Thunderbolts #23

[iamrman]

Hawkeye rents a nice cabin after Hercules destroyed their last headquarters. It would be a shame if an ex-Captain America showed up with a bunch of armoured goons and messed it all up.

Ze Cyclone, ‘e is ‘ow you say, snooping for ze Masters of Evil and ze invisible figure, she is ze new Citizen V.

Comments

[mazway_75]

Love the play on the Hawkeye-Agent beef and Songbird's line of "I'd turn myself in for a million bucks."

[zachbeacon]

Who the heck rents to superheroes? Seems like good way to lose everything fast.

The US Agent stuff hits different after the Parker run. Nice to see Hawkeye beat his ass.

What are the Jury up to now? They were mostly an anti-Venom squad in the 90s and I think Eddie is still reformed these days.


I’ve been dying to talk about “Sir Not Appearing in These Scans”…

(Not sure if it’s a deliberate choice or not – these comics are very dense – but I’ve noticed the scans focus on ONLY the current Thunderbolts team and not characters who are still around in the series like Zemo, Techno, some "mystery figures", and now Abe. I guess that’s one way to put off dealing with Gyrich.)

Context for those that didn't read the issue: Clint wants Abe to turn himself in because the Beetle is a known murderer. He says he can arrange pardons for the others if Abe agrees. Abe turns himself in but Hawkeye was lying and just hopes he can work out an arrangement later.

(In fairness, it worked out for him, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver...and Black Widow, who has killed WAY more people than the Thunderbolts)

It’s a little weird Abe is getting singled out here. I get that Karla’s whole thing is plausible deniability (even though she probably has the highest body count) but there’s no way Erik hasn’t murdered people; he was a mercenary BEFORE the supervillain stuff.

Anyway, I’m sure Mel will be fine without her emotional support human and not try to redirect her feelings elsewhere in an unhealthy way.

[iamrman]

Yes, I have to cut out a lot, if not all, of the subplots. Admittedly, not a lot of thought goes in to these posts. Most of the time I stick to the big fights or interesting characters bits.

[zachbeacon]

But people will miss out on so much Zemo and Techno subtext!

(Yeah, like I said RE #12, I don't envy you deciding what gets cut)

[dan_ingram]

Context for those that didn't read the issue: Clint wants Abe to turn himself in because the Beetle is a known murderer. He says he can arrange pardons for the others if Abe agrees. Abe turns himself in but Hawkeye was lying and just hopes he can work out an arrangement later."

In retrospect, it's odd that Beetle was only charged with murder. The 'Bolts would have wracked up a huge list of crimes.

"(In fairness, it worked out for him, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver...and Black Widow, who has killed WAY more people than the Thunderbolts)"

Are we counting Zemo's attempt to take over the world in that? That could be in the tens of thousands.

[zachbeacon]

I personally wouldn't hold Zemo's crimes* against them but the courts probably would. Actually, that creates some major problems for Mel because - while I don't recall her killing anyone - Screaming Mimi was on a LOT of villain teams so I'm sure they'd try to tie her to all sorts of things.

*Wouldn't his takeover be relatively bloodless? Everyone got hit at once with the broadcast. Granted, in a mind control scenario like that, I'd worry about planes falling from the sky or something but his thralls seemed to have some level of autonomy...except for Cap.