Update: Injustice Like Lightning? Is Marvel teasing another “Thunderbolts” team?

Now, I will be the first to admit, my trust in Marvel these days is a little more than shaky, to say the least. I see comics and characters, that I grew up with, rather than become closer, become absolute strangers to me. The two biggest influences on me, in regards to comics, were, without a doubt Uncanny X-Men and Avengers. Somewhere, in the early 2000’s, both of those titles became less than desirable for me. Perhaps, because I was growing older, and I wasn’t their target audience anymore. I am not sure. But before those dark years, there were quite a few comics that I sincerely enjoyed a step above the rest – because they did a fantastic job of juggling: action, telling a good story, focusing on characters and developing them. One of those titles was New Warriors. The other title was Thunderbolts. Both were a pleasant surprise, because The New Warriors took a bunch of no-name characters and developed them into relatable characters. Thunderbolts did the same thing; with a twist. It took a bunch of second rate villains, had them pose as heroes in a world that had just had the majority of heroes vanish (due to the events of Heroes Reborn, or whatever that horrid thing was called). Not only did we get to see these villains so excellently developed by two of the greatest writers in Marvel (at the time – and really, still now) – Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza! We even got Mark Bagley (who also was on The New Warriors) as the artist in the beginning!

While you had one really known character (Baron Zemo) posing as Citizen V, the rest included Fixer as Techno, Beetle became Mach I, Screaming Mimi became Songbird (probably the biggest hit out of the series), Goliath became Atlas, Moonstone became Meteorite. This was the core of the team; they would eventually get a new member (pretty early on) named Jolt (who had no criminal history as a villain) and another character named Charcoal (which was a character introduced through a contest Marvel/Wizard Magazine had; and eventually killed because the winner of the contest was feeling under appreciated and tried to win legal rights to the character – so Fabian – er, Graviton put an end to that real quick).

But the glory and wonderfulness of the Thunderbolts didn’t last too long. You see, someone at Marvel decided it would be a good idea to turn the Thunderbolts into an underground wrestling thing.

I wish I were kidding. I really do. But I’m not.

Eventually, somehow, someone at Marvel came to their senses and realized that this perhaps was not the best thing to do. So they huddled around, started talking – and got Fabian to come back to the Thunderbolts and finish off his run.

Eventually, the Thunderbolts comic was rebooted (because everything at Marvel is), but this time it came with a much, much, much darker tone and focused more on “look how awesome, evil and destructive these villains are!” rather than making any attempt to tell a good story, or even develop the characters that they had in their roster. During these dark days, the Thunderbolts consisted of: Norman Osborn (Leader), Moonstone (Field leader), Bullseye, Penance (formerly Speedball; not to be confused with Penance from Generation X), Radioactive Man, Songbird, Swordsman and Venom. This series was being written by Warren Ellis. And I get a lot of people like Warren Ellis.

Needless to say, I didn’t last long collecting Thunderbolts into Warren’s run. But now, it seems that Marvel is once again – teasing that a new Thunderbolts comic is on the horizon. Will it be any good? Time will tell.

UPDATE: It would appear that Marvel is, indeed, doing a new Thunderbolts comics.

I am not familiar with the “ghost” child is – but the rest appears to be Mach-I (or whatever version he goes by these days), Atlas (formerly Goliath), Meteorite (formerly Moonstone),  Techno (formerly Fixer), and Winter Soldier (formerly, well, I suppose you could say he was formerly either Bucky or Captain America {however brief}).

I admit, I am interested. I also admit, my expectations are pretty high; because this book had some of the greatest Marvel writers and they delivered some unbelievably fantastic stories; and the art was also amazing throughout the series. So here is hoping, whoever is taking over the writing duties can deliver a story like Kurt and Fabian did; and that the artist can deliver the unique look that Bagley gave us.