Wow, I’m really not sure how to do this without throwing everything into the spoiler section. My guess is you probably already know about the Thunderbolts, but I hate to give too much away for those that don’t, so I’ll be pretty vague in this review — except for within the spoiler area of course. Oh, and if you decide to buy this TPB and don’t want the ending ruined, don’t read the back jacket on it.

I was actually reading another TPB that the Thunderbolts made a guest appearance in when I discovered them. I did a quick wiki search and decided I wanted to more about the group so I ordered a few Thunderbolt TPBs that I found online and got reading.

This book takes place not long after the Onslaught battle which marked the loss of the Earth’s greatest heroes. I knew all about that because I was an X-Men guy and I had read the Onslaught books when they first appeared in the comics. Don’t worry if you didn’t know that we lost our best heroes to Onslaught because they all came back to this reality eventually.

Anyway, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were gone and the public was looking for some heroes so that they could feel safe again. Who was going to protect John Q Public from evil fiends like the The Fearsome Four, the Wrecking Crew or even the Masters of Evil? Well, that’s the role the Thunderbolts were built to play, so in one of New York’s darkest hours these new heroes appear and are greeted by the public with open arms.

Despite being a new team, they took on some serious opponents, like the aforementioned Wrecking Crew, the Hulk, The Thinker, the Enclave, the Circus of Crime, the Bio-Fanatic and the Masters of Evil. Unfortunately, I wasn’t overwhelmed by their powers and honestly none of the heroes really stood apart from the crowd to me.

Spoilers

So here’s the twist, the Thunderbolts are just alter egos of the Masters of Evil who plan on playing on the public’s desire for heroes, act the part and then take over the world. Citizen Z, the leader is really Baron Zemo — well his son — and the rest of the crew are made up of Power Man, Screaming Mimi, the Beatle, Moonstone and The Fixer.

Having read the first 24 Avengers’ comic books it was interesting to see some of their original super villians reworked into heroes, some of them wanting to turn their lives around while others are still just evil to the bone.

Perhaps if I never knew about the twist I would have enjoyed it more, but going into it expecting some really cool super villians to be committing dasterdly crimes while playing at being heroes I was disappointed.

The real reason for getting the book was the big twist, but if the twist wasn’t there I’m not sure it really would have been one of my top 50 TPBs. If you want to actually read it for the continuity, to see how the Thunderbolts were born I’d recommend it, but if you already know the twist and the concept behind it doesn’t overwhelm you then I’d stay away from this one and pick up something you’d enjoy much more.

Story
Artwork
Value
Can It Stand Alone
Cool Factor
Average