COMICS-Tales of the Bargain Bin: Thunderbolts #81
Requiem for the Thunderbolts
In the past few years, I've stopped following all the newsletters, magazines and
solicitations concerning all the "off the field" happenings at
DC and Marvel. I've missed announcements regarding future creative team changes,
new title launches, upcoming special events or cancellations. In a way, it's
like a flashback to 1983, when I first got into comics in third grade. I never knew
what was scheduled down the road or what book would come out when. I had no idea that
"Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew #20" was the LAST issue of that
title until about six months later, when I thought "hey, I haven't seen
Captain Carrot in awhile.. what happened to that book?" So for the past few years, I've
been oblivious to all the "real world" happening of comics- I've just been taking
it as I see it, and it's been kinda fun.
Today I picked up "Thunderbolts #81" and after seeing the cover I thought "
hey, is this the last issue?" Turns out that Thunderbolts has indeed gone the way
of Captain Carrot. It's not surprising, since the book underwent an incredibly unexpected
change in direction about six months ago...to me, it's mostly sad. Sad because
in 81 issues, exactly DIDDLY SHIT of consequence had occurred.
Let's fire up the Cosmic Treadmill and head back to 1996 when "Thunderbolts"
first premiered. The book was basically a gimmick book- former members of
the Masters of Evil were masquerading as superheroes. These particular Masters
weren't exactly A-list villains. They were all punching bags who were extremely
close to popping up on Scourge's kill list. (Since I like my articles
to be accessible to outsiders with limited comic knowledge: Scourge was
a villain in Captain America circa 1986 who ran around killing a good deal
of Marvel's worthless supervillains) Baron Zemo, the Fixer, the Beetle,
Goliath, Moonstone and Screaming Mimi crafted new superhero identities as
Citizen V, Techno, Mach-1, Atlas, Meteorite and Songbird, respectively. Their costumes
were rather cheesy, but the book had nothing to lose and soon became a surprise
hit. Baron Zemo was the mastermind of the whole scheme- he wanted to win the
public's trust to gain access to all of the Avengers' old security files. Along the way,
the other Masters soon began to question their own motivations and
began to reconsider their careers as villains. A quirky teen hero,
the optimistic Jolt arrived about 3 months in, and she unintentionally
helped to motivate the former villains.
For the first 12 issues, "Thunderbolts" was one of the most exciting comics
in Marvel-land.
Around #12, the ruse was up. Everyone learned that the T-Bolts were really villains,
but it was too late as Baron Zemo actually took over the world for a short time.
Yeah, that's right...a villain's scheme to take over the world actually worked!
Techno remained loyal to Zemo, but the other T-Bolts revolted and
joined with the Avengers in defeating Zemo. Zemo and Techno went off to scheme
away, but the other Thunderbolts escaped, still wanted by the government (kinda
like the A-Team).
And after that, things began to get rocky. The "good" T-Bolts went off to an alien world
called "Kosmos" and re-visited an old plotline from Ant-Man stories. Meanwhile,
Zemo and Techno resurfaced in South America. The bumps stopped
for a bit when former Avenger Hawkeye joined the crew as its leader. The Thunderbolts
operated as a near-superhero team for a few years, teamed up with the Avengers a few times
and even gained another new member- Charcoal the Burning Man.
Charcoal himself was a fan submission from a contest spronsored by "Wizard" magazine. The magazine
loved the idea at first...but within a year began to poke fun at Charcoal.
The T-Bolts also gained another new member in one of the most obscure
villains ever, Ogre. Ogre had made a handful of appearance in "X-Men" in the
60's, and had been forgotten since then.
Kurt Busiek, the writer who came up with the Thunderbolts concept and had written all
their stories, left about this time and then things REALLY began to slide.
Fabian Nicieza became the new writer and proceeded to slap any idea he had into
the book. (not to knock Nicieza too much, but I started to question if Marvel's editors
were actually punching the clock). A rambling plot about a secret alloy named "Omega X"
lasted almost two years and made no sense at all. The mastermind was revealed to
be Henry Peter Gyrich- the longtime Avengers nag. Apparently, Gyrich had been plotting to eliminate
all superheroes for years. Of course, Gyrich was seen at the same time, being his
usual anal self in "Black Panther" and later in "Avengers"...not acting psychotic at all.
Another stange plot line involved the return of the Scourge concept.
This time, Scourge was revealed to be Jack Munroe, better known as
Nomad, the former sidekick
of Captain America. "Who is Scourge" seemed like a good mystery...but
when the so-called mystery was revealed, it made no logical sense. Why would
Munroe become Scourge?... he mentioned he had amnesia and thus, the explanation
faded away. Typically, a mystery has you slapping your head and saying "oh yeah,
I should've seen THAT.. it all makes sense now", but this made as much sense
as Colin Powell in a tutu playing the tuba on the Price is Right.
Following THAT mess, Humus Sapiens arrived. Humus was another fan contribution- one
that had sat on the shelf for about 25 years. In 1975, Marvel's FOOM magazine
held a reader contest- submit your best superhero idea and Marvel will feature
him/her as part of the newly relaunched "X-Men". Humus won the contest but
was forgotten and never made it into "X-Men". So he popped up in Thunderbolts...
see the connection??!! Humus became a trivia question yet again and
soon disappeared into some sort of worm hole/time warp/trash chute thing. He took
Ogre along with him for good measure.
