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Thunderbolts #2

Mar 2024
Jackson Lanzing, Geraldo Borges

Thunderbolts #2 cover

Story Name:

OP-02 // Operation Redmoney


Synopsis

Thunderbolts #2 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 4 stars
Bucky Barnes (now going by Revolution) dresses in a tuxedo designed by Jumbo Carnation (the mutant fashion designer) and heads for the regular Friday night party at the Hellfire Club where everyone's discussing the death of Red Skull (last issue) and how much money he's leaving. Barnes enters with Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) and White Widow (Yelena Belova) as this issue's Thunderbolts, and they all have Val de Fontaine in their earpieces. Despite his shady reputation most of the villains present look like they want to kill Barnes. Count Nefaria 'compliments' Barnes on getting rid of the Outer Circle and comments on rumours that Ms Romanoff has gone cannibal. Meanwhile Yelena wanders around looking for a briefcase that they hope will contain Skull's loot.

Then their host Wilson Fisk, White King of the Club, makes his entrance and confirms the Skull's death but isn't going to hold a wake for him because he abhors his politics. Our group deduce that means that Fisk is getting the money himself, and then BW recognises the courier Vaste (who we've never seen before) who has a pocket dimension in his ribcage for doing such transfers. And once something's in there only *he* can retrieve it. Fisk then reminds them that any criminal acts committed here tonight that he hasn't already sanctioned will be punishable by death. And he looks directly at Barnes.

He and Vaste head for his private elevator, and the Contessa gives the go ahead. WW tells BW to take an outside route to Fisk's safe room while she heads through the kitchens and Bucky secures their exit. Natasha senses something wrong with Bucky, and he tells her about his encounter with Fisk (in the Devil's Reign: Winter Soldier 1-shot) where Kingpin almost killed him even though he was sleepwalking at the time!

White Widow grabs knives as she runs through the kitchen towards the service elevator. She fights her way through some goons but needs a code to get into the lift. Meanwhile Black Widow has got up on the roof where she triggers her Venom symbiote (named Sliver) and swings down to crash though a window on the 'safe' level and defeat some other goons. And she uses the symbiote to extract the lift code from 1 of their minds and transmits it to Yelena.

Kingpin is informed of the dual Widow attack and only now calls for his elevator. Val tells Barnes not to do anything because they don't suspect he's involved (unlikely because he plainly came in with them). But he ignores her and confronts Fisk to 'confess' that he killed Red Skull. He says he knows he's got Skull's money for whatever remnants of the Nazi's operation still exist, and he threatens trouble if he hands it over. Fisk tells him he's totally misjudged the situation. Skull's operation is far from just remnants. And he may have killed Lukin but Skull still lives. Then he enters his elevator and leaves Barnes to be killed by the assembled villains. But his latest cyborg arm buds off a shield which he throws to stop the lift doors closing and enters the lift shaft below the rising elevator (and his cyborg arm reabsorbs the shield).

The Widows enter the safe room to see Vaste disgorging gold bars from his pocket dimension. Kingpin enters from the lift behind them. But Revolution blows a hole in the lift floor and enters behind *him*. Bucky attacks Fisk as BWidow blinds him with symbiote gunk and WWidow tries to hamstring him with her knives. Then Bucky throws BW towards WW who catches the end of a webline to swing BW inside Vaste. Inside the pocket dimension she sees loads more gold bars plus gold statues of Red Skull! Vaste send in an arm to pull her back out but she leaves behind some explosives. Once outside she joins her 2 companions in fighting past Fisk to leave the room and shut the door behind them. Vaste comments to him that BW didn't take anything but he detects she left something behind. And then he explodes, also blowing the door off. The trio see Fisk has survived as they leave down the lift shaft.

Valentina picks them up with their plane. She isn't happy that they didn't get the gold. Bucky thanks Natasha for agreeing to help them but she takes a kiss in payment. Later in Thunderbolts Mountain HQ he leaves her in bed to think about what Fisk said about Red Skull still being alive. The Contessa LMD has been looking for where he might be using her OXE group's database of known RS sites and monitoring their comms. She's deduced that there's an extra undocumented site and has also discovered that Nazi agents within the US Government are going to 'strike it off the map' in 48 hours to cover Skull's tracks after he leaves. They need to get there 1st but she's worked out that it's in Latveria.

And we see the Skull's grin again.


 

Review / Commentaries


Thunderbolts #2 Review by (November 23, 2024)
The writing partnership is Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing again. I'm giving them alternating billing in the credits.

Black Widow got her symbiote in Venom (2021) #23, and she followed up by apps in #26-28. This series is probably her next app with the symbiote.

Yelena Belova 1st showed up as a rival Black Widow in the 1999 BW mini-series. She remained a villain for a long time including her own mini-series called BW: Pale Little Spider. But in Tales Of Suspense #101-104 she was killed and replaced by a clone with her memories. This YB turned to the good side in the Widowmakers: Red Guardian & Yelena Belova 1-shot. She teamed up with Natasha Romanoff in the 2021 BW series, and in #6 she adopted the name White Widow and changed her costume accordingly.

Wilson Fisk became the White King of the Hellfire Club in the Fall Of X event. He was a front for the X-Men because his wife Typhoid Mary was 1 of the missing mutants. I don't know if this issue is supposed to occur within that period or later, but the place was seen boarded up in Iron Man (2022) #19 at the end of the event.

Count Nefaria was a a Maggia leader in the original Avengers #13. Along the way he gained superpowers as Nefaria but these days he's lost them. He's at this time back in the Maggia in the Gang War event based around current Amazing Spider-Man issues. But he's probably more famous for being the father of Madame Masque.



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Main/1st Story Full Credits

Geraldo Borges
Geraldo Borges
Arthur Hesli
Terry Dodson (Cover Penciler)
Rachel Dodson (Cover Inker)
Terry Dodson (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Joe Sabino.
Editor: Alanna Smith. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

Characters

All stories. Listed in alphabetical order.

Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Count Nefaria
Count Nefaria

(Luchino Nefaria)
Kingpin
Kingpin

(Wilson Fisk)
Red Skull
Red Skull

(Johann Shmidt)
White Widow
White Widow

(Yelena Belova)
Plus: Revolution (Bucky Barnes), Val de Fontaine (LMD) (Val de Fontaine).

Thor

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