THUNDERBOLTS: FAITH IN MONSTERS TPBCOLLECTING: "Thunderbolts" #110-115, "Thunderbolts: Desperate Measures", and select stories from "Civil War: Choosing Sides" and "The Initiative".
MAIN STORY: Warren Ellis
MAIN ARTIST: Mike Deodato, Jr.
MAIN COLORS: Rainier Beredo
MAIN LETTERS: RS & Comicraft's Albert Deschesne
MAIN COVERS: Marko Djurdjevic
I decided to read "Faith In Monsters" again (I've read it probably three times already) thanks to playing "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2" so much I'm hearing Green Goblin's laugh when I close my eyes at night; seriously, playing as The Thunderbolts characters (Goblin, Venom, Songbird, & Penance) is great fun. The game provided an excellent voice cast, which I now hear as I read their lines in the book itself, especially Songbird's as it was dead-on. Anyway, the review...
For those that were late to the party, let me sum-up how "Thunderbolts" came to be: The team was originally The Masters of Evil disguised as all-new Superheroes, who emerged during a time The Avengers and Fantastic Four had disappeared. Of the original line-up, only Songbird (the former Screaming Mimi) and Radioactive Man (not the guy from "The Simpsons") remain. "Civil War" happened, in which Iron Man's side won, forcing the Superhero Registration Act upon the U.S.; basically, if you want to be a Superhero and fight crime legally, you have to register with the Government, get proper training, and become more-or-less a "Super-Cop" and are stationed wherever the hell they want to put you. During all of this, The Thunderbolts took the concept of villains-as-heroes to a new level, FORCING captured Supervillains to hunt-down Unregistered Superheroes, and in return after a year's service they get a million-dollars, a new I.D. and a ticket out of the Country. Not a bad deal, really.
We begin our story with Bullseye being interviewed/interrogated by who we quickly discover is Tommy Lee Jones - I mean, Norman Osborn...
Someone likes their Photo-References...
MAIN STORY: Warren Ellis
MAIN ARTIST: Mike Deodato, Jr.
MAIN COLORS: Rainier Beredo
MAIN LETTERS: RS & Comicraft's Albert Deschesne
MAIN COVERS: Marko Djurdjevic
I decided to read "Faith In Monsters" again (I've read it probably three times already) thanks to playing "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2" so much I'm hearing Green Goblin's laugh when I close my eyes at night; seriously, playing as The Thunderbolts characters (Goblin, Venom, Songbird, & Penance) is great fun. The game provided an excellent voice cast, which I now hear as I read their lines in the book itself, especially Songbird's as it was dead-on. Anyway, the review...
For those that were late to the party, let me sum-up how "Thunderbolts" came to be: The team was originally The Masters of Evil disguised as all-new Superheroes, who emerged during a time The Avengers and Fantastic Four had disappeared. Of the original line-up, only Songbird (the former Screaming Mimi) and Radioactive Man (not the guy from "The Simpsons") remain. "Civil War" happened, in which Iron Man's side won, forcing the Superhero Registration Act upon the U.S.; basically, if you want to be a Superhero and fight crime legally, you have to register with the Government, get proper training, and become more-or-less a "Super-Cop" and are stationed wherever the hell they want to put you. During all of this, The Thunderbolts took the concept of villains-as-heroes to a new level, FORCING captured Supervillains to hunt-down Unregistered Superheroes, and in return after a year's service they get a million-dollars, a new I.D. and a ticket out of the Country. Not a bad deal, really.
We begin our story with Bullseye being interviewed/interrogated by who we quickly discover is Tommy Lee Jones - I mean, Norman Osborn...
Someone likes their Photo-References...Osborn quickly puts the fear of Goblin into Bullseye, making him well-aware of the "Nanochain" that was injected into his body: The T-Bolts get outta line, they get a paralysis-inducing shock. We then get a nice flashback to when Bulls WAS paralyzed, lying on a hospital bed with a VERY pissed-off Daredevil (Bullseye kinda murdered his girlfriend) pointing a gun at his face. So yeah, he doesn't want to be there, again.
