Thunderbolts #149

Overall: This is the second(and final)part of the Thunderbolts role in the Shadowland crossover event. This issue gets underway with the T-Bolts barely holding their own against a slew of Daredevil's crazed ninja minions. The ninjas have already managed to cut Man-Thing to pieces and have gutted Fixer. Songbird decides to rush Fixer to a hospital, which leaves the T-Bolts without a supervisor. After some discussion, the remaining T-Bolts(Juggernaut, Moonstone, Crossbones and Ghost)decide that they'd continue searching for the police officer Luke Cage had tasked them to find, with the hope that this noble action would look good on their record. Ghost manages to pinpoint the ninjas' lair and the team decides that Moonstone and Juggernaut would take on the ninjas head on while Ghost and Crossbones snuck around and tried to locate the people DD and the Hand had taken hostage. Juggy and Moonstone do their part, taking on the brunt of the ninjas, while Ghost sneaks around. Crossbones is discovered by the ninjas and swarmed, losing his flamethrower in the process. Before the ninjas could move in for the kill, Crossbones suddenly begins shooting flame from his mouth(!?!), roasting the oncoming ninjas. Crossbones figures that this sudden ability was due to his exposure to the Terrigen Mists a few issues back, and gleefully runs around the base frying ninjas. While Crossbones is enjoying himself, Ghost has managed to locate several prisoners(including Luke's cop friend)and sets them free, scouting ahead for a clear path. The prisoners(led by Luke's cop friend)advance and the cop runs into Crossbones, who kills him simply for being a cop. After blasting the cop, Crossbones weird powers cut out. Unbeknownst to Crossbones, his act of murder was witnessed by Ghost, who was coming up from the floor... At that moment, Juggernaut and Moonstone come crashing through the wall, and Crossbones blames one of the dead ninjas for the death of the cop. With that, the T-Bolts take the remaining prisoners to safety, and this issue ends with Luke comforting the father of the dead cop.

This was an excellent x-over issue! See, if something is claiming to crossover with a major event(like Shadowland), I expect it to actually have something to do WITH the Shadowland story(unlike Shadowland: Moon Knight!). So that was a major plus right there. Besides the clever way the story blended with the overall Shadowland storyline, this issue also advanced this series, with Crossbones and his weird powers. There are SO many questions that need asking when it comes to those powers, including, are they gone for good? Do they only appear when he is in imminent danger? Were things as they seemed, or was somebody else responsible for Crossbones alleged powers? On top of that, Crossbones killed Luke's cop friend in cold blood, and thinks he got away with it, since he has NO idea Ghost witnessed what Crossbones did... What exactly will Ghost do with this info? He could use it to blackmail Crossbones, he could simply sit on it, or he could tell Luke exactly what he saw and let Luke decide what to do about Crossbones. So yeah, not only was this issue really good, the future looks bright as well. This is the first time in AGES I'm actually excited about this series. Issue #150 should be good!

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Hey, remember those old Super Mario games where it looked like Mario was shooting the fireballs out of his mouth? That's what Crossbones new powers reminded me of...