Thunderbolts #172 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Declan Shalvey (artist), Chris Sotomayor & Jordie Bellaire (colorists)

The Story: The T-bolts get the opportunity to beat some sense into their younger selves.

The Review: Perhaps way, way back in the sixties, the premise of heroes fighting other heroes was a novel, engaging idea on its face, but now, it just feels like a lazy way to inject some instant tension to the story.  While both of the Big Two publishers do the hero-on-hero thing far more than either ought, Marvel probably edges out DC in this respect.  They do seem to base a significant number of their Big Events on splashy “civil wars” within the superhero community.

What’s frustrating about these conflicts is there’s little to say about them other than point out some of the more interesting match-ups and maybe, if you’re lucky, discuss the motivating spark that sets off all the infighting.  In this case, the “present” Thunderbolts (for lack of a better description) fight the “past” Thunderbolts (ditto) because of course the thing to do when you encounter your parallel self is to try to beat them down or blast them apart.

Not to say the issue is bad, per se.  There are a couple interesting moments, like present Boomerang raiding his old stash, thereby leaving past Boomerang in the lurch and vulnerable to arrest.  You have a rather grim pause where Fixer recognizes a spot where he’ll one day return again, “[w]ith a sword through me.”  You can also bet Moonstone drawing off her younger self for an intimate chat will probably lead to some paradoxical time-travel nuttiness.