And then.. things became even MORE fuckered up. Most of the original
Thunderbolts were forced to retire and a new team of
"Redeemers" appeared in the title. They were brought in as temporary
replacements, but the shift in focus was confusing to some readers. Jolt died, and
was brought back for no real reason other than SHOCK VALUE.
The new Redeemers lasted about 8 months and were killed off by
bad guy Graviton. For good measure, Charcoal's
death was thrown in, as well. The original Thunderbolts were forced back into action, but
before a status quo could be established, the book split in two.
Hawkeye was sent to jail, eventually escaped and started another
team of Thunderbolts with Songbird. Hawkeye
soon recruited Gypsy Moth, Cardinal (who?), Man-Killer, Cyclone,
and Plant-Man into his new team. Baron Zemo and the others slipped
into another handy dandy time warp/worm hole /trash chute/ gravity well
thing and ended up on "Counter Earth"- the discarded setting of
Marvels' abysmal "Heroes Reborn" stuff. (Really, I can't explain
this concept without wasting even MORE of your time) For roughly
one year, the stories and characters flip-flopped every month.
One month you had Hawkeye's bunch, the next you had Zemo's bunch.
The two teams finally met up and a big breakdown occurred.
Hawkeye and most of his followers split off. Zemo sat down with the original
Thunderbolts and welcomed them back into the Master of Evil fold. After 75 issues,
things were right back to where they had started. All the T-bolts who
had ambitions of becoming real heroes were back to being plain old supervillains, again.
In a sense, NOTHING of consequence had happened in 75 issues.
Mercifully the stories ended at that point.
But "Thunderbolts" continued with issue 76. Marvel used thier standard
"All-New, All-Different" phrase for what was essentially a relaunch.
The characters and direction were both brand new. Marvel
biled the book as "Marvel Comics for Real Men" and included the
phrases "Bling-Bling! Booty! Bar Fights!". The covers had airbrushed/painted
pictures of trashy women...that had no real connection to the stories inside.
It was rather goofy and the covers were somewhat inventive- they
were laid out like a magazine cover, citing page numbers and "Feature articles".
The new stories did have one
element in common with the previous Thunderbolts: the main characters
were former supervillains. A new creative team was brought aboard. The art was
stylistic, but closer to "Fat Albert" than "Avengers".
The principal character was a guy named Daniel Axum, who was known as
"The Battler". I'm pretty sure he was made up specifically for this
title, but his background revolved around getting his shit kicked around
by Spider-Man, four years ago. Axum was freshly released from prison
and ran into an underground fighting circuit. Axum fought the Armadillo and
became the new champ. It was never mentioned if this Armadillo was
the same villain who had appeared in "Captain America" circa 1985, but
there's no harm in believing it was. This Armadillo looked somewhat different,
but with artistic styles and forgotten storylines, it could very well
have been the same guy. Anyways, Axum struggled with finding honest work,
or indulging in the underground world of illegal fighting.
Axum crossed paths with additional low-rent villains. Spidey's old
pal, the Scorpion even popped in. Axum also met a female fighter nicknamed
"Man-Killer". Really confusing, because the old Thunderbolts
had a character with the same name and powers. The new Man-Killer was
called "Katrina" and appeared like a typical hosebag in her 20's. The old Man-Killer
was named "Wilma" and looked like a bull dyke in her 30's.
Issue 81 arrived and again, nothing was really resolved. Axum, a forgettable
character, walked out on a scheme against Spider-Man, but didn't
exactly walk out on the figthing circuit. The final page showed Axum at home, playing
with his son. Since we'll probably never see Axum again, it's safe to assume that
he was given a happy ending and is off trying to become a better father and person.
The first three issues of the NEW Thunderbolts didn't appeal to me, but
I began to warm up to Axum around the fourth issue. By then, it was too late
as the title was already dead... I was just unaware of it. The whole direction change
was bizarre. Fomer supervillains fit with the "Thunderbolts" mode, but I would never
have purchased this title if it was released under a different name. I felt a little
bit suckered that Marvel would sacrifice an established title like this, but
I didn't exactly care or mind. The old Thunderbolts had wandered aimlessly for years, and I was allright with trying something new. With the inclusion of Man-killer and Scorpion I
thought that the title would have eventually been connected to the old
Thunderbolts, but it's all worthless speculation now.
Since 1970, no new
title has been sustained at Marvel. Look at all the titles that are out there:
Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers, Thor, Fantasic Four. All have been around since
the 60's... I really can't think of a single NEW concept generated and sustained by Marvel
since the 70's. Maybe Punisher...but he has his roots in the early 70's.
It's depressing that nothing was accomplished in 81 issues of a title. Axum's happy ending was
nice touch...but did I spend six years with a title so I can see a complete unknown
break a smile? Look for the entire 81 issues of "Thunderbolts" in your
local comic shop's bargain bin.
I wouldn't tag "Thunderbolts" as a complete failure, just a waste of time.
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