Now segue to Cleveland, Ohio and the home of Jack Flag and his girlfriend Lucy. Jack had a moment in the sun as one of Captain America's many hanger-ons, but now he's trying to make a point by purposefully not registering because Cap, his hero, refused to as well. Naturally, this leads to him putting on his mask to stop a gang of potential-rapists, which of course draws the attention of a certain group of Hero-Hunters. The Thunderbolts board their plane, the Zeus, and head to Cleveland. There's a great break in the action to showcase just how out of control everything has gotten, by showing us a "commercial" for Thunderbolts action-figures; children use their plastic Venom & Co. to attack "terrorist masked-man" Captain America, complete with screaming voice-chip (nice touch).
Venom's About To Eat Jack Flag!
As the team arrives, Jack Flag is waiting for them. The whole battle goes to hell as new team-leader Moonstone does a terrible job giving orders, and Flag proceeds to show-up his attackers with style for a few minutes. Soon enough, Venom goes nuts and tries to EAT Jack Flag, prompting Moonstone to zap him with his Nanochain. Flag almost gets away if not for the cloaked Bullseye, used only in case of emergencies, who sneaks-up behind Jack and stabs him through the spine, paralyzing him. Bad karma, Bullseye...do unto others and all that, Mr. I'm-Scared-Of-Being-Broken. So anyway, Jack gets beat-on some more by a crazed Swordsman (son of Nazi criminal Baron Von Strucker), while Norman sits in his office and starts mixing his meds in ways he probably shouldn't. I'm certain he'll be fine, though.
Next-up, we learn Moonstone wanted to hurry the mission up so she could get back to Thunderbolts Mountain for some casual sex with a dock-worker, which Songbird calls her out on in front of everyone (Osborn's "Oh, really?" is classic). We also see Osborn's personal time with Radioactive Man (they made him get a new costume because people thought he was LEAKING radiation) and Venom, where poor Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion, reveals the Venom-symbiote is starting to take more and more control; some days he hates it, other days he wonders how he ever lived without it. Bullseye coughs-up some more blather about wanting to kill everyone, which he DOES but...we know, Bulls. We know. Following that, we get some quick introductions to three Unregistered Superheroes: Jillian Woods AKA Shadowoman, Jason Strongbow AKA American Eagle, and Ollie Osnick AKA Steel-Spider...uh-oh about that last one. Sure enough, we cut to Norman Osborn going-over his list of Unregistered's, and the name Steel-Spider is looking more and more like "Spider-Man" each time Norman reads it. The former Green Goblin begins to laugh as only Supervillains do...
PENANCE
After following Steel-Spider around for a minute and discovering that vigilantism is pretty much all he's got to live for, we get another personal moment as Norman speaks with Penance AKA Robbie Baldwin, who used to go by the name Speedball; the event that kicked-off "Civil War" was in fact Speedball and his New Warriors teammates being horribly-careless and being partially responsible for the deaths of 612 people. Robbie has become a severely-Emo "cutter", and wears his Penance armor (which has 612 spikes on the inside that constantly stab him) to both get his fix of the good-hurt, and help release his super-powers which can now only be triggered by pain. Oh, and of course this constant torture is supposed to make-up for his part in killing all those people. I'm guessing Robbie likes "Twilight", too. Swordsman gets his own facetime with Osborn, where it's revealed he's serving The Thunderbolts in return for a clone of his dead sister; Andreas & Andrea Von Strucker, mutant twins, can only activate each-other's powers by making physical contact. That's not extremely creepy, or anything. To drive the point home, Swordsman happens to wrap the hilt of his sword with the SKIN of his dead sister so he can still use his powers, but the rest of the team makes note that it's probably a bit more than that. Gross.
Moonstone and Swordsman make deals behind the scenes to sabotage everything they both hate, including Osborn and Songbird, to help further their personal goals of being the Director of The T-Bolts (which Osborn is) and cloned sister-love, respectively. Meanwhile, Shadowoman, American Eagle, and Steel-Spider all happen to bump into each other for various reasons not really important enough to mention; what matters is that The Thunderbolts arrive, and per-usual, everything blows-up in their faces. American Eagle kicks things off by shooting a freakin' harpoon through Moonstone's wrist, taking her out of the fight immediately. Steel-Spider does really well for himself, while Shadowoman barely puts-up a fight against Venom, so Eagle bails her out and more-or-less gets a future Booty-Call in return. Good on you, Jason Strongbow. Songbird and Radioactive Man, tired of the crazed psychopaths ruining their vision of the team, decide to help put a stop to it: Secretly contacting Bullseye, Songbird convinces him that his Nanochain has been disabled, and he proceeds to brutally-murder his two handlers and go after American Eagle.
