Thunderbolts #1 from Jackson Lanzing, Colin Kelly, Geraldo Borges, and Arthur Hesli isn’t what anyone is expecting. It’s not a straightforward superhero book, instead opting for a more hard-edged spy fiction approach. Despite featuring a cast that hews very closely to the upcoming Marvel Studios film, it stands alone as its own story. The best surprises are often pleasant ones, and this comic is no exception.
Picking up after the events of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, Thunderbolts #1 finds Bucky Barnes as the winner of the Century Game. His prize: mountains of intel on the various dark secrets of the world. Bucky intends to live up to his new moniker of “The Revolution” by going after these targets and hitting them hard and fast, without mercy. To that end he’s gathered a new team of operatives including Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine – the artist formerly known as Madame Hydra, Sharon Carter/Destroyer and a mysterious first member. Their first mission: to kill the Red Skull once and for all.
Lanzing and Kelly have built up their writing career on two factors: balancing ensembles and finding genuinely new spin on established franchises. In Star Trek, they kept to the key themes of exploration while introducing a mystery spanning dead gods. In Outsiders at DC, they’ve taken the concept of a team that operates outside the usual superhero paradigm and applied it to the wild, weird history of the DC Universe. Now with Thunderbolts, the duo is taking the idea of former villains turned heroes and using it to go to the places that other heroes wouldn’t go. Nearly every person on this team has a dark past, and that makes for an interesting dynamic, whether it’s Bucky and Sharon connecting over their shared hatred of the Skull or the acidic back and forth between Bucky and Fontaine.
Borges’ artwork is also suited for this darker approach to the Thunderbolts. When the action hits, it’s bold, brutal, and in some cases quite literally explosive (especially where Sharon and her neganite baton are concerned.) Borges brought a similar aesthetic to his work on No/One, and it’s proving to be a perfect fit for ground-level heroics. Going hand in hand with this minimalistic approach is Hesli’s colors; most of the book is shrouded in shadow, and only lights up when the explosions take place. The color seeps into Joe Sabino’s lettering, with Bucky’s declaration to murder the Red Skull taking place in – what else? – a bright red hue.
Thunderbolts #1 hits like a bolt of lightning: fast, furious, and charged with creative intent. The concept and the creative team – not to mention some of the characters involved – is too good to pass up, and I recommend you at least check out this first issue.
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