Dark Avengers #182 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Neil Edwards (pencils), Terry Pallot (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors)

The Story: Thunderbolts versus the Dark Avengers = Michael Jackson versus Justin Bieber.

The Review: Much as we claim to prefer surprises and spontaneity in our lives, I’m guessing that in reality, we’d hate it if the real world was that unpredictable.  The random weekend trip or birthday party at work aside, I think most of us would be perfectly content if more things went the way we expect them to.  The one place where we will never enjoy predictability is in our fiction.  Lord forgive the story where you can guess what’ll happen next, without much effort.

Unfortunately, Dark Avengers doesn’t have a prayer left.  Last month, probably like most of you, I saw Boss Cage’s turnaround coming from a mile away, and once that happened, I knew the Thunderbolts coming back to the present day to kick their replacements’ butts and save the world from a semi-hypothetical dystopian future was guaranteed.  It’s one of those situations where I’m actually a little sad to be proven correct (and believe me, I love being right).

Dark Avengers #181 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Neil Edwards (pencils), Terry Pallot (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors)

The Story: We solved all our energy problems and the world’s still ending anyway.  Figures.

The Review: I just caught wind of the upcoming, new Thunderbolts series, which will feature an entirely different cast and set of creators.  While I certainly understand the promise of putting a major badass in charge of some of the most recognizable Marvel antiheroes, I simply think the idea has been tried and tested in Uncanny X-Force.  Besides, I seriously doubt the replacements will be nearly as much fun as the current crew.

Maybe I should amend that last bit and say, “nearly as much fun as the current crew used to be.”  Once upon a time, I looked forward to this series each month because I could depend on it to provide a solid, entertaining read.  Ever since it got rebranded, the energy and personality of the series has steadily declined until it has now become this bloated, overdone mass of inert chaos.

Dark Avengers #180 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Neil Edwards (pencils), Terry Pallot (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colors)

The Story: Boss Cage better hope there’s a generous retirement package waiting for him.

The Review: I’ve made it kind of a maxim here that it doesn’t matter so much what the story is; it’s all about the execution.  I guess I neglected to mention that the story still matters; if you’re working off of weak material, the execution will suffer proportionately.  Parker’s work ever since this title became Dark Avengers must be the first time I’m experiencing a case where his execution is solid, but he’s just not telling a story worth hearing.

Even looking just at the Thunderbolts issues I reviewed, you felt a stronger investment there than here.  Part of the reason was at the time, Parker only had to write these time-traveling two-issue arcs, so he didn’t really have any loftier aim than to have fun and entertain.  Then, too, we had a tighter cast to focus on, so we had more time to listen to them argue and banter, again all for the sake of fun and entertainment.

Dark Avengers #179 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Gabriel Hernandez Walta & Kev Walker (art), Frank Martin Jr. (colors)

The Story: The Thunderbolts find a future not worth fighting for.

The Review: Lately, I’ve started to notice that this title is getting to be one of the harder ones to review week after week.  On the one hand, Parker always manages to deliver a technically solid issue with plenty of stuff going on, and he never writes anything that’s outright bad.  On the other hand, he doesn’t write anything all that remarkable either.  Sometimes I’ll read an entire issue of Dark Avengers (formerly Thunderbolts) and enjoy it, but forget all about it afterwards.

Maybe it has something to do with the cast of mostly C-listers, but I tend not to think so.  After all, Secret Six was composed entirely on nobodies, yet I followed their adventures with total devotion every month, while I sort of just breeze through this series.  No, I think what’s really missing from the book is a total dearth of character arcs.  To date, I still haven’t gotten a sense of change or growth from any of the Thunderbolts.  They proceed through all their adventures with a lot of enthusiasm, but they don’t come out of them any different than they started.

Dark Avengers #178 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Kev Walker & Declan Shalvey (art), Frank Martin Jr. (colors)

The Story: Invasion of the Dark Avengers!  The Future of the Thunderbolts!

