In his time, Fabian Nicieza has written some of my favorite under-rated super-hero comics, including Nomad and New Warriors. He seems to be working on another favorite with the current Thunderbolts story, and hopefully it won't go quite so underrated. Taking Hawkeye and Songbird into some of the undersides of the Marvel Universe, the super-villain side, is a story idea that fits perfectly into the Thunderbolts ideal and also lets Nicieza play around with something he's always been good at, the exploration of the boundaries that define heroes. It's a treat for me to see these third-string villains getting a little more exploration, and I'm also enjoying the focus on Hawkeye, a favorite character of mine when he's being written this well.
Of course, credit must also go to Patrick Zircher and Al Vey, whose artwork on this issue is really terrific. They use some unusual panel layouts, including a nice use of borderless panels, to distinguish between flashback and modern story, and the detail work on the characters is really nice. The action sequences are important, but the mark of a truly great penciller for me is how well they draw the real people and their faces and expressions, and Zircher does some top notch work in that area in this issue.
Nicieza has done a fair amount of work on super-heroes that is beyond the norm, exploring the idea of what it means to be heroes and writing heroes who behave more like vigilantes or even villains. This story is another example of that, with Hawkeye pushing his own morals to work with criminals and use questionable methods toward a noble end. I'm enjoying the moral gray area of Hawkeye's new allies, as it plays nicely into the themes of the Thunderbolts (redemption for the wicked) and also serves to develop some familiar but basically undefined characters, much as Kurt Busiek did with the Masters of Evil in his run on this book.
Seeing Hawkeye operating as the leader of a team again is a joy, as I first really "met" the character during his time on the West Coast Avengers, and Nicieza has captured that same blend of arrogance and uncertainty that made him so appealing. The friendly relationship that he has with Songbird, as both of them have lost their friends, is another nice touch that is making the book interesting for me, and coming in just behind in terms of interest is the relationship with a bunch of villains.
Since I'm not completely sold on the Counter Earth story yet, I'm not sure about my enjoyment for this book overall. Fortunately, I know that at the very least I'll be enjoying this half of the story, and with the book going bi-weekly for the time being, I'll still be getting an enjoyable monthly fix of Thunderbolts.
