The Thunderbolts, a band of reformed villains trying to do good, have always sought justice from
America
. Their earnest attempts to regain the faith of the people have only made them slow progress toward that goal, and r has always been an elusive prize. But now, in the aftermath of Civil War, the tables have turned: It's time for the Thunderbolts to inflict a little justice on
America
. At a time when the country has lost faith in its heroes, it is ready to put its faith in monsters. Now is the time for the Thunderbolts! Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato's modern masterpiece challenges readers with a thought-provoking story that offers a steady stream of explosive action!
Collecting: Thunderbolts 110-121 & material from Civil War: The Initiative
Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, as well as the digital short-story single DEAD PIG COLLECTOR. His newest book is the novella NORMAL, from FSG Originals, listed as one of Amazon’s Best 100 Books Of 2016.
The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name, its sequel having been released in summer 2013. IRON MAN 3 is based on his Marvel Comics graphic novel IRON MAN: EXTREMIS. He is currently developing his graphic novel sequence with Jason Howard, TREES, for television, in concert with HardySonBaker and NBCU, and continues to work as a screenwriter and producer in film and television, represented by Angela Cheng Caplan and Cheng Caplan Company. He is the creator, writer and co-producer of the Netflix series CASTLEVANIA, recently renewed for its third season, and of the recently-announced Netflix series HEAVEN’S FOREST.
He’s written extensively for VICE, WIRED UK and Reuters on technological and cultural matters, and given keynote speeches and lectures at events like dConstruct, ThingsCon, Improving Reality, SxSW, How The Light Gets In, Haunted Machines and Cognitive Cities.
Warren Ellis has recently developed and curated the revival of the Wildstorm creative library for DC Entertainment with the series THE WILD STORM, and is currently working on the serialising of new graphic novel works TREES: THREE FATES and INJECTION at Image Comics, and the serialised graphic novel THE BATMAN’S GRAVE for DC Comics, while working as a Consulting Producer on another television series.
A documentary about his work, CAPTURED GHOSTS, was released in 2012.
Recognitions include the NUIG Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal for service to freedom of speech, the EAGLE AWARDS Roll Of Honour for lifetime achievement in the field of comics & graphic novels, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2010, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and the International Horror Guild Award for illustrated narrative. He is a Patron of Humanists UK. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.
Warren Ellis lives outside London, on the south-east coast of England, in case he needs to make a quick getaway.
While I really don’t like Civil War comic itself, I always thought that Norman Osborn as the leader of Thunderbolts, and later Avengers, was one of the coolest Marvel storylines of its time, and it spun directly out of Mark Millar’s hacky event. Warren Ellis is the perfect writer for Thunderbolts, as he turns this team basically into a Suicide Squad that actually makes sense. Lead by a government-sanctioned psychopath and consisting of very unstable, borderline insane people, it’s very disturbing and at the same time morbidly entertaining to watch them fall apart because of their own instabilities, taking a lot of innocent collateral lives in the process. Ellis’s writing is witty and sharp, although the pacing sometimes felt sluggish and the payoff wasn’t as big as the buildup. Still, on the whole this is an excellent comic that really gets inside the villains’ heads. Great stuff.
Co si budeme, o Civil war si může každý říkat svoje, ale co se jí nezapře je ten zeitgeist, který registrační zákon nastolil. Thor si řeší to svoje někde uprostřed ničeho a leze s tím všem (v jeho světě) na nervy. Tony Stark se snaží ukočírovat nezvladatelnou bestii, kterou se svět jeho zásluhou stal. Cap je mrtvý, Hulk ve vesmíru a superhrdinská scéna je rozdělená.
Je třeba dělat kompromisy a jeden z těch větších je poslat superpadouchy s příslibem omilostnění a za vládní peníze lovit hrdiny, co nesouhlasí se zákonem. Jejich operování má na svědomí čerstvě očištěný Osborn a jeho ne zrovna klidná ruka, kterou sestavoval tým. Podíváme se, koho tu máme... Milenku Barona Zema, narušeného masochistu, radioaktivního číňana, šermíře, který si nechal rukojeť meče potáhnout kůží své mrtvé sestry, Venoma (toho co býval Scorpionem a žere lidi) a manipulantku, co všechno rozesere, jen když se dostane v žebříčku o něco výš. Btw. Kdyby něco nevyšlo tak poblíž bude bullseye s nějakými noži.
O zábavu je postaráno. Mezi starostmi o PR, akcí, kdy se projevuje naprostá dysfunkce a chaos v týmu a mocenskými pletichy najdete přehršel wow momentů a drsně vtipných scén.
