Thunderbolts #110
aka, the first issue of Ellis-bolts. It is sitting beside me. Fables, Usagi Yojimbo, Castle Waiting and Annihilation are in the bag for moral support. I shall preface this with the fact that Planetary is awesome, as was Ellis's GenX run, and Ellis's Ult FF are the only Ult books I considered keeping in the recent culling. It's just that EVERYTHING said about this Tbolts is even more anti-Tbolts than Fight-Bolts was.
I would also like to point out that the last time they revamps TBolts, my pull list dropped to 2 comics outside of Crossgen's stuff, one of which was a Citizen V spinoff mini.
page 1: Oh look, Ellis's beloved 9 panel grid set up. To tell us Bullseye is crazy. Because we didn't know that already. And Deodato has gone to the dark side in terms of art. OTOH, the Tbolts staple, nanobites.
pages 2-3 are more of the same, except the grid. Only Gyrich in the shadows could make this remotely interesting.
page 4: Bah, that looks like Norman Osborne's hair. Which I sincerely hope I'm wrong about, as this guy is talking like he has some serious governmental control and authority at his fingertips. Speaking of fingertips, yuck with the licking Bullseye's sweat off yours, shadowguy. In danger of falling asleep here.
page 5: Yup, Osborn. Anyone with even vague knowledge of Spidey mythology and history knows the rantability of THAT. Heck, seeing the first movie tells you why a person should rant for 10 pages about this guy being a) put in charge of villains by the government and b) being given ANY power bythe governmen. Also another boring page.
pages 6-10: Actually fairly interesting. I know little about Jack Flag beyond the name(and, now, the fact that his mask looks a lot like Grifter's and that he's anti-registration)
page 11: Back to boredom. "Look, Civil War is why we did this" babble. Though, in that last panel, it seems Tommy Lee Jones decided Norman Osborn has a good haircut and is mimicking it.
page 12: a pointless page...a caption saying "the Thunderbolts are in Chicago and their bases is under guard and called Thunderbolt Mountain" would have given us an entire extra page of story.
page 13: Look, it's big. We never would've have guessed that with it's being called, you know, Thunderbolts MOUNTAIN or anything. Anothe complete waste of a page.
page 14: Half the page is a panel showing us TBolts in handcuffs. We will not get into the sheer absurdity of Songbird, who basically lunches with officials in the Superhuman Authorty Commission or what ever it's called, being in handcuffs. Cuz I'll never stop. And then 2 shots of the mountain and captions that serve no apparent purpos or seem to have any meaning.
page 15: And now we have 2 pages devoted to letting us know it's a big base and they're under guard.
page 16: We get told 6 more times that they're being manacled. Because we can't see it. And didn't notice the first 2 times. Then 2 more pointless panels.(what, they think we need to see every second)
page 17: Another page with nothing even resembling a point.
page 18: Absurd and pointless, but at least it was mildly amusing.
page 19-20: Well, at least Karla sounds right. I'll attempt to ignore the fact that Osborn is interviewing potential Thunderbolts. And that she's been one from the start. And that she would never be demure to Osborn. Andthat Osborn thinks Songbird is a bad leader for a redemptive team because she has morals and is actively trying to get it right.
page 21: And we lose what brownie crumbs the book got by making Karla meek and passive to show Norman as being better at mind games at her without her even trying.
page 22: Oh good, back to Jack Flag,the only moderately interesting thing.
page 22: Jack Flag will be offed, or his girlfriend will, making him grim and bitter
End result: Like Ultimates, I basically was too bored to care about it being bad(something I never thought I'd say about Ellis) However, Nothing was done with Penance, Songbird, Swordsman or Radioactive man, the characters(in addition to Moonstone) who I care about(maybe those 8 or so pointless pages could have been spent on story and character, what do you think?) and I seem to have developed a fondness for Jack Flag. I MIGHT give it another issue, to see what happens.
I would also like to point out that the last time they revamps TBolts, my pull list dropped to 2 comics outside of Crossgen's stuff, one of which was a Citizen V spinoff mini.
page 1: Oh look, Ellis's beloved 9 panel grid set up. To tell us Bullseye is crazy. Because we didn't know that already. And Deodato has gone to the dark side in terms of art. OTOH, the Tbolts staple, nanobites.
pages 2-3 are more of the same, except the grid. Only Gyrich in the shadows could make this remotely interesting.
page 4: Bah, that looks like Norman Osborne's hair. Which I sincerely hope I'm wrong about, as this guy is talking like he has some serious governmental control and authority at his fingertips. Speaking of fingertips, yuck with the licking Bullseye's sweat off yours, shadowguy. In danger of falling asleep here.
page 5: Yup, Osborn. Anyone with even vague knowledge of Spidey mythology and history knows the rantability of THAT. Heck, seeing the first movie tells you why a person should rant for 10 pages about this guy being a) put in charge of villains by the government and b) being given ANY power bythe governmen. Also another boring page.
pages 6-10: Actually fairly interesting. I know little about Jack Flag beyond the name(and, now, the fact that his mask looks a lot like Grifter's and that he's anti-registration)
page 11: Back to boredom. "Look, Civil War is why we did this" babble. Though, in that last panel, it seems Tommy Lee Jones decided Norman Osborn has a good haircut and is mimicking it.
page 12: a pointless page...a caption saying "the Thunderbolts are in Chicago and their bases is under guard and called Thunderbolt Mountain" would have given us an entire extra page of story.
page 13: Look, it's big. We never would've have guessed that with it's being called, you know, Thunderbolts MOUNTAIN or anything. Anothe complete waste of a page.
page 14: Half the page is a panel showing us TBolts in handcuffs. We will not get into the sheer absurdity of Songbird, who basically lunches with officials in the Superhuman Authorty Commission or what ever it's called, being in handcuffs. Cuz I'll never stop. And then 2 shots of the mountain and captions that serve no apparent purpos or seem to have any meaning.
page 15: And now we have 2 pages devoted to letting us know it's a big base and they're under guard.
page 16: We get told 6 more times that they're being manacled. Because we can't see it. And didn't notice the first 2 times. Then 2 more pointless panels.(what, they think we need to see every second)
page 17: Another page with nothing even resembling a point.
page 18: Absurd and pointless, but at least it was mildly amusing.
page 19-20: Well, at least Karla sounds right. I'll attempt to ignore the fact that Osborn is interviewing potential Thunderbolts. And that she's been one from the start. And that she would never be demure to Osborn. Andthat Osborn thinks Songbird is a bad leader for a redemptive team because she has morals and is actively trying to get it right.
page 21: And we lose what brownie crumbs the book got by making Karla meek and passive to show Norman as being better at mind games at her without her even trying.
page 22: Oh good, back to Jack Flag,the only moderately interesting thing.
page 22: Jack Flag will be offed, or his girlfriend will, making him grim and bitter
End result: Like Ultimates, I basically was too bored to care about it being bad(something I never thought I'd say about Ellis) However, Nothing was done with Penance, Songbird, Swordsman or Radioactive man, the characters(in addition to Moonstone) who I care about(maybe those 8 or so pointless pages could have been spent on story and character, what do you think?) and I seem to have developed a fondness for Jack Flag. I MIGHT give it another issue, to see what happens.