American Eagle Slapping Bullseye Around
Silver-Spider continues to fight-off Swordsman and Venom, but after taking-down Radioactive Man, Venom has had about enough and BITES OFF HIS GODDAMN ARM AND EATS IT. Shadowoman and American Eagle get the hell outta there after seeing their buddy get ripped apart, however, Bullseye is waiting for Eagle in an alleyway. Unexpectedly, Eagle beats the living shit out of Bullseye, and to make matters worse for the killer, T-Bolts HQ just got word he "escaped" and fires his Nanochain, and while he's still being electrocuted, American Eagle super-punches him in the face and snaps his neck! Hey, Bulls...I told you so. Shadowoman takes a job as an International Bodyguard to get safely out of the Country, while Eagle gets a pass since he's the Official Protector for his Navajo Reservation, and was only caught in the middle of a T-Bolts arrest. Steel-Spider's a wreck, naturally, but imprisoned anyway. The arc ends with Osborn and a Doctor discussing Bullseye's condition, being that there hadn't been any data before about someone being simultaniously electrocuted and punched by someone with super-strength; in theory he could recover, but currently Bulls is catatonic, paralyzed, and unable to speak. Karma friggin' sucks, huh?
The other included stories feature a Bullseye/Penance team-up (Norman hopes they both kill each other or otherwise perish) where they battle AmeriCop, another murderous vigilante. Bulls ends-up having to snap Penance's arm to get him to unleash enough power to fry AmeriCop's brain (no big loss), and after a scolding, Robbie teaches Osborn a lesson about just how much control he has over his powers by destroying a $17 million-dollar piece of Norman's personal equipment, to which Osborn replies "He's showing potential!" The next reveals Venom's murdering a group of Agents that came to arrest him, and then going ahead with his surrender and joining the T-Bolts. Why did Venom bother to kill the Agents, then? His publicist told him his stock would rise if the body-count also did right before his capture. Good call. Finally, we're shown the original introduction of the new team as they hunt and kick the ass of a shlub named The Hurricane (no, not Helms!) in pretty rare, competent manner. Basically serving to show you each Thunderbolt individually use their powers on the poor guy, and then huddle for the cliche Group Pose! GO TEAM!!!
ALL-IN-ALL: I love Supervillains, and reading stories about them hunting-down D-list Superheros while they in-fight, plot against each other, and either fail miserably or go to extremes such as EATING SOMEONE'S ARM makes me smile endlessly. Perhaps that means I'm disturbed, but I don't care..."Thunderbolts" is a concept I can never, ever get tired of, especially when it features characters like Osborn, Venom, and Bullseye, with Songbird trying to redeem herself amidst these horrible, horrible people.
Warren Ellis knows how to write these kind of people perfectly; from Norman's absolutely maniacal dialogue and subsequent slipping back into Goblin-form, to Moonstone's arrogant manipulations, to Venom's struggle to do his job WITHOUT always having to eat somebody, and of course Songbird's constant having to watch her back and attempt to do the right thing while almost everyone else works against her. Ellis is probably my all-time favorite writer (this week), showing he can do everything from side-splitting black comedy (pretty much anything Osborn says), to drama (Jack Flag's insistance on doing what's right despite his girlfriend's worry), to horror (Venom and Bullseye), and of course all-out action. Admittedly, his characterization of women CAN be a tad distracting sometimes, such as anything involving Shadowoman; we're introduced to her after she's had a one-nighter with a dude she didn't even know the name of, which is fine, but that aspect of her character just keeps happening in inappropriate places such as when she blatantly picks-up on American Eagle in the middle of a huge fight. I had never heard of Shadowoman previous to reading "Thunderbolts", so I have zero idea if she's supposed to come-off as an insatiable hoe-bag, but I kept having to re-read her dialogue to make sure it was as cheesy as originally thought...and it was. Again, this could totally be on purpose since Ellis does do that sort of thing, but it feels out of place, here. Moonstone also comes-off a bit forced sometimes, just how BAD she is and how much she LOVES being evil, but I guess it's just a more over-the-top presentation of her character. However Songbird, as you can tell, has become one of my favorite female comic book characters, and it's all thanks to Warren Ellis, who with her proves he can write a great female voice.