Zajímavý jak moc může být supr číst o bandě lidí, které nemáte rádi, nefandíte jim a ani vás jinak moc nezajímají.
Druhá půle jde kvalitativně trochu dolu. Holt fresh myšlenky se občas rychle vyčerpají, ale na silné čtyři to furt stačilo.
Jesus Christ I really don't think there is a single redeeming member on this Thunderbolts team...and it makes for an extremely entertaining ride.
So Norman is now in control of the Thunderbolts. You might be asking, how the fuck is that possible. The guy is the Green Goblin. Well Trump was our president for 4 years so go figure, anyone can get into any position with power and money.
Anyway Green Goblin here decides to create a clusterfuck of a team. Use some older members of Thunderbolts (Which I'll be honest, haven't read much of) and take a few new members including the idiot Marc as Venom and the psycho Bullseye, and put them all together. Then put Moonshine as "leader" instead of Songbird and...well you have a horrible team who has issues taking down even some of the weakest superheroes.
This is super fun, and also very snarky and grim. You have a bunch of trained killers well...killing or hurting others. Bullseye, the sick fuck, even grosses out Norman. So you know he's bad. And this team works together for all of a few issues before it all goes to hell. This is the era when Superheroes aren't really able to do much because of Civil War and so the big baddies get to run shit for awhile and it is extremely entertaining.
I guess I will like just about anything Warren Ellis does. There are definite problems with this story, but Ellis's ability to just make stuff intensely readable overcomes pretty much all of them. His character work and anti-team building make this one of the more fresh takes on a superteam comic I've seen in a long time, and that in and of itself makes it a compelling read.
In the wake of Civil War, Norman Osborn has been placed in charge of the Thunderbolts, a team of criminals and super villains who are given the chance to work off some of their jailtime by acting as a type of police force. This works particularly well in the post-Civil War landscape, as hundreds of rogue, unregistered superheroes roam the U.S., eluding capture. So, who better to round them up than a bunch of psychopaths?
Enter Ellis's Thunderbolts. Every one of them has a major psychological problem, from Moonstone's apparent manipulative psychopathy to Bullseye's, well, "need to murder." It's a team that inherently can't trust one another, and yet is expected to work together. Ellis heightens how frustrating and impossible this team is, never coming anywhere close to functioning, yet still somehow getting the job done by sheer violence and lunacy. This tension builds throughout this volume, culminating in a huge collapse that threatens to tear apart the entire concept of the Thunderbolts.
Now, like I said, there are problems. The main one being that the stakes are never quite there. It's incredibly fun watching this team "work," but ultimately none of their deeds really feel like they matter. They're arresting a bunch of no-name heroes, which gives Ellis full license to mutilate and pound them into dust, but as such it kind of only serves as a display of the team's mindset, rather than holding any long-term problems for the Marvel Universe. There were also several moments in which I felt like a Thunderbolt's appearance to save the day was a little too timely and perfect, particularly since the team is so uncoordinated and terrible.
Additionally, the series own internal stakes are not very high. You never get a real sense that the Thunderbolts could wind up in trouble for their actions, or that any of the people they're hurting matter enough to be upset about.
All of those complaints aside, this is basically a book you read to have fun, rather than a book you read to be intellectually stimulated. Ellis doesn't invent anything particularly new here; instead, he just nails familiar territory. That's enough for me.
This was great. Ellis writes brutal, cinematic action with twists and turns as this pack of generally insane villains are set loose on the world, and each other. Makes great use of second- and third-tier characters. Top notch.
Probably the closest Marvel has ever come to matching the perfection that is the Ostrander Suicide Squad. Like almost all Ellis stories, it more stops than ends, but it’s a great read with stunning art.
I love the Thunderbolts. I really wish Marvel could find a way to introduce the team into the Cinema Universe.
This volume is a real shift from what came before. This story is the true origin of the Dark Reign stuff that would happen a few years later. Norman starts to be trusted and is still absolutely batshit insane.
Karla and Songbird are two of my favorite characters in comics. Songbird just really wants to be the good guy. Unfortunately she has bad luck hence she's a Thunderbolt as she points out. I really hope she gets her day at some point. Karla on the other hand is evil in the best kind of way. She wants what she wants and doesn't give a fuck who she has to hurt to get there. She's the villain you root for.
Ellis pretty much pisses on everything Thunderbolts and makes it as dark and disturbing as possible. If that's what you like, you can have it. I sort of enjoyed this when I read it for the first time. But that was where I started reading Thunderbolts. Now that I've read the entire Thunderbolts line, this is the first bad collection I've come across. It just doesn't hold with what the Thunderbolts should be. It's about Ellis showing off himself.
