On The Cheap: Busiek & Bagley's 'Thunderbolts' On Sale

As experienced comic book readers it's hard to be fooled and it's hard to be genuinely taken by surprise, so when a last page comes along that makes you question literally everything you just read, that's something to appreciate. This week, Comixology has a sale on the first three volumes of Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley's original run on Thunderbolts, which I promise you has the best twist in superhero comics.

If you don't know what that is, I'm not going to spoil it yet, though the cat has been out of the bag for a while now. Thunderbolts was launched after The Avengers and The Fantastic Four seemingly sacrificed themselves to stop the menace of Onslaught. With fewer heroes around to protect the world, a new team rose to the occasion, The Thunderbolts.

Thunderbolts is among Busiek and Bagley's best comics work, not just for that twist --- which I'll get to --- but because of how perfectly they distilled the superhero team book formula over the course of their run. There are elements of Justice League International, Fantastic Four, and Legion of Super-Heroes, but it remains its own property with its own story to tell about the nature of heroism.

If that sounds like something that interests you, the first three volumes are on sale at Comixology until September 5 for $3.99 each. Pick up the first one, and you'll be back to buy the second two once you're done with it.

Now, for people who still aren't convinced, here be spoilers.

The Thunderbolts are the flipping Masters of Evil in disguise.

The team --- consisting of Citizen V (Baron Zemo), Meteorite (Moonstone), Songbird (Screaming Mimi), Mach-1 (The Beetle), Atlas (Goliath) and Techno (The Fixer) --- is entirely a plot on behalf of Zemo as part of his next big scheme.

However, over the course of the run the team learns to love being heroes more than they loved being villains, and turn on Zemo. Hawkeye comes in as team leader for a bit, and starts a romance with Meteorite. It's really great stuff.

Like I said, $3.99 each on Comixology. Check it out.

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