Mike Deodato, Jr. is an incredible artist; everything looks detailed enough but also pulled-back enough to both look modern, and retain a classic-comic book feel to it. He can draw whatever the hell Ellis comes-up with, ranging from the inner-workings of Thunderbolts Mountain to a massive fight-scene with exploding cars, alien symbiotes flailing about, and Steel-Spider and his six arms shooting multiple kinds of weapons. He's the goods. One thing that only slightly takes away from Deodato's art is the goddamn face of Tommy Lee Jones he has given to Norman Osborn; it's obviously not that big a deal, as either the artist himself, Ellis, or whoever decided that TLJ was in fact born to be Osborn, but I've had a voice for Norman since the 90's "Spider-Man" animated series. Every time I read him in "Thunderbolts", occasionally that voice transforms into Tommy's, and hey...that can only lead to Bullseye sounding like Will Smith in my head, and I just don't need that in my life right now.
The back-up stories range from "Pretty-OK" to "Well, whatever". Lenil Yu provides some of the WORST pencils I've seen from him on the Venom story, where everyone that isn't Venom looks utterly amature or flat-out terrible. And it's only a four-page story. Marc Silvestri turned-in his most 90's-looking artwork he's done since, uhm...the 90's, but it's a throw-away story anyway so I'm sure his full attention wasn't given. The Bullseye/Penance tale is the best of the three, easily, if only because we get to see the duo pal-around in a motorcycle w/ sidecar. Greatness.
THE GRADE: For providing me with the best kind of sadistic entertainment (that's legal and doesn't involve a partner, anyway), "Thunderbolts: Faith In Monsters" receives:
FOUR OUT OF FIVE SLIGHTLY-DAZED WARREN ELLIS HEADS!!!
Now can you imagine how many I'd give "Nextwave"? Like, eleventy-zillion. Perhaps more.
Now segue to Cleveland, Ohio and the home of Jack Flag and his girlfriend Lucy. Jack had a moment in the sun as one of Captain America's many hanger-ons, but now he's trying to make a point by purposefully not registering because Cap, his hero, refused to as well. Naturally, this leads to him putting on his mask to stop a gang of potential-rapists, which of course draws the attention of a certain group of Hero-Hunters. The Thunderbolts board their plane, the Zeus, and head to Cleveland. There's a great break in the action to showcase just how out of control everything has gotten, by showing us a "commercial" for Thunderbolts action-figures; children use their plastic Venom & Co. to attack "terrorist masked-man" Captain America, complete with screaming voice-chip (nice touch).
Venom's About To Eat Jack Flag! As the team arrives, Jack Flag is waiting for them. The whole battle goes to hell as new team-leader Moonstone does a terrible job giving orders, and Flag proceeds to show-up his attackers with style for a few minutes. Soon enough, Venom goes nuts and tries to EAT Jack Flag, prompting Moonstone to zap him with his Nanochain. Flag almost gets away if not for the cloaked Bullseye, used only in case of emergencies, who sneaks-up behind Jack and stabs him through the spine, paralyzing him. Bad karma, Bullseye...do unto others and all that, Mr. I'm-Scared-Of-Being-Broken. So anyway, Jack gets beat-on some more by a crazed Swordsman (son of Nazi criminal Baron Von Strucker), while Norman sits in his office and starts mixing his meds in ways he probably shouldn't. I'm certain he'll be fine, though.
Next-up, we learn Moonstone wanted to hurry the mission up so she could get back to Thunderbolts Mountain for some casual sex with a dock-worker, which Songbird calls her out on in front of everyone (Osborn's "Oh, really?" is classic). We also see Osborn's personal time with Radioactive Man (they made him get a new costume because people thought he was LEAKING radiation) and Venom, where poor Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion, reveals the Venom-symbiote is starting to take more and more control; some days he hates it, other days he wonders how he ever lived without it. Bullseye coughs-up some more blather about wanting to kill everyone, which he DOES but...we know, Bulls. We know. Following that, we get some quick introductions to three Unregistered Superheroes: Jillian Woods AKA Shadowoman, Jason Strongbow AKA American Eagle, and Ollie Osnick AKA Steel-Spider...uh-oh about that last one. Sure enough, we cut to Norman Osborn going-over his list of Unregistered's, and the name Steel-Spider is looking more and more like "Spider-Man" each time Norman reads it. The former Green Goblin begins to laugh as only Supervillains do...
