Thunderbolts #157 & Silver Surfer #4

I was going to review X-Men: Prelude to Schism #2 here as well, but it was chock full of that, “Magneto is really Max Eisenhardt now! Erik Lehnsherr?? Who's that?? Certainly not Magneto, even though everybody STILL calls him Erik!” stuff... Yeah, I don't like when continuity gets messed around with, be it DC or Marvel, and the Lehnsherr/Eisenhardt switch makes absolutely NO sense, even by comic book standards. So there's an abbreviated Magneto rant for you to go along with the two reviews included here. Am I a swell guy or what?

Thunderbolts #157:

Summary: While Songbird, Fixer and Mach V are preparing to train the next generation Thunderbolts(or Betabolts if you prefer), the real Thunderbolts are being saved by their newest member, Satana. Satana burns a few demons with her hellfire outside of Gothenvald Castle, but winds up spent, so Luke Cage tells her to remain outside Gothenvald Castle, while he heads inside to take care of Gothenvald. Meanwhile, the Betabolts are called to head to Iraq for their first official mission. The T-Bolts gets through a few minor traps, ultimately reaching Gothenvald, who sends a massive spider-like creature after the team. Cage figures he could easily take out the spider, but instead is assaulted with an illusion showing him that his daughter had died. The rest of the team also ends up being attacked by the spider's illusionary powers, but Satana, who was listening on her communicator from outside, alerts Cage as to what was happening, and helps him break the spider's spell. With Luke free of the spider's influence, Gothenvald decides to take off, promising Luke that they'd meet again. Luke is pissed over Gothenvald's escape, and Juggernaut, who was still confused by the spider's spell, harasses Luke one time too many, getting knocked out by the nanites in his body for his trouble. From there, Luke sends Juggy back to prison, sends the rest of the T-Bolts to Iraq to assist the Betabolts, and heads to the Avengers to deal with Avengers business.

Thoughts: Meh. This issue was just kind of lacking for me... It was just sort of anti-climatic. We begin with Satana not betraying the team, as it seemed she was planning on doing at the end of last issue, the team facing some illusions, and the bad guy teleporting away... And that's pretty much that. I'm sure this series will crossover with the Fear Itself event soon, I mean with Juggy being on this team it makes sense, which might explain why nothing really happened in this issue. Hopefully the Fear Itself stuff starts up soon, and this series picks back up again.

Score: 6 out of 10.Luke was kind of an ass to Juggy here, wasn't he?


Silver Surfer #4(of 5):

Summary: The powerless Silver Surfer tries to convince Suzi Endo(who he “loves” even though he's known her for all of a day or so...) not to become the High Evolutionary's herald, but it's too late, as she's already been imbued with the power cosmic. Suzi leaves the Surfer and flies to the moon with the Evolutionary, who wanted to terraform the moon to show the people of Earth the paradise the Evolutionary was capable of creating. The FF arrive on the scene with the Surfer to deal with the few super-powered animals the Evolutionary left behind. The Surfer whines to the FF about Suzi leaving him and how he's been through stuff none of them could understand. Thing sets the Surfer straight, and Reed tells the Surfer that he had a way to get the whiny Surfer his powers back. From there, the FF fly towards the moon, and put the Surfer outside the ship, where he is met by Suzi, who warns the Surfer and the FF away. The Surfer tells her he wasn't going anywhere and the FF fire some missiles at Suzi, who destroys the missiles and returns fire at the FF's ship... Which is exactly what the FF wanted. The FF's ship redirects the power cosmic fired by Suzi to the Surfer, who regains his powers and starts making out with Suzi... Wha?!

Thoughts: This is definitely one of the worst mini-series I've read this year... By far. Between the Surfer walking around whining about EVERYTHING, to the ending, which was nonsensical to say the least, this issue in particular was terrible. I just don't get it... Why is Greg Pak having such a hard time figuring out how to write a good Silver Surfer story?! It seems so simple to me... He's a cosmic entity. Why the hell is he wandering around the Earth without his powers for the majority of this mini?! To make him more “human”? He's always been “human” for a cosmic-level being! That's his appeal! Ugh. I can't wait for this mini-series to end. Now I remember why I try to avoid comics written by Pak...

Score: 2 1/2 out of 10.Not only is the Surfer whiny here, he's kind of dumb too!