The Review: You have to wonder why, of all the titles Marvel puts out, Dark Avengers now gets a twice monthly release.  It may be a solid series, but it’s not as if there was a huge demographic of readers demanding a double dose of it.  More likely than not, this schedule will keep on so long as the team itself continues to be split in two, requiring two issues to give a month’s worth of sufficient coverage to their exploits.

And while I don’t have any problem with that as a rule, it does feel a bit irritating having to divide your attention between two completely separate plotlines that have seemingly nothing to do with each other.  You really come away from the issue feeling like you’re reading two different titles in one—namely, a respectable Thunderbolts adventure and a just-slightly-north-of-dull Dark Avengers mission.

Dark Avengers #177 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Kev Walker & Declan Shalvey (art), Frank Martin Jr. & Antonia Fabela (colors)

The Story: Doctor Doom learns that when you want something done right…

The Review: If you hang out with me long enough, you’ll learn that I am a horrible creature of habit.  Once I get used to a certain routine, it takes a near miracle for me to break out of it, even when I really want to change.  On that note, I completely missed seeing this title on the stands last week because, I can only suppose, that the subconscious part of my brain that recognizes comics for pick up still had Thunderbolts inscribed on it.

(As further evidence of my habit-forming ways, I’ll add that this week I bought an issue of Supergirl even though I Dropped the series last month.  For what it’s worth: repetitive, doesn’t play into its potential, forced romantic overtones, and okay art.  Snap judgment grade: C.)

Dark Avengers #176 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Declan Shalvey (art) Frank Martin Jr. (colors)

The Story: Remember to set your watches forward some million years, everyone!

The Review: No judgments, but I’m a pretty devoted fan of Cougar Town.  Terrible name, isn’t it?  As it so happens, most of the people working on that show agree, especially considering the premise has long evolved from being a show about Courtney Cox chasing after young bucks and turned into one about a bunch of suburbanites doing silly things.  Clearly, Cougar Town doesn’t do a thing to reflect the series anymore, so there’s merit to the idea of changing the name.

Not so here.  Sure, the title has added a few former Dark Avengers to the cast, but the premise of a team of rehabilitated/coerced villains remains the same, as does the tone and main protagonists.  In most everything but name, you have the same book you read two months ago.  The name change, therefore, seems less like an extension of the change in status quo, and more like a craven attempt to cash in on the “Avengers” brand to sell an otherwise cult favorite-type series.

Thunderbolts #174 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (story), Declan Shalvey (art), Frank Martin Jr. (colors)

The Story: Centurius discovers the secrets of hair growth, to Fixer’s benefit.

The Review: Time-traveling is a messy business, not just within a story, but for storytelling purposes in general.  As much fun as all that period-hopping can be, they usually tend to implode upon themselves, meaning they rarely result in major changes in the status quo.  Frequently, the necessity of preserving continuity (and not ruin things for other writers) means whatever happens, once everyone gets back to their proper time, things are pretty much as they should be.

Last issue delivered a fairly significant twist, a breach of time-traveling protocol so severe that you felt there was no way anyone could escape the consequences.  How does one get away with flat-out killing a person of such influence before their time, particularly when that person is one’s very own self?  Yet despite this, the Thunderbolts do manage to patch things up in the end—which is a tad disappointing, admittedly, but they take some interesting steps to get there.

Thunderbolts #169 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Kev Wacker (penciller), Terry Pallot (inker), Frank Martin Jr. (colorist)

The Story: The Thunderbolts arrive in Camelot to prove that chivalry is, in fact, dead.

The Review: While liking a character (or characters) isn’t always necessary for a piece of fiction’s success, it sure does help.  If you can at least empathize with the protagonists to a sufficient degree, you’re willing to follow along with them through most things, even less than inspired storylines.  In the case of the Thunderbolts, they’re actually very easy to like, so at times the plot feels quite secondary to their character work.

For one thing, you can’t help liking the ‘bolts because they project more of a hapless quality rather than overt evil or malice.  Whereas DC’s Secret Six went out looking for trouble, the Thunderbolts seem like they just fall into situations where misunderstanding leads to their bad behavior.  Take this issue.  The whole conflict arises essentially because Troll hears what she thinks are the sounds of Norsmen and attacks accordingly, only to discover it’s the Black Knight.  Unfortunately, she lacks the ability to express her chagrin, and so the row goes on.

