Ellis & Deodato, Jr. on Thunderbolts

Thanks to Newsarama

Issue #110 will be the first for Ellis & Deodato, Jr.

Ellis is at his best when dealing with anti-heroes, so I have to assume he'll be just as good when writing non-heroes. On the other hand Ellis does his best work when he's not too encumbered by continuity, which this book will probably be dripping in.

Deodato is hit or miss for me. Every now and then he draws a book that blows me away, but all too often his work seems blah.

But the thing that really sold me was a quote from Mark Millar:

My idea for Thunderbolts, very simply, was that it should employ the same strategy as New Avengers and JLA in that if we have a team, why not make it the A-Team in the sense that they're all recognizable names? Sure, these guys would be harder to control, but that also takes the story in interesting new directions. I really started to see the Marvel Universe in terms of pre and post-Civil War and the Thunderbolts line-up was one of the big changes.

They could have gone the Suicide Squad route and stocked the team with D-listers*, but they went whole hog and put big names on the team and even bigger names on the marquee. A job well deon Marvel.

*(This was in no way a shot at the Suicide Squad, which was a great book, but when your big names are Deadshot and Captain Boomerang you're not exactly playing with the big boys)