Writer: Matthew Rosenberg
Artist: Juan Ferreyra
Cover Artist: Kyle Hotz & Dan Brown
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The Kingpin has assembled his own Suicide Squad, sorry, Thunderbolts of degenerate criminals, mercenaries, and small-time villains to help push back the tide of Knull’s symbiote invasion. The problem? They have no idea how to do that. So, the new mayor of New York sends the team to Ravencroft to locate the one man who can help them: Norman Osborn.
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King in Black: Thunderbolts #2 Review:
Here we see the Thunderbolts find Norman, who’s written more like his current pacifistic self in Nick Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man, so he’s far more helpful than a megalomaniacal backstabber here. The Thunderbolts quickly establish their routine of juvenile swearing, obscure shout-outs, threatening to kill each other, and making things up as they go while fighting symbiotes. For those wondering, Taskmaster is very much written in line with his current series, so there’s a lot of synergy between his depictions there and here.
While the Thunderbolts are in Ravencroft, a symbiote dragon crashes through the roof and symbiotes end up possessing some of the inmates. There’s some quick fighting before the team lets loose the villains in the asylum to help them fight and escape to enact Norman and the Kingpin’s plan of attack. However, their plan requires a certain severed hero that Knull killed in the first issue of the King in Black main series.
King in Black: Thunderbolts #2 Spoilers:
Fair warning: if you don’t like DC’s Suicide Squad, both the film and comics, then you might not enjoy this comic. The Thunderbolts’ tone, characters, and plot are like something straight out of the past ten years of Suicide Squad stories. The villains are woefully outclassed and outgunned by their opponents, and the comic just keeps getting sillier and crazier with each page which goes double for the Thunderbolts and other characters. Even my personal favorite Mister Fear is starting to wear out his welcome.
The art by Juan Ferreyra is nice and the Kingpin’s plan does intrigue me, but I have no idea how much sense it really makes and if it will even play a big part in the event. We’ll see, the King in Black event is doing some crazy things in its tie-ins. Maybe something will actually come from this.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This Thunderbolts team is Marvel’s version of the Suicide Squad. It provides a few quick laughs and does have cool art and some action but that’s about it. It’s a slight detour for readers while they wait for the King in Black main series.