PENANCEAfter following Steel-Spider around for a minute and discovering that vigilantism is pretty much all he's got to live for, we get another personal moment as Norman speaks with Penance AKA Robbie Baldwin, who used to go by the name Speedball; the event that kicked-off "Civil War" was in fact Speedball and his New Warriors teammates being horribly-careless and being partially responsible for the deaths of 612 people. Robbie has become a severely-Emo "cutter", and wears his Penance armor (which has 612 spikes on the inside that constantly stab him) to both get his fix of the good-hurt, and help release his super-powers which can now only be triggered by pain. Oh, and of course this constant torture is supposed to make-up for his part in killing all those people. I'm guessing Robbie likes "Twilight", too. Swordsman gets his own facetime with Osborn, where it's revealed he's serving The Thunderbolts in return for a clone of his dead sister; Andreas & Andrea Von Strucker, mutant twins, can only activate each-other's powers by making physical contact. That's not extremely creepy, or anything. To drive the point home, Swordsman happens to wrap the hilt of his sword with the SKIN of his dead sister so he can still use his powers, but the rest of the team makes note that it's probably a bit more than that. Gross.
Moonstone and Swordsman make deals behind the scenes to sabotage everything they both hate, including Osborn and Songbird, to help further their personal goals of being the Director of The T-Bolts (which Osborn is) and cloned sister-love, respectively. Meanwhile, Shadowoman, American Eagle, and Steel-Spider all happen to bump into each other for various reasons not really important enough to mention; what matters is that The Thunderbolts arrive, and per-usual, everything blows-up in their faces. American Eagle kicks things off by shooting a freakin' harpoon through Moonstone's wrist, taking her out of the fight immediately. Steel-Spider does really well for himself, while Shadowoman barely puts-up a fight against Venom, so Eagle bails her out and more-or-less gets a future Booty-Call in return. Good on you, Jason Strongbow. Songbird and Radioactive Man, tired of the crazed psychopaths ruining their vision of the team, decide to help put a stop to it: Secretly contacting Bullseye, Songbird convinces him that his Nanochain has been disabled, and he proceeds to brutally-murder his two handlers and go after American Eagle.
American Eagle Slapping Bullseye AroundSilver-Spider continues to fight-off Swordsman and Venom, but after taking-down Radioactive Man, Venom has had about enough and BITES OFF HIS GODDAMN ARM AND EATS IT. Shadowoman and American Eagle get the hell outta there after seeing their buddy get ripped apart, however, Bullseye is waiting for Eagle in an alleyway. Unexpectedly, Eagle beats the living shit out of Bullseye, and to make matters worse for the killer, T-Bolts HQ just got word he "escaped" and fires his Nanochain, and while he's still being electrocuted, American Eagle super-punches him in the face and snaps his neck! Hey, Bulls...I told you so. Shadowoman takes a job as an International Bodyguard to get safely out of the Country, while Eagle gets a pass since he's the Official Protector for his Navajo Reservation, and was only caught in the middle of a T-Bolts arrest. Steel-Spider's a wreck, naturally, but imprisoned anyway. The arc ends with Osborn and a Doctor discussing Bullseye's condition, being that there hadn't been any data before about someone being simultaniously electrocuted and punched by someone with super-strength; in theory he could recover, but currently Bulls is catatonic, paralyzed, and unable to speak. Karma friggin' sucks, huh?
