Thunderbolts #17 – Review

by Charles Soule (Writer), Jefte Palo (Artist), Guru eFX (Colorist)

The Story: The Punisher and his team fight the mob in their bunker, Red Hulk tries to fight the invaders and Deadpool finally gets his pizza.

The Review: I rather like Charles Soule right now. Discovering him as he took over Swamp Thing at DC, he has been in some more books in the previous months and now seems to be doing some work for Marvel as well, with this title as well as She-Hulk coming in February. With a knack for taking over books and giving them either a new direction or focusing on the stronger elements of the core concept, Soule is rapidly becoming a writer on the rise in terms of visibility.

Thunderbolts is one of the book that has received a bit of his skill, to good effect as the mix of rather dark humor to the sensibilities of hard killers makes for a rather enjoyable book. Tying in to Infinity, Soule tries to incorporate those stone-cold killers to the larger Marvel universe, yet does he succeed in making them interesting and his tale good enough for readers to care?

He starts with the right footing as the first thing he seems to be doing well is creating a nice balance between plot and humor, advancing the story without putting too much emphasis on the horror of what the characters are doing. The pacing in itself in terms of development is good, with each scene getting to the point and delivering something worthwhile for readers, like how outgunned the mob is against Venom, Punisher and Elektra or when Deadpool finally get the pizza slice he wanted in the first place. There is enough going on in this issue that it doesn’t feel decompressed in the slightest, giving a central conflict with many smaller problems on the side for the characters to resolve in the issue. In terms of storytelling, it’s good.