Jan-Ken-Pon – Thunderbolts #133 review

    
Even before art and dialogue, comics begin with choices. The worthwhile titles are so as much due to what is left out as much to what an issue actually contains. It is in this void that quality writer fill with the trust or faith she or he has with readers. Some imagination wiggle room that keeps the reader’s experience interactive. Trust in imagination.

After successfully righting (writing) the Thunderbolts ship from potential obstacles presented in Magnum Opus last issue he doesn’t ramble on toward the obvious continuation. I found that this decision grants that previous issue a greater feeling of relevance, and not being the tool to distance itself from the previous arc in one issue. Diggle changes pace again in this issue and leaves us to ponder where the newest team member is. We don’t get Mr. X hitting the ground running with his new team on some new haphazardly plotted mission. We instead get what amounts to locker room conversation between Paladin and Ant-Man about their newest member. Classically in such a location, it’s a discussion about men comparing themselves with another.

What Diggle grants himself with when leaving those aforementioned gaps is the space to offer legitimate development of those members in attendance. This issue furthers the entire team. Black Widow is front and center, and we learn in this issue she is perhaps both the most dangerous and vulnerable member of the team. We see that Ghost, so often considered the paranoid schizo, actually has a penchant for causing those around him to take on those very attributes. Ant-Man takes the role of the member questioning his place on the team, which probably speaks well of him even though the reasons why he made and wanted to be on the team doesn’t (though they probably represent rather common motivations and even actions—after all who doesn’t lie on their applications?). Diggle and Sepulveda are especially exceptional here, as while watching Ant-Man seek comfort and perhaps in some manner repentance from Paladin, I found myself continually on unsure ground, debating with myself whether or not it was a conversation he was going to walk away from.

We also get the reappearance of Song Bird—a mission for the ‘bolts newest member.

I called Mr. X the ‘newest’ member above, but after this issue he no longer has that title. We finally see Scrouge join the Thunderbolts after his appearance on the cover of issue #128 caused a bit of discussion among comic fans. His presence along with that of Mr. X definitely ups the teams power, but also in some way the ever increasing unstable nature of the team revealed in this issue, may be Diggle using the team as a correlation to Osborn’s own psyche. Here is a man who is legal, sanctioned, and in control—he has the full power of the government and Avengers behind him, yet he has the Thunderbolts in his back pocket/back of his mind.

What going to happen when we throw some Fury into those cracks?

    
- Jay Tomio

_{Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen, and the editor of Heliotrope. Some call him the Bodhisattva.}

About Jay Tomio

...Jay Tomio is the co-owner of BSCreview and BSCkids--check out Jan-ken-pon, his time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column. More fun awaits at the Vogue Immunity