On the other hand, sometimes the team really does bring trouble upon themselves, though less out of desire than sheer stubbornness, as in the case of Boomerang.  Though he proudly claims himself a “bad guy,” his actions here seem more like those of an “idiot,” as Fixer calls him.  You know the old joke about whether someone’s brave or stupid?  Boomer lives the joke, insisting on keeping an enchanted sword, even in the face of a legendary king, his many knights, and wizard.

Hopefully he gets a clue that just because he’s got electric boomerangs in this primitive period doesn’t mean that the folks he’s challenging are defenseless.  Actually, I can tell you right off that he won’t have a choice but to acknowledge the might of his opponents, as Merlin proves that what Camelot lacks in tech, he more than makes up for with incredibly potent magic, one that overcomes even Satana’s power.

Thunderbolts #167 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Declan Shalvey (artist), Frank Martin (colorist)

The Story: What a waste of a perfectly good prostitute.

The Review: Ever since both Herc and S.H.I.E.L.D. dropped off my radar, I’ve been scoping around for other Marvel titles to check out and cover.  A couple of you made suggestions, which I appreciate, but most of them turned out to be minis that were already part-way through their run, so those didn’t seem like the best long-term choices.  What I really wanted to find was that great Marvel middleweight—not one of the pop sellers, but an enjoyable title in its own way.

And since I’ve had a hankering for a quality antihero title since the end of Secret Six (which I miss more and more with each passing day, by the way), the Thunderbolts seemed like a natural fit.  Reading through this issue makes it clear this dubious band of individuals don’t have quite the edginess Gail Simone’s smart writing brought to the Six, but the T-bolts have a lively, engaging group dynamic all their own.

For one thing, you have far more than six people bouncing off each other.  All told, you have almost twice that number of members on the team, each with a very distinctive power set, design, and personality.  You’ve got the daughter of Satan, a slightly disturbed psychologist, a half-Asgardian, half-Troll, several geniuses with varying degrees of amorality, and Mr. Hyde.  And that’s before you get to the heroic alignments of the characters, some of whom really seem to be in this for the nobility, and others who can’t care less.

Obviously, with Luke Cage and Brunnhilde (I know she goes by Valkyrie, but her Asgardian name is a lot more fun to say, don’t you think?) around, you have your true-blue heroes, but the rest of the T-bolts are a little harder to pin down.  I’ll say this, though: none of them show as much of an inclination to kill as the most principled of the Secret Six.  Troll expresses remorse (“No…!  Not mean to…”) when she slays the Iceni curse-keeper in this issue, and even Boomerang holds off killing the woman trying to suck his soul until told he’s fated to do so.

As for the plot at hand, time-traveling hijinks are always fun when there are no universe or reality-threatening stakes to them.  Parker seems to be having fun picking and choosing the various periods to send the team, though he makes some fairly obvious choices (here, we go from Industrial Revolution England to Arthurian legend).  But so long as he keeps bringing the creative twists—as it turns out, it’s Jack the Ripper’s victims who are the murderers here—there’s no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy the ride.

Shalvey goes for a simple, sketchy style in the same tradition of Cliff Chiang, but his lines are even thinner and he seems more interested in dynamic movement than drama.  But that works; unlike the Greek tragedy going on over in Wonder Woman, this title is all about action from beginning to end, so Shalvey’s lean, kinetic art (along with some interesting paneling choices, like Satana’s “fiery” recounting of the Iceni legend) fits very well.

Conclusion: Entertaining throughout, Thunderbolts lacks much in the way of depth or complexity, but it delivers a satisfying read nonetheless.

Grade: B

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – “A proper room instead o’ the alley?  Fancy!”  I shudder to think of the undoubtedly countless people forced to do the nasty in a pre-Industrial England alley.  Those people can’t be alive now.  As it happens, they aren’t.  So let that be a lesson to you: do it in a room!

– “Never thought my job would require arranging trysts as a pimp.”  None of us ever do.  And I’m a document controller by day, so…

A Second Opinion