Villains always make the best heroes. That's because, quite frankly, being good is boring. That's why you don't make friends by staying home and testing out different Alfredo sauce recipes. Judging from what I see in film and late night TV, you meet people by staying out till 6 AM doing cocaine at an after-hours club, and you get a date by sharing. It's a sad reflection of society, to be sure, even more so because it leads to anti-hero glorifying movies like Saw, but it's true. The rules apply to comicdom, as well, where villains gather fans a lot quicker than most heroes. So, it's no surprise that Marvel's team of reformed supervillains, The Thunderbolts, has been running for over a 100 issues.

 
But now, Thunderbolts has a new team, both creatively and in the comic itself. Writer Warren Ellis has quickly become Marvel's go-to-guy whenever Brian Michael Bendis is busy or an editor wants more science and less swearing, and he’s taken over the book, with Mike Deodato, Jr handling the artwork. And both superstar creators seem to be itching to sink their teeth into the new Thunderbolts they've assembled. Under the guidance of director Norman Osborn, the new team consists of Moonstone, Songbird, Venom, whoever Swordsman is, Bullseye, and Penance, who was Speedball before he got into what appears to be medieval S&M. Villains are much juicier than heroes, probably because they're made mainly of pressed ham, and so the potential for this series is vast.

 
In the first issue of this Civil War tie-in, Ellis intersperses scenes of the Thunderbolts interview process with the build-up to their first confrontation with unregistered superhero Jack Flag, throwing in excerpts from media coverage of the team. This is quite an ingenious structure, switching from static dialogue to action to reaction and back again. The interview segments, with Osborn recruiting Bullseye and Moonstone, are chilling. The Jack Flag scenes, in which he argues with his wife about his costume, are realistic and touching, and the TV clips are insightful satires. We don't get to see much of the Thunderbolts other than the two mentioned above, but as Jack Flag astutely notes, the team functions mostly on fear and secrecy, so this is actually an effective storytelling tactic. No doubt it will be resolved as the series continues, but in the first issue, it adds a sense of mystery that serves the book well. Bullseye's sedative-induced conversation with Osborn, illustrated mainly in close-ups, is truly unnerving, and Moonstone's interview actually makes her seem frightening, as opposed to one step above the Hypno-Hustler in terms of fear factor. Jack Flag's conversations with Lucy have a Watchman-inspired realism to them, which is always refreshing no matter how often it's done nowadays. Ellis, as fantastical as some of his work is, has a firm grasp of realistic dialogue, which helps to get the reader involved in the story, and it's in full swing here.

 
Ellis is, of course, not the only comic book superstar involved in Thunderbolts. Artist Mike Deodato Jr, brings a lot to the table with his unique blend of realism and exaggeration. Characters like Venom are swollen, disproportionate, and monstrous, and are all the more frightening when juxtaposed with his more realistic characters. The art is smooth and dynamic, but the most impressive aspect of Deodato's style is his unerring ability to capture the kinetic energy of every illustration, as if his panels were frames lifted from a film, motion captured midstream. Nothing ever seems static, even in a simple conversation, and coupled with the strong dialogue, it really keeps the book moving. A simple moment of silence, captured in a long, vertical panel of Jack Flag diving from his window, because infused with great importance with a combination of Ellis' pacing and Deodato's dynamism. The two creators, playing off each other's strength as well as the inherent meatiness of the characters, have crafted a strong introductory issue to a series that promises to reveal the dark, juicy underbelly of an already dark story.

Rating: 9 on 10

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