These are the Siege tie-in issues for Thunderbolts.  Their mission is to steal the “Spear of Odin” from Asgard and bring it to Norman Osborn.  The team’s in-fighting and the fact that several of its members (especially Ghost) are actually working against Osborn contributes to them doing a very poor job.  As does Scourge/Nuke’s increasing mental instability.

I’m not against slow-burning stories, but the amount of betrayals in this version of Thunderbolts has become exhausting.  At some point, even someone as dumb and stubborn as U.S. Agent should be expected to figure out that Osborn’s playing all of them and getting them killed, one by one.

So, while there are some fun big-bash-fight scenes with the T-Bolts fighting the Mighty Avengers, it’s very hard to stay invested in this book. Plus, it’s Siege, which didn’t really make much sense either.

But lo and behold, halfway through this story U.S. Agent undergoes a pretty important change. He’s trying to stop Nuke from getting the spear…

Unfortunately for him, Nuke grabs the spear and slices off his left arm.  Too bad he didn’t kill him.  Come on, I know you agree with me: U.S. Agent is lame.  He’s always been a stupid, one-note character.  He’d be better off dead.

After that, Nuke barely gets to keep the spear as Quicksilver shows up and takes it.

If you’ve read the main Siege series, you know how this ends.  Osborn is defeated and the team is disbanded.  Most of them are arrested, but Paladin slips away.  Ant-Man does as well, with Headsman’s costume and axe (Headsman was murdered by Scourge in the prior story arc).  He gives it to Headsman’s brother, who it appears will take on the mantle and try to be a hero.

Except that he won’t. I don’t think there’s ever any follow-up for Cody Twain.

There’s not much mentioned about U.S. Agent’s missing arm after the big fight scene.

The book closes with a promise of yet-another T-Bolts reboot.

This time, the team will be led by Cage.

Jeff Parker’s work with Dark Thunderbolts wasn’t bad per se, and I can’t blame him for all the flaws in these issues.  He inherited a chaotic situation and was immediately forced to move it through a linewide event.  I have a lot of respect for Parker’s writing overall, so I’m hopeful the Luke Cage version of Thunderbolts will be worth reading.  We’ll see.