Thunderbolts (2013) # 23

Cover Date: May 2014

On Sale Date: March 2014

Writer: Charles Soule

Artist: Kim Jacinto
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Colorist: Isreal Silva
Editor: Jordan D. White
Editor-In-Chief: Axel Alonso 

Cover Artist: Julian Totino Tedesco

At the Crucible, current headquarters of the Thunderbolts, the team are drawing names for who gets to pick the next mission. Deadpool's name is drawn, but Venom asks if he can choose the mission instead because he's leaving the team. Thompson has a problem with the team's methods, and it's causing him to lose control of the Venom symbiote. He wants to let the symbiote take over and for the team to take it down, and surprisingly Deadpool agrees to the mission. Thompson immediately lets Venom take control, but before the team can react he jumps into the vents above them and disappears. Hulk explains that while Thompson wanted to fight, Venom just wants to escape. He orders the team to split up and find him, but to be careful.

Soon, Ghost Rider is attacked by Venom, but he can't use his hellfire (flame being one of Venom's weaknesses) without killing Thompson inside the symbiote. Venom tells Blaze that Thompson thinks he's an abomination that he only pretends to like. Blaze attempts to give Venom the Penance Stare, but it's too much sin for Ghost Rider to handle. Venom then steps on the Rider's skull, shattering it. Elsewhere, Elektra and the Punisher are in Castle's quarters arming up when Venom attacks them as well. While he taunts Castle with the idea that Thompson wants Frank to die so he can have Elektra for himself, Elektra grabs a white phosphorous grenade and throws it. She manages to rescue Punisher and is able to seal themselves off from their enemy. Venom gets doused with white powder, pure magnesium thrown on him by the Leader, but it does nothing to stop him. He stabs Leader in the shoulder before the Red Hulk slams him against a wall. Venom escapes, and Ross regroups with the team. While Ross forms a plan, they realize that Deadpool isn't with them.

In the garage, Deadpool has a rigged a trap using a mannequin that's wearing his costume and a jet suspended over it to crush Venom when he attacks. The team finds him and recruits him to help with Ross's plan, which results in Venom eating Deadpool and spitting out the still-living pieces. Ghost Rider snares Venom with his chains and drags him outside the base, where he's assaulted by Punisher and Elektra, now wielding flamethrowers. Red Hulk and Leader use a sonic cannon that separates Thompson from the symbiote, the latter of which is then caught by Blaze's hellfire chains. While Ross wants to contain and eventually kill the symbiote, Thompson refuses to let it go because no one else could control it. Venom then decides to leave the team, content with knowing that they could stop him and the symbiote if they ever had to.

Not the most intimidating of catchphrases.

THE ROADMAP

Venom leaves the team with this issue and will eventually become part of the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Danny Ketch Ghost Rider once attempted to give Venom (Eddie Brock) the Penance Stare in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 6 and experienced similar results as Blaze in this story.

CHAIN REACTION

The team dynamics continue to shift as the Thunderbolts have to fight yet another member of their own group.

I've always liked the Flash Thompson version of Venom, a character that previously had nothing going for him but his neat visual. I enjoyed what I've read of the Remender/Moore run on Flash's solo series, and he had an interesting role as part of the Thunderbolts. Namely, he was the sanest (or least bloodthirsty) member of the team, despite being possessed by a brain-eating alien costume. This group has such a strange dynamic to it, filled with characters who honestly don't care for one another in the slightest (outside of the bizarre Punisher/Elektra coupling that I still don't really believe, given that it's birth was from a joke Garth Ennis story some ten years back). Naturally, the Punisher wouldn't bat an eyelash at killing Venom, as far as he's concerned I'm sure all of the Thunderbolts are people he'd happily put between his crosshairs were they not bound together through mutual arrangements.

That's the most interesting part of this story, in fact. While stalking each of the Thunderbolts in turn, Venom lets them know what Flash really thinks of them, and while his opinions are eye-opening for the characters they're not really news for the readers. Venom was the team's conscience, if it had one at all, and he's pretty dead-on when it comes to how he views the rest of them. Ghost Rider IS a monster, Deadpool is mentally unhinged, and neither Elektra nor the Punisher are really more than serial killers with "honor". Most telling, though, is his assertion that Red Hulk is the worst of them because he actually thinks he's a hero, which Ross most emphatically isn't in any way, shape, or form. Ross has brought together a group of vigilantes, lunatics, and villains and thinks he's doing the right thing. Of course Venom would view him as a bad person, Thompson is nothing but heroic despite his own problems.

Sadly, I think Soule struggles a bit to make Venom as dangerous as he needs to be to take on a team like this. Sure, Punisher and Elektra would struggle to take down such a being, they're fighting out of their weight class. But putting Venom against the Red Hulk (who he runs away from) or Ghost Rider is arguably just as laughable from the other side. So, naturally, I think Blaze gets punked out a bit as Venom's first victim, but it's necessary for the story so I suppose we must let it slide.

The artwork by Kim Jacinto (not Carlo Barberi as the cover claims) isn't much of a departure from the visual style that Barberi brought to the last story-arc. It's still very much a stylized interpretation that brings to mind the same school of art that guys like Barberi, Paco Medina, and Skottie Young have been doing recently for Marvel. It's solid work that continues the visual consistency of the series-so-far. I'm still not digging the new red flames for Ghost Rider, though, because while a potentially cool idea it instead looks like he has a pink halo around his head.

Fare thee well, Venom, your time served with the Thunderbolts was enjoyable. Too bad you're going off to be written by Brian Bendis, though.

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