Thunderbolts #73

Oh, where to start. Well first, this issue is pencilled by Manuel Garcia, who is a capable artist, but I much preferred Bags or Patrick. As for the story.... S P O I L E R S

This issue once again highlights the problems this book has faced since Tom left: the meandering stories. Silly me, I thought the Earth 1 team was dealing with their personal redemption in the face of stopping the plot to release the spores into the Earth's atmosphere (something I don't agree with, but I'll get to that later). But this issue has next to nothing to do with that. Thematically, it would seem to me that continuing their quest to stop the release of the spores, as well as continuing along their 'quest' to be heroes, would end up at roughly the same endpoint; i.e. they'd come to a major conclusion regarding themselves at roughly the same time they succeeded in their goals. I'm not quite sure if this is a preference of mine, or if it would have worked better. In any case though, they seem to have been sidetracked quite a bit. Also, none of the characters has expressed a desire to do good. Blackheath (though he's not really a villain), Skein, Amazon, Harrier, and Cyclone haven't even gotten to the point where they *want* to seek redemption. This isn't a case similar to the Tbolts, where they played good and liked it. They played good b/c they were forced to by Clint. To apply the redemptive angle to this team seems inappropriate. This is made all the more so, since Clint essentially is forcing them to do good. If they don't do good, they'll be punished and sent back to jail. That's fine, but that's hardly incentive for a group of criminals to deliberately stay the straight and narrow. Since none of them has expressed much desire to *be* good, why would they want to play at it for a long time? Even if they don't want to go to jail, they can hardly be considered heroes if they're just trying to stay out of jail. Their hearts won't be in it. You can't force someone to be a hero. That's where Clint is wrong.

Overall, I liked this book much better with a clear direction, ONE team, and Tom as editor.

Haven't got the issues yet, but it sounds like you want them to go through exactly the same arc as the first team - which would be both redundant and boring. Presumably, FabNic has something different up his sleeve this time.

Yea... This is #73. #75 is the conclusion of BOTH story arcs. This is where they intersect. The white hole corresponds to the void on Counter-Earth shown in #72. The engines of the V-Battalion's ship are the same as the embedded alien ship found on Counter-Earth, and so on.

You just KNOW that's Zemo's pistol aimed at Hawkeye's head on the final page.

I would tend to agree with you on most of this. And I loved seeing Cyclone try to bug out, only to get shot down and arrested. As for the others, their motivations are more mixed, but I'm certainly not convinced that any of them truly desire redemption.

But it's been an interesting ride, and I'm very sorry that it's ending.

Tim Frankovich

I think Garcia did a fine job, on par with Garcia. I think he needs adifferent inker and maybe someone new on colors. the look of this book color-wise has been off for quite some time. Possibly due to the change in paper?

Maybe I'm confused here, didn't they stop the spores in issue #71 when Blackheath (Plant-Man) was revived? I thought

True, instead we are getting Clint (Hawkeye) INSPIRING them to seek redemption through his selfless and heroic acts. And that I am really enjoying. I don't need to read Fabian's version of Busiek's original TBolts storyline. I'm enjoying this one just fine.

Except... I wish I liked these villains better. Unlike the much better known villains Busiek used, these lesser-known characters don't have the history to make me care as much. Except Plant-Man, I remember his appearances in Sub-Mariner, Micronauts and the Avengers. He's the only one I'm really interested in and rooting for redemption. But then I really dislike the name Blackheath and his look just isn't very inspiring.