“En la montaña de los Thunderbolts no todo es lo que parece, Andreas”- Piedra lunar
Recuerdo con un enorme cariño esta etapa de los Thunderbolts a cargo de Warren Ellis y Mike Deodato. En 2008, acababa de terminar la publicación en España deCivil War , que fue el primer evento de superhéroes que me marcó y seguí poco a poco, con esa sensación de que verdaderamente se estaba cambiando un universo cómiquero (era muy inocente).
En esa época, los Thunderbolts se presentaron ante mí con aquella genial portada donde brillaba Pájaro Cantor y otros personajes que conocía como Penitencia, el Duende Verde, Venom... Fue así como me dispuse a leerlo en grapa y, más tarde, enganché a algunos compañeros de bachillerato y seguimos la serie juntos, compartiendo los cómics. Lo malo de ello es que cada uno se quedó con los suyos y a mí me faltaban unos cuantos (pero comentarlos y compartirlos tuvo muchos puntos positivos).
Eso me llevó a que hace poco me hiciera con el tomo que editó Panini, el cual incluye los doce números de Ellis y Deodato, más algún contenido extra como una introducción y las curiosidades que aparecían al final de cada grapa. No importa. Lo que vuelve a brillar son las ideas de estos creadores, de cómo un grupo de supervillanos se podía poner al servicio del gobierno para capturar a todos los superhéroes que no se habían registrado tras el triunfo del bando de Iron Man en la Civil War.
Una idea que podía haberse quedado en nada, en manos de Ellis tomó matices muy interesantes gracias a cómo desarrolló a cada personaje, desde ese Norman Osborn con cara de Tommy Lee Jones (enfrentado a la locura), pasando por un Penitencia que solo tiene sus poderes mediante el dolor, sin olvidar al agente del gobierno conocido como el Hombre Radiactivo, a una mujer que busca el poder por encima de todo y de todos Piedra Lunar, a una superheroína que lo ha perdido todo Pájaro Cantor, a un Bullseye completamente fuera de sí, a un Espadachín que pretende recuperar a su hermana, a un Venom terriblemente sádico... Lo mejor de la serie eran sus personajes, lo mal que estaban, lo radicales que eran, y cómo el gobierno confiaba en estos seres amorales para llevar a cabo sus designios.
El gran problema de la etapa de los Thunderbolts de Warren Ellis es que el autor se marcha tras doce números y deja varios hilos abiertos (con un colosal cliffhanger), pese a que podamos ver un arco de evolución en varios personajes, sobre todo en Norman Osborn o Penitencia (entre otros). Sin embargo, el lector se queda con ganas de más, de ver cómo Ellis hubiera manejado a estos personajes y este grupo con sus juegos de tronos durante más números.
Brilla el dibujo de Mike Deodato y su coloreado, con ese intento de realismo y espectacularidad que, casi siempre, acierta, pero, sobre todo, esta etapa será recordada por el trabajo de Ellis y el modo en que, en tan pocos números, logró una obra tan redonda. Lástima la manía del guionista de saltar de una obra a otra.
En conclusión, volver a leer esta etapa ha sido como viajar en el tiempo y redescubrir a unos antiguos amigos, solo que, en este caso, eran unos psicópatas con superpoderes, pero, qué grandes eran los Thunderbolts...
¿Sabes qué hago aquí? Pienso en matar gente obviamente. Pregunta estúpida. Una vez me grabaron mientras mataba. Una periodista imbécil vino a Ryker’s con su estúpido equipo de cámara y me preguntó por qué sonreía. No sólo me gusta. No solo se me da bien. No voy a decirte que es mi idea del arte ni mierdas por el estilo. Cuando mato, me fortalezco. Mi cabeza se aligera. Me quito todo el peso de encima. Mi corazón bombea más deprisa. Y no hay esfuerzo. Todo se vuelve fácil. Soy más fuerte, más rápido. No hay gravedad. Veo más lejos. Lo sé todo. Cada vez que mato, me parezco más a Dios. ¿Puedes imaginártelo? Él crea, yo tomo. Tal vez ese sea el secreto de la religión, ¿no? Tal vez yo soy el nuevo Dios. Puede que matar a la velocidad que él crea me convierta en su único amigo. Qué idea, ¿no?”- Bullseye.
Warren Ellis’ take on Marvel’s Suicide Squad really delivers. Norman Osbourne is a fantastic villain politician, spinning the public’s narrative and manipulating a team of prisoners with questionable morals. The art gets embarassingly fan-servicy.
