Broken Frontier

In late 1996, Captain America, Iron Man, the Avengers and Fantastic Four were in the hands of Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee as part of the “Heroes Reborn” experiment. The Onslaught crossover shunted these characters over to an alternate universe so Lee and Liefeld could play with them, leaving the Marvel Universe short on heroes. There was an opening for a new team of superheroes to replace them. The Thunderbolts fit that bill.

The Thunderbolts appeared in Incredible Hulk #449 before getting their own series. At the time, I recall thinking that the team wouldn’t last long. After all, who were Citizen V, Atlas, and Songbird anyway? I’d never heard of them. I didn’t even feel the need to add the series to my pull list, thinking that my money could be better spent elsewhere. Luckily, I picked up the first issue when it came out.     

The majority of the issue was well-written comic book action with excellent characterization mixed in. Halfway through the book, I decided I might have to rethink not picking up the book on a regular basis. Then I came to the last page.

In what has to be one of the best last-page reveals in comic history, we find out that the Thunderbolts aren’t heroes trying to allay the public’s fears. Rather, they are the Masters of Evil, pretending to be heroes to gain the public’s trust as a first step in their goal of world domination.

This was an era before internet spoilers came to prominence, so there was no warning about this secret. As a long-time fan of the Avengers, where the Masters of Evil appeared most often, this discovery even caught me unawares. I was shocked, I was surprised, I was hooked.

The concept was novel, and grew over time. Some characters came to like the role of the hero and broke with the group’s original intentions. The team’s identity as villains was revealed to the public, and, later, Hawkeye joined to guide the team on the way to the straight and narrow.

While the stories were fresh, the sales on the series steadily declined. By the time 2003’s issue #76 came around, Marvel decided to revamp the title, going in a completely different direction. The title now featured the saga of an underground, Fight Club-like, super-powered fighting league. While I liked the new storyline, it didn’t appeal to other fans of the series and didn’t bring new readers in. The steady decline in sales became an all-out plummet, and the series was cancelled six issues later. 

Much as the Liefeld/Lee Heroes Reborn gave life to the first Thunderbolts series, so did the Avengers Disassembled arc give life to the latest series.  The stories kept the same tone as the first series—shadowy motives, false allegiances, and conspiracies all around. The stories blended Silver Age grandeur (as witnessed by Baron Zemo’s contest with the Grandmaster with the world at stake) with the prevalent grim and gritty tone of today (the Swordsman keeps the tanned hide of his dead sister around the hilt of his sword so he can still use their shared powers).

    

However, sales on the book aren’t any better than they were three years ago, so it’s time for another revamp. Marvel is smarter about it this time. They used the events of the recent Civil War crossover to turn the bad-guys-making-good concept on its ear. The team has now become Federal agents to track down rogue heroes who refuse to register with the government.

They also placed the title in the hands of the superstar creative team of Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato Jr. and brought in some of Marvel’s most popular villains onto the team—Green Goblin, Venom and Bullseye. This leads to a sense of uncertainty in me about the new direction.

I admire Ellis’ work, but he has to breathe new life into what I consider Marvel’s most overused characters. A search of the Grand Comics Database reveals 282 entries when you search for the Green Goblin, 149 for Bullseye, and an amazing 288 for Venom (especially stunning when you consider he was created 24 years after the Goblin and 12 after Bullseye). And this only lists titles they have gotten around to indexing. The actual numbers are probably much higher.

       

These characters have appeared so often that, for me at least, their impact has dampened. Hopefully, I am in the minority on this and their addition to the team increases sales. I also hope Warren Ellis has something up his sleeve that brings something new to the characters. It would be a pleasant surprise, one coming from a book built on surprises.

Also out this week:

• Outsiders #44: Not all of DC’s “One Year Later” titles changed all that much during the jump. The Outsiders was an exception. The group lost several members, gained some new ones, and were presumed dead by the rest of the DC Universe. This shake-up was never explained—until now.

This issue begins an arc that will delve into what happened to the Outsiders during the one year gap. Winick has done something similar over in Green Arrow, filling readers in on what they didn’t see when the books jumped ahead. Many titles have yet to touch on this, and most don’t appear as if they ever will. Winick should be commended for connecting the dots for curious fans.

Judd Winick (W), Ron Randall (A), DC Comics, $2.99. Ongoing series.

• Superman & Batman vs. Aliens & Predators #1:  Since Dark Horse bought the rights in the late 1980s, the Aliens and Predator licenses have been quite lucrative for the company.  The franchises have been featured in many solo books, titles where they faced off against each other (and, at one time, The Terminator as well), and in the occasional inter-company crossover.

Both franchises have individually faced both Superman and Batman one on one in a number of crossovers. But now, all four are sharing the same title. Can the Aliens and the Predators survive against the combined might of the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight? This series sets out to answer that question.    

Mark Schultz (W), Ariel Olivetti (A), DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics, $5.99. Two-Issue Miniseries.

• Squadron Supreme: Hyperion vs Nighthawk #1: Much like the Aliens and Predators have become a cash cow for Dark Horse, so has the Squadron Supreme become a cottage industry for Marvel. This is the latest in a line of series to feature characters from that title. And while Superman and Batman are teaming up against the bad guys in the above comic, their Squadron Supreme doppelgangers have come to blows in this one.

The relationship between Hyperion and Nighthawk has been a contentious one, but events stemming from the real-world tragedy in Darfur have caused the friction to boil over into actual combat. The series promises fans of the characters potent action with an insight into the genocide that is happening at this moment in that troubled African region.

Mark Guggenheim (W), Paul Gulacy (A), Marvel Comics, $2.99. Five-Issue Miniseries.

• Mythos Ghost Rider: Ghost Rider is the latest Marvel hero to get the “Mythos” treatment. The series, which previously starred the X-Men and the Hulk, features the origin stories of classic Marvel characters, updated for modern audiences by Paul Jenkins with luxuriously painted artwork by Paolo Rivera.

Whether or not you consider Ghost Rider a “classic Marvel character” might be up for debate. However, he does have a distinctive origin, filled with tragedy and pathos. He also has a major motion picture coming out. This issue could serve as a good introduction to the character for all those non-comic people who might be looking forward to the movie.

Paul Jenkins (W), Paolo Rivera (A), Marvel Comics, $2.99. One Shot.

• Girls #21: The sci-fi drama/cult series is set to end at issue #24, so this issue will be one of the last chances for new readers to jump on before it’s all over. We should begin to see what the fate of Pennystown is—will the townspeople survive the threat from the beautiful, egg-laying women, or will life as they know it come to an end?

The concept is weird and has developed a cult following amongst fans. This series, along with their previous venture, Ultra, has put the Luna Brothers on the map and mainstream companies took notice, resulting in them being called on to provide art for Marvel’s Spider-Woman: Origins series last year.

With Girls about to end, where will the Luna Brothers go from here?

Joshua Luna (W), Jonathan Luna (A), Image Comics, $2.99. Ongoing Series.  

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William Gatevackes is a professional writer living in Mamaroneck, NY with his wife Jennifer. Bill also writes periodic comic reviews for PopMatters and writes title descriptions for Human Computing’s Comicbase collection management software.