo.
Secondly, for those of you that didn’t read my review of Thunderbolts #108, it wasn’t pretty. Phrases such as ‘This book creeps in through your eyes, and takes a dump on your cerebral cortex.’ and ‘It’s like watching a junkie try and find that first high again, only to fall face down in the gutter in a puddle of his own vomit.’ were used. So as far as I was concerned, Fabian’s and the team’s last outing with the good Baron wasn’t exactly blazing a trail for good comics. It was a mess. And since I’ve always kinda liked Nicieza, it hurt me to say that.
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This series has been a redemption for both Zemo and Nicieza. |
So I’m now pleasantly surprised to be able to say that Fabe’s found his Zemojo again. This book reads just fine. It’s about the continuing development of Baron Zemo’s character since he actually started believing his own hype and found that he quite liked being a hero, and didn’t want to be remembered as the man who organised the Masters of Evil siege of Avengers Mansion back in the mid-80s. He continues this personal revelation by comparing his life with that of the previous Barons Zemo, and finds them all wanting. And it works. OK, so it’s not Books of Doom, but then Zemo has a lot less material than Vic. It’s still a solid character piece, with some strong dialogue, and a good understanding of the Zemo persona. So this series has been a redemption for both Zemo and Nicieza.
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I don’t think the art on this helps at all in having this book taken seriously. It looks like a far worse book than it is. |
What about for Grummett and Erskine? Last time I said that Grummett ‘makes everybody look lumpy; like their muscles are made of cold porridge.. So what about now? Yup. Sadly still the same. It’s just cheap, basic pencilling with no sophistication whatsoever, and without the charm of similarly basic pencillers like Scott Kolins. It also isn’t helped by Erskine’s inking, which is too black and white (if that’s not too ironic a statement). He has no subtlety in shading. He either seems to follows the pencil lines completely if the shading should be light, or just plaster ink all over if it’s darker. I don’t think the art on this helps at all in having this book taken seriously. It looks like a far worse book than it is. And that is a real shame.
The Short of It
Fabian Nicieza has regained his credibility with at least one of the characters from the dreadful last days of his run on Thunderbolts. A thoroughly readable tale of redemption for both Zemo and Nicieza himself. Sadly his cohorts in Grummett and Erskine are apparently irredeemable, but without the snazzy ant-suit that the word usually indicates.
Grade: C A solid B-grade for the writing, but since it comes with D-grade art I’ve got to split the difference.
