Thunderbolts #19 – Review

by Charles Soule (Writer), Gabriel Hernandez Walta (Artist), Guru eFX (Colorist)

The Story: Road trips are apparently perfect opportunities if you plan to kill your teammates. At least, Red Leader seem to think so.

The Review: In team books, it’s usually expected that sooner or later an issue will focus on a specific member of the cast. Either a member of the team, one of the antagonists or even an important secondary character may end up getting a chance to be in the spotlight. Usually done before in the first issue of an arc or between two, those kind of issues always present the chance to see how a specific character perceive certain events and how his personality may be in comparison to others. In such a book like Thunderbolts, with a cast full of unsavory characters, the chance to put a shine on these troubled mind could very well end up being a pretty neat thing.

In a way, Charles Soule manage to surprise readers as well as take a big chance as he focus this one on Red Leader, pushing forth Samuel Sterns forth in order to clarify his thinking process and just how he sees this present team. With this character usually seen as a huge presence in many iterations of Hulk, does Soule actually delivers a nice rendition of the character as well as a pleasant issue with this one?

Soule succeeds here in a major way, as the ruthless and rather arrogant parts of Samuel Sterns are very well put on the page, giving a nice overview of the character. Putting together an amalgam of his older version with his current status quo, this version of the character manage to be interesting and intense, putting forth a certain fearful tension as the issue begins. With the narrations and the way the character acts, readers will have not only an understanding of who Red Leader is, but in how he might even evolve through this title. It’s rather interesting stuff altogether.

What also make this issue works is just how the methodical aspect of the character is also brought to the pacing, with the situation brought slowly yet surely to a certain climax. This is a done-in-one, yet not one that feels rushed or without purpose, with everything that needs to be said put on the forefront. It gets from point A to B, yet never fails to delivers during the travel.

A point that is a bit weird, though, is a specific one that happens near the end of the issue, one that I cannot talk about without spoiling it. So, well, *Spoilers Alert*. The reveal that this is but a simulation that Red Leader is running through his head may come a bit like a cop out. It seems like everything becomes a bit too intense, with so much going wrong near the end that it becomes unreal, until it is revealed that it actually is so. While it does provide for a nice throwback to the diminishing intelligence of the character, which is part of who he is now, it does make some points of the story seem moot. It does not get in the way of defining the character in meaningful ways, but it can feel a tad like a tease, which can be unwelcome, to say the least.

Another point that can get in the way of this issue’s enjoyment would be Gabriel Hernandez Walta. While his style is certainly less extreme and unfitting than Jefte Palo, Walta brings some weakness with him that don’t really add to the book overall. The first of them is how he draws faces, as his more human and normal-looking characters have impossibly square-shaped faces which tend to look rather ugly. These forms, unfortunately, comes in the way of expressions, as most of his characters end up looking rather stoic, which is rather disappointing. To his credit, his Red Leader actually does not suffer from these faults at all, with his proportions and expressions actually looking rather fine and diversified, which does help considering he is the main focus of this issue. He is also strangely suited to the more comical flashback pages, with a certain satire of how these characters look that he surprisingly makes them look believable and funny at the same time, with Ross having a huge chin or Deadpool being a stabbed puppet. His environment and sense of depth are also nothing to slouch at, as he is able to bring a certain diversity of scenery to an issue that mostly happens in the back of the Punisher’s van, which must have been rather hard. He might have some big weaknesses, but Walta does manage despite it all in this issue.

Even Guru eFX seems to be a bit better in this issue, with better shading visuals that allows for a better looking colorization. Playing with the lighter, the explosions and the sunsets, he is able to actually play a bit more with degradation and with clear-cut contrasts that makes the minor lack of diversity a bit more tolerable. The use of shadows and lights is also good here, with a surprisingly precise way the colorization pulls it off in some places. Guru eFX might not be always up to the task, as he had not been in some issues, but he is very decent here.

The Conclusion: With a more character-centric issue, Charles Soule is able to bring forth a rather neat issue focusing on some of the themes of this book while pushing forth an interesting vision on Red Leader. With a rather potent effort from Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Guru eFX, this gives us one of the best issue of this title in a while.

Grade: B

-Hugo Robberts Larivière