Thunderbolts #120 – Review

By Warren Ellis (Writer), Mike Deodato, Jr. (Artist), and Rain Beredo (Colorist)

Chekhov (the playwright, not the Star Trek Ensign) had a rule for managing audience expectations: if a pistol is seen hanging on the wall in Act 1, someone must fire it before the end of Act 3. Well, for the past ten issues of Thunderbolts, Norman Orborn has been the pistol hanging on the wall, and with issue 120 we’ve finally reached Act 3.

After ten months chained behind a desk and a facade of respectability, the Green Goblin is back, baby. And I have to give props to Warren Ellis; the Goblin hasn’t been written this well in decades. I mean, sure there are lots of supervillains who are crazy. You’d have to be crazy to want to take over the world, right? But this guy is crazy with a capital “C”. Eye-rolling, bouncing off the walls crazy. Crazy with a comprehensive business plan and full dental. And the scariest thing about him is, if you listen to him long enough, he starts to make sense.

The plot? Mayhem, mostly. One of the new detainees at Thunderbolt Mountain is a psychic, messing around with everyone’s heads, making the collection of madmen the US government has foolishly collected there even more unstable than usual. Things are very quickly falling apart. At one point the normally rational Radioactive Man announces he’s going to give everyone on the base cancer. “Cancer can be fun,” he says. “You get drugs.”

There’s more, of course. Songbird tries to keep things together. Doc Samson works to make Penance a little less looney. And the new Swordsman finds out he’s not quite as bad-ass as he thought he was. But this is really the Green Goblin’s book. Ellis and Deodato are having a ball with his character, and it shows.

Welcome back, Norman. We missed you. (Grade: A)

-Andrew C. Murphy

A Second Opinion

There really isn’t a whole lot I can add to this review. Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato have created something special with this run on the Thunderbolts and it’s a shame that it’s coming to an end. This series is a prime example of how to write and visualize chaos, as everything is about as perfect as it can be. The characters and action are dynamic, the plot is perfect for both the characters in, and the situation that is, Thunderbolts Mountain, and the return of the Green Goblin with this issue is everything a fan could hope for.

Ellis and Deodato have completely knocked this series out of the park and I honestly feel sorry for the follow up team. I got back into comics with this current Thunderbolts team and with each issue it surprises me how every other series loses a little bit of its shine every time a new Thunderbolts story hits the stands. A spectacular effort all around. If you aren’t on board with this series, you definitely have been missing something great. (Grade: A)

-Kyle Posluszny