The other included stories feature a Bullseye/Penance team-up (Norman hopes they both kill each other or otherwise perish) where they battle AmeriCop, another murderous vigilante. Bulls ends-up having to snap Penance's arm to get him to unleash enough power to fry AmeriCop's brain (no big loss), and after a scolding, Robbie teaches Osborn a lesson about just how much control he has over his powers by destroying a $17 million-dollar piece of Norman's personal equipment, to which Osborn replies "He's showing potential!" The next reveals Venom's murdering a group of Agents that came to arrest him, and then going ahead with his surrender and joining the T-Bolts. Why did Venom bother to kill the Agents, then? His publicist told him his stock would rise if the body-count also did right before his capture. Good call. Finally, we're shown the original introduction of the new team as they hunt and kick the ass of a shlub named The Hurricane (no, not Helms!) in pretty rare, competent manner. Basically serving to show you each Thunderbolt individually use their powers on the poor guy, and then huddle for the cliche Group Pose! GO TEAM!!!
ALL-IN-ALL: I love Supervillains, and reading stories about them hunting-down D-list Superheros while they in-fight, plot against each other, and either fail miserably or go to extremes such as EATING SOMEONE'S ARM makes me smile endlessly. Perhaps that means I'm disturbed, but I don't care..."Thunderbolts" is a concept I can never, ever get tired of, especially when it features characters like Osborn, Venom, and Bullseye, with Songbird trying to redeem herself amidst these horrible, horrible people.
Warren Ellis knows how to write these kind of people perfectly; from Norman's absolutely maniacal dialogue and subsequent slipping back into Goblin-form, to Moonstone's arrogant manipulations, to Venom's struggle to do his job WITHOUT always having to eat somebody, and of course Songbird's constant having to watch her back and attempt to do the right thing while almost everyone else works against her. Ellis is probably my all-time favorite writer (this week), showing he can do everything from side-splitting black comedy (pretty much anything Osborn says), to drama (Jack Flag's insistance on doing what's right despite his girlfriend's worry), to horror (Venom and Bullseye), and of course all-out action. Admittedly, his characterization of women CAN be a tad distracting sometimes, such as anything involving Shadowoman; we're introduced to her after she's had a one-nighter with a dude she didn't even know the name of, which is fine, but that aspect of her character just keeps happening in inappropriate places such as when she blatantly picks-up on American Eagle in the middle of a huge fight. I had never heard of Shadowoman previous to reading "Thunderbolts", so I have zero idea if she's supposed to come-off as an insatiable hoe-bag, but I kept having to re-read her dialogue to make sure it was as cheesy as originally thought...and it was. Again, this could totally be on purpose since Ellis does do that sort of thing, but it feels out of place, here. Moonstone also comes-off a bit forced sometimes, just how BAD she is and how much she LOVES being evil, but I guess it's just a more over-the-top presentation of her character. However Songbird, as you can tell, has become one of my favorite female comic book characters, and it's all thanks to Warren Ellis, who with her proves he can write a great female voice.
Mike Deodato, Jr. is an incredible artist; everything looks detailed enough but also pulled-back enough to both look modern, and retain a classic-comic book feel to it. He can draw whatever the hell Ellis comes-up with, ranging from the inner-workings of Thunderbolts Mountain to a massive fight-scene with exploding cars, alien symbiotes flailing about, and Steel-Spider and his six arms shooting multiple kinds of weapons. He's the goods. One thing that only slightly takes away from Deodato's art is the goddamn face of Tommy Lee Jones he has given to Norman Osborn; it's obviously not that big a deal, as either the artist himself, Ellis, or whoever decided that TLJ was in fact born to be Osborn, but I've had a voice for Norman since the 90's "Spider-Man" animated series. Every time I read him in "Thunderbolts", occasionally that voice transforms into Tommy's, and hey...that can only lead to Bullseye sounding like Will Smith in my head, and I just don't need that in my life right now.
The back-up stories range from "Pretty-OK" to "Well, whatever". Lenil Yu provides some of the WORST pencils I've seen from him on the Venom story, where everyone that isn't Venom looks utterly amature or flat-out terrible. And it's only a four-page story. Marc Silvestri turned-in his most 90's-looking artwork he's done since, uhm...the 90's, but it's a throw-away story anyway so I'm sure his full attention wasn't given. The Bullseye/Penance tale is the best of the three, easily, if only because we get to see the duo pal-around in a motorcycle w/ sidecar. Greatness.
THE GRADE: For providing me with the best kind of sadistic entertainment (that's legal and doesn't involve a partner, anyway), "Thunderbolts: Faith In Monsters" receives:
Now can you imagine how many I'd give "Nextwave"? Like, eleventy-zillion. Perhaps more.
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