With Dark Avengers #1 we get to see Brian Bendis and Mike Deodato do their best impressions of Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagely, as they return the Thunderbolts to their old roots.  For those that don’t remember, the original Thunderbolts were a team of unrepentant super villains who don new identities/costumes to impersonate superheroes.  They’re led by Baron Zemo, who takes on a Captain America-inspired patriotic alias, Citizen V (replaced here by Osborn’s Iron Patriot), and they model themselves after the Avengers to gain instant credibility (and dupe the public).  Dark Avengers #1 is EXACTLY that story, but told in a way that was just different enough in story-beats that I ended up enjoying it despite the lack of bold new ideas (and yes, I even suspect that Bendis plans to have some of these villains grow consciences, turn “good,” and rebel against their leader, following the plotline of the original Thunderbolts faithfully to completion).

In a slight departure from the original Thunderbolts this team includes three non-villains, the most puzzling of which is Sentry.  Bendis went out of his way to kill the Sentry’s wife, so perhaps Norman has promised to help him in the same way that he “helped” Swordsman, by cloning Sentry’s wife (with Swordsman it was his sister) and bringing her back to life.  Or maybe she was replaced by a Skrull and Norman's promising to get the real wife back, much the same way that he's hooking Luke Cage.  In any event, this offers an interesting subplot.  The second non-villain is Ares, who's been a somewhat simplistic brute in Bendis’ hands so his motivation seems straightforward to me.  Last is Noh-Varr who genuinely has no idea what’s going on in this reality, so it’ll be interesting to see how he evolves through the story.

Deodato’s art fits the story well (my only complaint – and this REALLY grates on me – is the Tommy Lee Jones-as-Norman Osborn choice) and the visuals compliment Bendis’ tight dialogue, delivering a fast and enjoyable reading experience.  With Busiek and Bagley, the reader wasn’t shown the big twist (who the Thunderbolts really were) until the final page of issue #1, while with Bendis the reader is “in on” the “twist” (villains posing as heroes) from the start which was a necessary choice under the circumstances.

By issue 12 the Thunderbolts were fighting the Avengers and I’m pretty sure that this is heading to the same spot.  And while I usually have little patience for direct “riffs” the quality of this issue in both story and art have caused me to make an exception.