This is a spin-off of Marvel's "Civil War" event from a few years ago. In the wake of the Superhero Registration Act where superheroes had to reveal their identities and sign up to the government's program where their powers and statuses are monitored to stop them from being vigilantes, a group of super-villains are chosen to hunt down the renegade superheroes who refused to sign up - this group's name is the Thunderbolts.
I wasn't much of a fan of the Civil War "event" and especially the idea that superheroes had to sign up to the government, it just felt a big too regulated and dull to be much fun but it also felt a bit strange - why would they sign up when they're superheroes? It doesn't make sense. And nor does a super-villain team of hunters, not when you see the line-up.
Venom? Bullseye? Since when could these two be regulated to be obedient soldiers? But these were the only two I recognised from the team, the other members are moronic super-villains called Songbird, Radioactive Man (I wish it were the Simpsons character), Swordsman (guess what weapon he's got) and Penance (what an awful name) who's powers derive from being in physical pain himself.
These D-list characters spend the book rounding up D-list superheroes I've never heard of - Jack Flag, American Eagle, Steel Spider (a guy with Doc Ock type machinery but who claims to be like Spiderman minus the powers) - who the hells heard of these guys? The entire book turns into a formulaic, one-note story about the Thunderbolts taking down a superhero, one after tedious another.
Warren Ellis is a decent writer but even he can't save this poorly conceived storyline. None of the characters are likeable but we're supposed to be on the side of these super-villain gestapo officers? None of the superheroes are likeable either though really, where's Cap, where's Spiderman, where's Hulk or Thor or anyone recognisable? Norman Osborn for some reason resembles Tommy Lee Jones... what the hell is going on?!
I didn't like Civil War or it's spin-offs and "Thunderbolts" is one of the least interesting and poorly put together spin-offs of the bunch. To be honest it felt like a parody of superhero comics it was so bad. Despite being a big fan of Ellis' this is definitely not one of his better efforts and shows the limits of the superhero genre in merging it with the "real" world.
The best artist working currently on comics is Mike Deodato and when you combine his talents with Warren Ellis, result is a fast moving entertaining story arc. It's not most complex or deepest story, but with Norman 'where's my medicine' Osborn (sanity 0) as Thunderbolts boss and other crazy villains catching the unregistered heroes while fighting & plotting against each other, this belongs to a highly recommended category.
I had read the first half of this collection a while ago and I really liked it. The art is wonderful and the writing by Ellis shows again why he is my favourite comic book writer. He not only writes compelling stories he adjusts to the needs of the characters and stories. His style in Transmetroplitan is classic but very different in tone and style than what you get here. Here you get the Thunderbolts - kind of the Suicide Squad of the Marvel Universe. A bunch of criminals and fallen heroes pushed together into a team - a very dysfunctional team. To make it more dysfunctional Norman Osborn (Green Goblin) leads the team (why the government puts a known super villain who has killed in charge of the team is anybody's guess) and it is in the middle of one of my least favourite Marvel events "Civil War" - when half the heroes were trying to arrest the other half because they wouldn't register and reveal their identity to the government. Warren Ellis makes this all work somehow - which owes a lot to his genius. The first half is about the Thunderbolts trying to go after a bunch of D list heroes who didn't register. The second half is about the team falling apart because a few psychic heroes infiltrate the jail in Thunderbolt mountain and mayhem ensues. In this half I finally realize the Thunderbolt Penance used to be Speedball the one New Warrior to survive the nuclear blast that triggered Civil War (The New Warriors were trying to capture a villain and he set off a nuclear blast killing the team + 612 civilians). He is now in a costume with 612 spikes as penance for the deaths. I really hated the premise of Civil War - because it was the villain who killed people not the New Warriors. Why are heroes now hunted because of this? Okay that is tangential but the point I am making is one fault I find in these stories is if you don't follow the Thunderbolts (which I do not) you will be confused by the wide array of characters they throw at you. Ellis does NOT slow down to explain their powers or who they are. The other complaint I have is how the second story ended - Bullseye was near death and then a few days later he is 100% fine. A little lame. Other than those complaints - it was an impressive set of stories and Ellis worked magic to get me involved with characters I didn't care about before I read this.
Po wydarzeniach z Civil War oblicze Thunderbolts uległo diametralnej zmianie. Schedę po ekipie w której jakiś czas temu był Hawkeye przejął Norman Osborn, który wydaje się mieć swoje wojaże z Green Goblinem za sobą. Przynajmniej pozornie.
Pod groźbą więzienia/śmierci werbuje on grupę degeneratów, która ma za zadanie wyłapywać niezarejestrowanych zamaskowanych bohaterów, którzy nadal prowadzą swoją działalność mimo zakazowi. Tu kłaniają się konsekwencje z Wojny Domowej.
