| |
Review by Mat Bredfeldt
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Declan Shalvey
Color Artist: Frank Martin
The latest issue of Thunderbolts does not start off with its usual "Story so far" page and instead gives us two pages of the beginning of the story where two guys are running away from something or someone in the Florida Everglades. One dies a gruesome death and the other is caught with a man catcher by some red lizard people who ride what look like orange Boga's from Star Wars.
Going back to Thunderbolts headquarters, we see Luke Cage being interviewed by the Thunderbolts Committee about Man-Thing. Man-Thing is the team's means of transport thanks to an implant developed by Hank Pym that lets them control his teleportation. It's about shift change at The Raft and the committee goes down to check out Man-Thing's living environment and they meet face to face. When the committee leaves, the tech in charge of Man-Thing changes to another person and we later come to find out that the person is not the usual guy and is instead a magic user that looks a lot like Snowbird from Alpha Flight.
Back to the Everglades and we see various small boats out on the water with families enjoying a day of fishing and more action with the red lizard guys on Boga's. The red guys have a name, they are called The Hunters of Vellus-Kar. After seeing the people in another boat get skewered, a family starts their outboard motor and grabs a shotgun that they keep with them for difficult situations. After stalling the Boga with a catfish from their boat, grand-dad manages to load the shotgun and unload both barrels into one of the guys riding the Boga. The lizard men use a whip to steal the shotgun from the family in the boat and they make for the marshland. Just as they are about to be pounced upon by the hunters, Man-Thing appears out of the marsh and grabs the jaw of the Boga and snaps its jaw. With their mount dead, the lizard men still put up a fight. Snowbird(?) has teleported with Man-Thing to the swamp to be its protector. The hunters use a spear to try to stab Man-Thing and it just goes through him like it was nothing. Man-Thing reaches for the lizard man's face and burns it to death. That just leaves one solitary female hunter and Snowbird(?) opens a gateway back to the lizard's home plane and warns her to tell her kind never to return to Earth. As we cut back to see that everything has been witnessed by the folks who run the Thunderbolts, as well as Songbird and Luke Cage, who find that the person who freed Man-Thing is named Jennifer Kale. Man-Thing, who the Jennifer keeps calling Ted, teleports the both of them back to The Raft and she is facing two security guards with large guns pointed at her. Cage and Songbird get the guards to stand down and we learn that Man-Thing's real name is Ted Sallis and he injected himself with an experimental reproduction of the Super Solider serum that SHIELD was having him make after AIM raided his lab to steal the formula.
After Songbird and Ms. Kale converse, Kale decides to re-implant the teleportation controller and then disappears into the ether. A day or so later, there's a briefing about the report from the Thunderbolts Committee and how they are going to let them keep Man-Thing on the team and still use him as transport. Luke Cage says he's gotten a new directive from them in that they have to recruit a new Mystical Thunderbolt for the team.
I liked this story. I'm not all that familiar with the story of Man-Thing and how he fits into the Marvel Universe and it served as a good introduction to the character for me. I knew the basics, you know, "All that knows fear burns at the touch of Man-Thing" but nothing beyond that. It seems like all the characters that have been injected with attempts to re-make the super soldier serum have all been abject failures. The biggest failure had to be Deadpool, who while cured of his cancer, the serum could not fix his face. Then there is the mega insane Omega Red which was an attempt to remake the super soldier serum by Russia. We also learn Man-Thing's motivation for working with the Thunderbolts team is that he wants to see the world.
The story is really well drawn and is one of the better ones that I have read so far this year (yes I do realize the month is only three months in, but it was good.) There is a little bit of inconsistency, by the editors in that they show the death of the guy on the first page of the book, but all subsequent deaths are done off panel. We also get to know more about the layout of the area that Man-Thing is living in. It's 10 acres of prime swamp, sealed off and the environment is controlled by technicians. I don't know if the artist drew Jennifer Kale like Snowbird on purpose or if Jennifer Kale is the new/old Snowbird.
|