This is a sort of team dynamic, I suppose.. might get one-sided awfully quickly.

[thanekos]

So in this week's Thunderbolts, Jeff Parker builds issue plot around roster alteration.

He's been doing it for the last few, with the introduction and quick removal of a very unstable Hyperion (or to hear him say it to Man-Thing, "Monster, I am KING HYPERION!!") and the for-now more permanent addition of Satana Hellstrom (as occult specialist.)

This issue continues that, featuring the government-mandated creation of a backup team (dubbed cleverly, if not charmingly, by Moonstone as "The Underbolts"), which promises to be fun; at the very least, the Shocker and Mister Hyde and Centurius are potentials.



Luke takes 'em down to Man-Thing's tank to meet her, only to find that..



I have a feeling Parker wrote this scene just so he could put those words in Luke's mouth. It's just.. so perfect.

And I was also wondering how Moonstone would react to her, in much the same way I was wondering how she'd react to Hyperion.

The answer is not what I was thinking, as we see Satana indulge an appreciation for artifacts of power (that's actually how Strange and Cage got her, by pointing out the Man-Thing.. um):



Arcane, alien, it's all the same to her! Though she might want to go a little lower for the crackling energy..

(The way she's posed and posing, I expect her next line to be a frank evaluation of Moonstone's bust.)

Luke puts paid to this little moment soon enough, to the disappointment of several boner-havers:



(Three times? That might get a little cumbersome, down the road.. also, I love how put out she looks.)

And so they're off, to contend with the citadel of the mad Baron Gothenvald.

Meanwhile MACH-V and the Shocker bond over fighting Spider-Man, Centurius and the Fixer trade smart person jibes, and Songbird and Calvin Zabo have some very frank discussions.. Parker writes some nice character interaction, he does.

(And markets rather cunningly, too..)

Comments

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

I love Parker's T-bolts.

Even... dare I say it?

Even better than the Ellisbolts!

I'm constantly both happy and frustrated with Kev Walker's art, though. He draws a wonderfully creepy Ghost, but come on, that looks NOTHING like Satana.

Someone on another board said it looks more like Elaine from Seinfeld, and now I cannot unsee it.

[mrstatham]

I still can't stand the way the guy draws Songbird. He's gotten better, but I don't know where the mandate on that short hair came from, or the idea that Mel should look rougher and nastier than Moonstone.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

Part of his hilariously uninformed redesign for Songbird to emphasize her "killer streak". Comparing her to Bullseye...

KINDA PICKED THE WRONG CHARACTER THERE, ARTISTGUY!

[glimmung]

Yeah, she is pretty saintly from what I have seen.

[jlbarnett]

he seriously seemed to think Moonstone was the nicer character than Songbird from what I recall/

[ian_karkull]

I don't know, coming of from Dark Reign, it kind of made sense to me:
Karla essentially committed High Treason on National Television and in front of an adoring public (while, knowing her, probably funnelling of Millions of Dollars to some secret Swiss Bank Account) and ended up exactly where she started. She got off scott free.
Melissa on the other hand did everything right, played by the book and tried very, very hard to become a better person and be the hero she thought people wanted her to be and all she got was being labelled a terrorist over night and nearly getting a bullet through the head.

If that happened to me, I'd be laughing all the way to the bank/be mad as all hell (respectively) too.