Should I bother to ask "why?"No, it's too obvious.
Something I saw last week as it was unfolding but haven't previously commented on is the upcoming change to the Marvel series Thunderbolts.
Essentially, starting with issue #110, Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato become the new creative team, and both the cast and the mission of the series takes a sharp turn.
When one cuts through the crap, what we have is a situation where Marvel is using the Civil War arc as an excuse for turning Thunderbolts - a series focused on villains disguising themselves as heroes only to find that for some of them the role of hero truly appealed to them - into that of DC's Suicide Squad, where villains are given little to no choice in the matter and are used as tools by a government agency.
Moreover, the selection for the team is done less for the idea that this would be an effective, controllable force and more simply because they know that the likes of Bullseye, Venom and the Green Goblin (yes, it's Norman Osborne) are each going to pull in groups of fans.
I don't object to the idea that Marvel would use the Suicide Squad concept -- it makes sense that government agencies would try to tap the specialized skills of super-criminals through a mix of carrot and stick incentives. It's almost as natural as having super-types team up in the first place.
What I object to is having one good concept displace another, as it struck me as unnecessary.
Having let it sit for the weekend, though, I certainly understand the move. By most accounts Thunderbolts was selling poorly, and it was likely headed for cancellation anew. Instead, the team's about to undergo a roster change and be more directly... directed by the Commission for Superhuman Activities, which previously had more of an oversight role.
Meanwhile, Fabian Nicieza will be following up his run with a limited series Zemo: Born Better, and there's some indication that one or more of the current Thunderbolts might be moving on into the superheroic mainstream. Moonstone is about to return, and it appears that both Songbird and the new Swordsman will remain part of the team, but as for anyone else, well, we don't know how they're going to fare in the coming battle.
From a business standpoint, though, I understand the decision completely.
This is a move tied into a commercially successful event (Civil War) and one which they know will draw in hordes of new readers. The first 6-issue arc (#110-115) will likely sell well into the six figures for Marvel, and while many (most?) of us who are current fans are to various degrees shaking our heads it's been impossible to ignore the number of people I've run into who didn't care about the Thunderbolts as they're currentl configured who now have issue #110 on their must-buy lists.
I'd feel better about all this if I thought that even a single, knowledgeable (about the characters and their histories) person with long-term vision was overseeing this. This being Quesada's Marvel, though, there's little to no hope of that. Instead, we have a fashion designer's mentality, where the focus remains on what's hot and everything but the bare bones the legal department requires in order to maintain trademarks is up for trendy makeovers.
Tags: Comic Books Warren Ellis Thunderbolts
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Comments
The post-CW roster and premise as announced by Marvel strikes me more as a continuance of the premise rather than a sudden sharp turn into Suicide Squad territory. And Warren's one of a handful of writers I'd be inclined to trust with this series at this point.
My Big Question is this: will Osborn, Gargan and Bullseye be any more immune to the "Seduction of Good" theme than Helmut Zemo and Moonstone were allowed to be?
I was a little baffled at how this could be seen as more of a continuation of where the series is than the Suicide Squad, but then again I was seeing the very recent shift as being more the anomaly than the rule. The turn towards "You're working for us. No choice," including nanobot injections is strongly divergent from the history of this team. It's pretty much 100% Suicide Squad being grafted onto the jagged stump cut by both the New Avengers' membership and Civil War.
As for the likes of Osborne & Bullseye in particular being immune to the Seduction of the Good, I can't see this being seriously changed. Oh, Ellis may get to play with it, but these are hardcore killers -- especially Bullseye -- and it'll simply be a matter of time and writer's whim until they go back.
Then they did the "wrestling" deal which was just stupid. I was hoping that when they relaunched the title with the original premise they would get back the quality of those early issues.
But I have a difficult time with Venom and the Green Goblin being part of this team. "Lethal Protector". Just the thought of it makes me sick.
This upcoming turn, however, seems a cruel thing to do, though as Dwight suggests, however dark the path it is a path. Obviously, little to nothing of the original thrust of the series remains, and, in fact, I'll be disappointed if there's any honest attempt to have the likes of someone like Bullseye reform. It's important to remember that these guys aren't here fully of their own accord.
Hopefully Ellis will have done his homework, and the noblest person in the remaining mix (Songbird) will be torn between whether she should stay or go. Maybe someone will remember Busiek's plans for her and she'll transition to the Avengers... though at this point we may be looking (in the short term at least) at more than one team of Avengers.
The new Swordsman, like-minded inasmuch that he's on a road to redemption, may find staying with this especially violent and vile chain gang something of a grind.
That Moonstone/Meteorite is an amoral psychologist and so a master manipulator makes her a likely string-puller in the group, even if part of doing that is letting someone else (Osborne?) feel that he's in charge.
So, there are interesting possibilities in the concept, but it's definitely a sad path to assume the name of Thunderbolts.