When Kurt Busiek created the Thunderbolts, they were a team of Marvel villains pretending to be a new team of heroes. It was meant to be a Cunning Plan, Pinky & the Brain style -- only many of the villains found, for right or wrong reasons, they actually liked being heroes and the way the public reacted to them in that role. In time, the team became a legitimate and U.S. government-sanctioned avenue for villains seeking to reform and do time in public service. Not to mention villains who'd just rather be out there kicking other bad guys' butts than rotting in prison.
Norman 'Green Goblin' Osborn became a Thunderbolt during the Civil War event, and soon after maneuvered his way into command of the entire Thunderbolt program. Now, in the wake of Secret Invasion, he's been put in charge of the H.A.M.M.E.R that was S.H.I.E.L.D, giving him oversight of not just the Thunderbolts, but the Avengers Initiative as well.
So here's the twist: Norman takes some of the most vicious killers currently serving as Thunderbolts and turns them into the official Avengers for the U.S. of A. He does this by giving them the identities of established heroes that the public already knows and loves. Moonstone is Ms. Marvel. Wolverine's unhinged son Daken stands in for his dad. Venom becomes the Amazing Spider-Man. Bullseye, the psychopath who murdered two women Daredevil loved, is now Hawkeye. Up is down and black is white.
There's a fantastic two-page spread where the new Avengers are introduced to the public, with a neat trick you can really only pull off on a comic book page. As the name of each ersatz hero is called out, we see it printed in the colorful logo used on the cover of the original hero's comic. It really drives home the identity theft, the stunt that Norman Osborn is pulling on the public.
Not only do we have the old Thunderbolts questions hanging over this team -- how many truly want to be heroes? How many will discover that want over time? Can they overcome their own pasts and darker instincts? -- but we also have to wonder how long it will take the citizens of Marvel America to realize these aren't the heroes they know and love, and how they'll react when they figure it out.
Of course, not every member of the team is a pretender. Ares and the Sentry, two former Mighty Avengers, have stayed with Osborn. Ares, the actual Roman God of War, doesn't really care who's telling him to fight or why, so long as there are battles to be fought. The Sentry is more or less Marvel's schizophrenic version of Superman, and it's hinted that Osborn is manipulating his fractured mental state in some way to keep him around. I hadn't thought about it before Bendis brought them together in this book, but really the Sentry and Osborn's Green Goblin are two sides of the same coin. Osborn has also displayed signs of a schizophrenic disorder, as well as a possible multiple personality; when he started out committing crimes as the Goblin, he supposedly didn't know he was doing it. If Osborn is at all stable or integrated now, he's achieved that mostly by giving in to his darker impulses. Can the Sentry resist such a role model? Let's hope so.
And then there's the Iron Patriot, the new amalgam of Captain America and Iron Man. I have to admit Bendis had me completely faked out on this one. After the end of New Avengers #48, I was expecting to see Luke Cage in that armor, betraying his own teammates to make good on his promise to pay Osborn any price for help in finding his kidnapped child. (For a moment or two, I even entertained the notion that the new Ms. Marvel might be Jessica Jones, stealing the sobriquet of her best friend as part of the same Faustian bargain.) But no -- the Patriot is Osborn himself, because anything Tony Stark can do, Osborn must now prove he can do better. How did I not see that coming?
Plot-wise, Dark Avengers #1 is the first twenty minutes or so of a two-hour TV pilot episode. We've got the players on the board, and hints of who they are and what they want. What happens next is the story, but so far the set-up is more than solid.
- JC
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