Farewell to the Thunderbolts

One of my favorite comics is undergoing a transformation in a month or two. The Thunderbolts will be changing it's name to Dark Avengers with issue #175. Sales have been falling off as of late and this is an attempt by the Marvel brass to spark sales by slapping the Avengers name on there. Nothing is forever though, I imagine the Thunderbolts name will come back at some point or they'll start with a new number 1 after this series gets cancelled.

The Thunderbolts first appeared in 1997. Most of the Marvel heroes were dead following the Onslaught event and the Thunderbolts appeared to fill the void. They got a lot of hype in Wizard if I remember correctly but honestly, they seemed like your fairly run of the mill 90s looking team. I really paid them no mind at first as I didn't find them to be a very interesting concept. But then this happened at the end of issue 1:

That's right! The Thunderbolts were really the Masters of Evil posing as good guys. I don't recall what Baron Zemo's endgame was anymore but the twist took everyone by surprise. The book took everyone by surprise and those first couple of issues were really hard to find because the print run was fairly low. It took me maybe 3-4 months to track down those first 5 or 6 issues. But I did it and I loved this book. As the series progressed the Masters slowly took to being heroes and eventually had a falling out with Baron Zemo. Hawkeye finds his way onto the team and the Thunderbolts are off to redeem themselves.

Redemption is the key to the Thunderbolts. Super villains join the team and try to make amends for their past crimes. Even when Norman Osborn was head of the program, there were still characters seeking their redemption on the team.

The book has had it's ups and downs over the years. Probably about a 50/50 split on good times vs. bad times. But you have to give this book a ton of credit. The Thunderbolts carried a series for 174 issues in an era where new character ideas really struggle to sell comics.

As I said earlier. I don't see this as goodbye. Things tend to be circular in comics. The Thunderbolts name will probably make a return in the next 3-5 years. I just thought I'd take a brief walk down memory lane.