Thunderbolts #127

Every now and again I like to go back and review an older issue, and today I'm reviewing Thunderbolts #127 by Andy Diggle and Roberto de la Torre. Diggle and de la Torre took over as the creative team of Thunderbolts only an issue earlier, following the critically acclaimed run by Warren Ellis, they begin by dismantling the team to set up both a new team and most of the current character's moves over to the Dark Avengers book.

This is the second part of "Burning Down the House"; a two-part story which deals with the transition from Thunderbolts to Dark Avengers. The previous issue dealt with sending Thunderbolts members Radioactive Man and Penance off on buses and this issue deals with Songbird. The story follows Songbird, all by herself, attempting to survive in Thunderbolts Mountain with Bullseye and Venom pursuing and trying to kill her. Then in the final moments, Swordsman shows up and saves her. The two Thunderbolts part ways with Swordsman warning Songbird that a "dark reign is coming" (who would ever have thought he was responsible for coining the title of the entire crossover?).

To start with the good, this issue is certainly intense, opening with a scene of Bullseye with a diving knife to Songbird's spine and another to her throat pretty much sets up what to expect. The whole Bullseye/Songbird thing also serves to resolve a plot point from Ellis' run which he was too bored and lazy to do anything with. It is nice to see this play out but the problem is it seems too apparent that the writer and most the readers are rooting for the villains rather than Songbird here. Other than one epic moment where Songbird turns the tables on Bullseye near the beginning and another moment where she blows...nothing up...with the Thunderbolts jet, the story certainly caters more to Bullseye and Venom being the "cool" ones here. On one hand, it's utterly reprehensible but on the other it's fair game to say that maybe this is entirely what Diggle was going for. Maybe he is trying to make a subtle point about the audience and their own desire for blood and rooting for the heinous bad guys? Or maybe he was completely unaware of the deeper train of thought and just wanted to have two murderous lunatics chasing a woman around dark corridors. Either way it feels suitably uncomfortable, whether intentionally so or not.

Another aspect of the issue is Moonstone (or rather Karla Sofen in great suits) and her relationship with the team as we see her brief tenure as leader of the Thunderbolts (a position she holds for all of two issues - this and the one before) and her only mission is sending everyone away on buses or killing them. A lot of writer's honestly don't get Karla. Warren Ellis didn't, Brian Michael Bendis certainly didn't, and even Jeff Parker at times fell back to the old "she's just a slutty slut" misnomer. Diggle does a better job, but maybe only because he doesn't have anyone around for Karla to have sex with in the two issues she's in. He does however address something Ellis completely overlooked, and that's the fact that Moonstone and Songbird have been team-mates for years, and while they're different people to the point of being antagonistic to each other, there still is some semblance of a friendship between the two. This issue serves as actually a pretty decent way to abruptly end whatever "friendship" was there with Songbird realizing her hopes that Moonstone could be better are wrong and Moonstone being outsmarted by Songbird. I probably make it sound a bit more prominent than it is, but it is good to see someone actually address the relationship between the two characters after it was ignored and twisted by a cynic with a beard.

But the real highlight of the issue, though, probably falls to the re-redemption of Swordsman. Yes, re-redemption. See, Swordsman joined the Thunderbolts way back when and he was basically redeemed already and was a committed, if creepy, member of the team. Then Ellis came along and for some reason just decided to ignore everything about him and make him into a wimpy spoilt brat who is absolutely useless. Other than the name, there's nothing in common with the Swordsman who appeared before. The ultimate sucker-punch came when Bendis jumped at the chance to immediately kill the guy off in the most pathetic way possible in a completely unrelated one-shot. Here at least, Diggle retroactively tries to make Swordsman's death a bit less, well, shit. Bendis had Swordsman be a wimpy spoilt brat ala Ellis and then embarrassingly gutted with his own sword by Norman effin' Osborn (while wearing no armor and using no Goblin gimmicks). Diggle contextualizes the sequence a bit here by revealing Swordsman knew he wasn't a part of Osborn's upcoming plans and was on borrowed time, and with that time chose to do the honorable and decent thing in helping Songbird - even if it ensured his own death. I mean, considering he appears in at most 4 pages of the story, there is more legitimate character work there than Ellis gave the guy in 12 issues.

So it all sounds good, right? Wrong. There is one major problem with it all. While Diggle was having the men go after Songbird and having her scream in fear and be stabbed in the hand and stuff, he and everyone involved overlooked the most ridiculous thing possible: Songbird is fighting Venom. Songbird's one power is Venom's biggest weakness. At no point whatsoever is this even brought up, instead we just have Venom slobbering all over her and fondling her with his tongue while she cowers and shivers. It's a realization that just evokes the biggest sigh of disbelief and disappointment form me. When there's a crucial aspect of a book that completely and utterly fails it sucks a lot of fun out of some genuinely good stuff going on.

This issue serves well as the end of the Ellis-era of Thunderbolts and resolves a lot of dangling plot threads while also giving Songbird and Swordsman a much-needed, if really understated and minimal, victory against the psychos. But, in all honestly, it feels like Thunderbolts #126 and #127 really only should be read in conjunction rather than apart. With this issue starting in medias res, most of the last issue setting this one up and together both issues bookended by scenes between Songbird and Swordsman, they feel like one complete story rather than two issues.