Building a good D&D party is hard work. There’s a delicate balance of skills, both in and out of combat, to ensure that you’re building an optimal team that can hold your own with any of the challenges they might face. If you have an unbalanced group, it can potentially lead to some problems. The same is true of Superhero teams. Sure, you have your books where all the magic characters team up or all the war vets go on one last mission together, but these tend to be smaller stand-alone adventures. To make a superhero book sing, you must have the right team dynamic. Thankfully, there are people working in the industry right now familiar with building parties, both in the RPG sense and the superhero sense. Watching the dynamics they create is an incredible joy. Jim Zub is at the forefront of building fun and dynamic superhero teams, which is why “Thunderbolts” #1 is such a delight of a first issue.
Written by Jim ZubCover by Sean Izaakse & Java Tartaglia; David Nakayama
Illustrated by Sean Izaakse
Colored by Java Tartaglia
Lettered by VC’s Joe Sabino…LIKE LIGHTNING! Super-powered crooks have taken hostages in Staten Island? A dimensional rift tears open in Chinatown? Monsters running amok at the Met? Call in the THUNDER! New York City’s finest are here to save the day — Hawkeye, Spectrum, America Chavez, Power Man, Persuasion and Gutsen Glory! You know ’em, you love ’em…they’re the Thunderbolts! In the aftermath of Devil’s Reign, the Big Apple has big problems, and it’s up to a new group of Thunderbolts to turn things around. But when Clint Barton gets tasked with heading up this team and proving they can go toe-to-toe with anything the Marvel Universe can throw at them, the first opponent he’s going to have to face is himself.
There’s just something about Jim Zub’s ability to write incredibly fun comics, both in the story and dialogue and in the team he creates. Zub really won my heart with his (sadly) short-lived series ‘Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda,’ a book that took a lineup that, on paper, makes you scratch your head but in practice makes you wonder why you ever questioned Ken Hale teaming up with Fat Cobra and Broo. Zub is excellent at finding teams and ways to make them work. “Thunderbolts” #1 is no exception. From the get-go, we already see the dynamics at play, with America Chavez tossing around the new Power Man like he’s a bag of flour, the benefits of having an off-brand Cable with Gutsn Glory or having a (seemingly) rehabilitated supervillain on your team. Zub’s dialogue is light, fun, and punchy. In one issue, we already see how this team clicks, even if they aren’t necessarily running like a well-oiled machine, and see the potential of the adventures they might go on. It’s almost as if they were optimally chosen or something. It turns out they were.
There’s a slight tinge of cynicism to the new Thunderbolts lineup as Hawkeye learns that the new team has been meticulously crowdsourced, a seemingly cold and corporate product designed to reignite New York City’s trust in the costumed vigilante community. But the thing is that Zub finds a way to make it work in “Thunderbolts” #1. There’s something that feels overplayed in the concept of a “boardroom controlled superteam.” From The Boys to Tiger and Bunny, to even other spheres of the big two, the idea of a team chosen by committee feels tired. Yet, Zub finds a way to inject it with life. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a PR firm chosen to build trust in the superhero team instead of a cynical attempt to cover up Supers being bad, but here it just works. From the lame new catchphrase to the concept of having a mysterious man on the team because it “plays well,” there’s a sense of fun to a cynical concept.
It also helps that it’s just a fun book to read. It feels like a spiritual sequel to Kelly Thompson’s excellent ‘West Coast Avengers’ run. Hell, it even features everyone’s too tired, very over it, super archer as his usual snarky self. While Clint has been in the role of kind-of-sort-of super babysitter for the past few years, he owns it, and it’s been a lot of fun to watch. Putting him at the helm of “Thunderbolts” #1 works because we feel comfortable with him in the role of the leader of a seemingly odd superhero team. He acts as a dynamic narrator for any comic. Not that much actually happens in the premier issue. It’s just cross-cutting between the corporate boardroom and Mayor Luke Cage explaining the concept and then the team in action, but that’s perfectly fine. We don’t need a grand mystery. We don’t need to spin 15 plates in 33 pages to see if the team works. Zub sprinkles some mystery here and there, but he understands the assignment and gives us the team in action.
Continued belowThis is where Sean Izaakse and Java Tartaglia really shine, proving to be exceptional collaborators with Zub’s script. The art in “Thunderbolts” #1 works incredibly well with the lighthearted dialogue while also making the team look like total badasses. Izaakse’s composition during the action sequences is phenomenal, knowing exactly when to have action in a wide shot or move to a reaction. Some moments in the issue make it feel akin to an anime; one Taskmaster panel comes to mind, but also in the way they show the action. Every team member gets a moment to look cool, to show that they belong on the team, even if those moments get deflated or end up hurting the team. The action is so compelling that it helps to highlight one of the best jokes in the issue, The Thunderbolts kind of mess up bad and blow out the budget. Tartaglia’s coloring is also inspired, knowing when to let the powers control the panel as the heroes charge up or move through the space, but also knows exactly to give the panel too much light to add an element of humor. The art across the board is exceptional in the premier issue and makes you excited to see what happens next.
That’s the best part of “Thunderbolts” #1. It gets you excited to see what’s next. Zub and the team give you a fun, action-packed story with its tongue in cheek. It’s a fantastic premier issue, leaving you wanting more.
Final Verdict: 9.5 “Thunderbolts” #1 is superhero storytelling at its finest, exciting, bombastic, and funny all at once.