Ekipa ma w składzie kilka mało znanych postaci, ale taki Bulleye czy Venom z innym "hostem" nie musi być przedstawiony. Gorzej z Songbird, Radioactive Man, Swordsman czy takim Penance, więc trzeba było te postacie podbudować i Ellisowi się ta sztuka udała. Ale nie oszukujmy się, jakichś znaczących figur ta ekipa bić nie będzie...
Napotkani bohaterowi są raczej"drugiego" lub nawet "trzeciego" sortu przez co zdarzają się przykre sytuacje, bo są oni traktowani "na twardo". To samo tyczy się naszej ekipy. Tu nie ma pobłażania czy taryfy ulgowej, zwłaszcza gdy sama ekipa to zbiór zdrajców i morderców, szukających dla siebie najdogodniejszych rozwiązań. A i Norman potrafi tu nieźle zaszaleć...
Całość wygląda bosko, w końcu Deodato to jednak pewna "marka" w tym przemyśle. Plansze są ostre, szczegółowe, z nieco ciemniejszą paletą kolorów, co tylko podkreśla mroczniejszy ton opowieści. Dla mnie całość tworzy wyjątkowo smaczny koktajl i cieszę się, że tytułu nie pominąłem na Bonito, a było bardzo bardzo blisko.
C'est tout simplement excellent ! Un des meilleurs comics que j'ai lu, dans un contexte qui me plaît particulièrement, post Civil War où la société est pleinement affectée par la loi de recensement des super-héros.
Je précise qu'il s'agit de mon premier comics Thunderbolts, mais, ayant lu les Dark Avengers de Bendis, qui sont une continuation après Secret Invasion d'une moitié de cette équipe, je connaissais une partie du cast.
Si vous vous demandez ce que donnerait une équipe de super-héroshumains totalement dysfonctionnelle, composée majoritairement de personnages peu utilisés et instables, et dirigée par l'un des ennemis phares du héros Marvel le plus populaire, vous êtes au bon endroit !
En 12 issues, Warren Ellis met en scène l'affrontement entre les Thunderbolts et des héros non enregistrés, ainsi que de fortes dissensions internes tout du long. Chaque personnage semble à deux doigts de perdre la boule (et certains la perdent... vraiment), possède un caractère propre et reconnaissable et voit son développement accentué.
C'est sombre et violent, mais pas gratuitement je trouve, l'ensemble est très cohérent et très plaisant à lire.
Les dessins de Mike Deodato Jr. sont sublimes, avec Dark Avengers c'est son prime parmi ce que j'ai lu de lui.
Panini a dû se dire que "Avengers" était un titre plus vendeur que "Thunderbolts", ils ont donc décidé de considérer ce Deluxe comme le prologue des Dark Avengers ces petits malins
Warren Ellis' short runs on established characters (Moon Knight, Iron Man, Karnak etc) are justifiably celebrated - like Alan Moore once did, he has a way of grasping what makes a character most interesting, and of emphasising that. So he redefined Moon Knight as an occult detective, made Karnak an asshole with an eye for human weakness, and his Iron Man story was so good in its stripped-down beauty it was the basis for Iron Man 3. He's also written the best Bond stories since Fleming, and his creator-owned work is largely awesome too. With Thunderbolts, he offhandedly influenced the entire Marvel Universe to follow his lead. He makes slightly lame characters (Doc Samson, anyone) utterly badass, makes the Green Goblin genuinely terrifying, and has fun with all of the b-listers running and flying through the pages. This is a super-villain soap opera, brilliantly done.
I wanted to enjoy this more than I did, but it's still a fairly solid collection. There's a lot of Z list characters here, that I don't have the comic context to really appreciate (Steal Spider who the heck are you? I kind of love your jam) but it was neat to see them in the Civil War setting. The team itself feels a bit lacking - especially compared to how great the chemistry was onscreen between everyone in the MCU's version - but there are some standouts. Norman Osbourne running them is fantastic, and every time his mad obsession with Spider-Man starts to show is excellent. Venom here is probably done the dirtiest. The plot feels like it doesn't really affect the status quo at all, but I'm looking forward to reading Dark Avengers to see where it goes.
Me pareció una muy buena historia en general. Sí me gustó mucho más en segundo arco pero es una historia muy entretenida. El dibujo de Mike Deodato Jr a mí no me termina de convencer pero tampoco está mal.
Really engrossing read - excellently written, well paced and beautifully illustrated. Great to read the stories of these lesser known, greyer superheroes.
Aunque la idea no deja de tener su gracia, al final acaba siendo un cómic de superhéroes más, con sus batallitas. Un plus por su punto de oscuridad y poco más.