With one world under Doom, Bucky and his team of rugged superfriends must take justice (like lightning) in Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #1.
With their cinematic debut arriving in just under three months, now is a great time to launch a new Thunderbolts series, and why not connect it to the ongoing One World Under Doom event? Synergy upon synergy, and comic fans famously love that. But in any event, Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #1 is a pretty decent start to what will probably be a core tie-in of the aforementioned crossover storyline.
Technically a continuation of Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s Thunderbolts run from last year, Thunderbolts: Doomstrike picks up where that series left off, with Bucky Barnes forced to reckon with his actions that —unbeknownst to him— helped Doctor Doom name himself emperor of Earth. Whoopsie! Deciding it’s on his shoulders to strike back, he reforms a makeshift squad of allies to balance the scales, all while a new Citizen V lurks in the shadows.
Having not read Lanzing and Kelly’s previous Thunderbolts, I will say Doomstrike is fairly easy to follow, which clears a potential hurdle for a tie-in like this. The stakes are clear, our main cast of characters is delineated, and anything a potential reader may have missed previously is explained succinctly. (A low bar that many of these books aren’t able to meet.) Whereas a Thunderbolts purist may still scoff at this Suicide Squad-esque interpretation of the team, I think the writers do a good job of trying to reconcile the two iterations of the team here, with some of the old and some of the new combined, while remixing some other things. (e.g. this Citizen V is not Baron Zemo, but a recognizable figure all the same.)
Artist Tommaso Bianchi’s art here is fantastic; appropriately moody and even gritty to a point that recalls Michael Gaydos in spots, but still colorful. Each page is formatted in visually interesting ways that reflect the action as well, which helps the thing from feeling too static, which you don’t want with a story like this. All in all, Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #1 is a good start for what will likely be a fun, engaging complimentary read to its parent series.
Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #1
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Credits
- Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
- Artist: Tommaso Bianchi
- Color artist: Yen Nitro
- Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
- Cover Artists: Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho
Credits (cont)
- Editor: Alanna Smith
- Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
