Thunderbolts 142, Avengers: The Initiative 34

Last of the shorter reviews, I think. I'll have a few more longer ones for books released last week. Mighty and New Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, and maybe a few others will likely be up next week sometime, as that's about how long Marvel tends to take getting them to me.

Thunderbolts 142
I suppose I should preface this by saying that I haven't been a big fan of the newest incarnation of this team. That this is a team that is (with a couple exceptions) either unrepentantly evil or at least morally ambivalent seems to run counter to the traditional themes of redemption in this book. Not to mention that having a team that consistently points in the wrong direction on the moral compass sort of requires they lose more often than not. The book itself hasn't been bad, per se, though it has been rather hit or miss, with the quality of any given arc usually more dependent on guest or supporting characters than the titular team.

All that said, I definitely enjoyed this issue. I felt like the story got off to a shaky start, but it really hits its stride here. While USAgent's always been sort of a poor-man's Captain America, the face off here between him and Nuke (AKA Scourge) works really well. I've always found Scourge to be a rather flat and boring character, and while that's still true, at the very least this story plays to his particular variety of bland and uninteresting. I really like the idea of Amadeus Cho being able to take on Mr. X thanks to his dizzying intellect (even if some fans like to decry him as a bit of a Mary Sue character). The spear of Odin is bad ass, even if it's not clear to me how the physics of it work (I'm not really sure what Ant Man means when he says it's "floating like a jet ski"... does it literally fly when no one's controlling it)? The art's not perfect, but it works pretty well with the story; lots of frowning and shadowy faces, which is a bit cliche but nevertheless appropriate. I did find the dialogue to be pretty unimpressive (especially between USAgent and Scourge, yeeach!), so if that's a turn off I'd probably suggest avoiding this issue.

One way or another, it's an exciting issue, and I'm looking forward to the final installment. Time will tell if Ant Man and Paladin's change of allegiance will turn the tide or be too little, too late. And I'm curious to see what USAgent's eventual fate will be; while he's even more redundant than usual now that Steve Rogers has returned (not to mention still super unlikeable) I'm not sure he deserves the treatment he receives at the end of this issue.

Avengers: The Initiative 34
Avengers: The Initiative is another title I haven't been following all that closely, but I picked it up because it ties into Siege and has "Avengers" in the title. Turns out, it's also another tie in that I've enjoyed more than the main Siege storyline. Really, this issue has what Siege (and a lot of large scale BMB stories) lacks - character development. In the same number of pages as Siege 3 we get all the excitement of the big battle scenes plus some poignant vignettes about how the events are affecting some of the individuals involved. The Taskmaster has become a wonderful villain, so I hope we see more of him once this series ends (on a side note, is his face actually a skull? When I read him when I was younger I was pretty sure it was a mask, but it seems pretty expressive these days). And Frank and Rachel had better get a happy ending or I'm going to be rather upset. I also hope we're seeing the foundations of the new New Warriors in this book with Robbie and Vance's reunion, as I'd very much like to see Robbie shed his angsty Penance persona and return to the more lighthearted Speedball.