"Justice, Like Lightning" / Thunderbolts Appreciation 2023

[danielsan52]

How did you feel about Skein joining? I wish she would have stuck around longer and then became an X-Man.

[seccruz]

Thanks. It was all a lot of fun to write, and I'm glad it worked for you.

kdb

It really did. They ended up being my favorites!

[K7P5V]

How did you feel about Skein joining? I wish she would have stuck around longer and then became an X-Man.

Personally, I found it interesting. She didn't quite turn over a new leaf exactly, but a lot of memorable moments along the way...

[Frontier]

Personally, I found it interesting. She didn't quite turn over a new leaf exactly, but a lot of memorable moments along the way (IMHO):

Songbird with the wavy hair!

[Digifiend]

Moonstone is in Photon next week.

[Frontier]

Moonstone is in Photon next week.

I think it's an AU version of her? I haven't been following the book closely.

I wish they'd bring back her Thunderbolts suit instead of just using the Meteorite costume.

[Nomads1]

Personally, I found it interesting. She didn't quite turn over a new leaf exactly, but a lot of memorable moments along the way...

Can't wait to re-read this when the vol. 3 of the Thunderbolts Classics Omnibus comes out. I've even kept the Omnibus vol. 2 on standby to read it all in sequence.

Peace

[ComicNoobie]

I think it's an AU version of her? I haven't been following the book closely.

I wish they'd bring back her Thunderbolts suit instead of just using the Meteorite costume.

Which is kind of funny since Karla said she "despised" the name Meteorite. I bet it was because of "Harmonic Convergence". Thanks Zemo.

[Dermie]

I think it's an AU version of her? I haven't been following the book closely.

I wish they'd bring back her Thunderbolts suit instead of just using the Meteorite costume.

Yes, it is most likely an alternate Karla.

Which "Thunderbolts suit" are you referring to? She went through about a half dozen different ones during her time with the T-Bolts.

[Frontier]

Yes, it is most likely an alternate Karla.

Which "Thunderbolts suit" are you referring to? She went through about a half dozen different ones during her time with the T-Bolts.

This one:

[OBrianTallent]

It'd be easy to bring her back -- if I remember The Crossing correctly, she died in a "near future" that never actually wound up coming to pass, which could be talked around without great difficulty. It was just too much on top of what we had to do to get the rest of the Thunderbolts into place; too many explanations too early on.

So we revamped Screaming Mimi instead.

kdb

No, she'd have replaced Songbird.

We didn't even figure Songbird out until it was clear we had no other reasonable options for another woman in the initial team.

kdb

Seeing the character arc that Melissa went through, I definitely feel like she was the better choice over Rita who wasn't exactly bad or evil necessarily (from what I recall.) Melissa went from Screaming Mimi who truly was a villain and showed no redeeming qualities prior to Thunderbolts to becoming a full fledged hero....and my favorite of all the Thunderbolts. While I would like to see her return with a T-bolts series, I would much prefer to see her actually join the Avengers finally. She's more than earned that spot.

That being said, I sure would like to see Rita return as well.

[Digifiend]

Finally? You mean again. Melissa was in Al Ewing's New Avengers. It's why she only joined Zub's first Thunderbolts run half way through, he couldn't use her until Ewing was done with her.

[Kurt Busiek]

Seeing the character arc that Melissa went through, I definitely feel like she was the better choice over Rita who wasn't exactly bad or evil necessarily (from what I recall.)

To be fair, if you'd seen three years of me writing Rita, and another batch of years of Fabian doing it, and had to imagine what might have been done with Melissa because you'd never seen it, you might feel differently -- or rather, the same, since you'd be saying "I like what I got more than what I never saw."

Trust me, I had very interesting things in mind for Rita, starting with the idea that she wasn't really Rita deMara at all; she'd adopted the identity of a dead friend because she was on the run from people who'd have killed her if they found her. And when they started to close in, we'd have seen some very different facets of the character.

But I do think Songbird worked out very well, even though we used her out of desperation more than anything else. We needed another female Master of Evil in the team, and she was the only (living) one that would fit. So we gave her a new look, a new name, a new history, a new personality and new powers...essentially creating a whole new character. And she turned out very well.

So I'm not sorry we had to do that. But I'm also confident that if we'd done as much with Rita as we did with Mimi (since naming her Melissa was one of our many changes), readers would have liked her a lot, too.

kdb

[Dermie]

This one:

Yeah, I was always fond of that one too. It was a nice callback to the colour scheme of her original costume, only this time with silver being the predominant colour rather than the yellow.

I think my least favourite of her outfits from her stint in the T-Bolts was the new costume she started wearing on Counter-Earth; the one with the jacket. That one just never looked quite right, imo.

[OBrianTallent]

It'd be easy to bring her back -- if I remember The Crossing correctly, she died in a "near future" that never actually wound up coming to pass, which could be talked around without great difficulty. It was just too much on top of what we had to do to get the rest of the Thunderbolts into place; too many explanations too early on.

So we revamped Screaming Mimi instead.

kdb

No, she'd have replaced Songbird.

We didn't even figure Songbird out until it was clear we had no other reasonable options for another woman in the initial team.

kdb

To be fair, if you'd seen three years of me writing Rita, and another batch of years of Fabian doing it, and had to imagine what might have been done with Melissa because you'd never seen it, you might feel differently -- or rather, the same, since you'd be saying "I like what I got more than what I never saw."

Trust me, I had very interesting things in mind for Rita, starting with the idea that she wasn't really Rita deMara at all; she'd adopted the identity of a dead friend because she was on the run from people who'd have killed her if they found her. And when they started to close in, we'd have seen some very different facets of the character.

But I do think Songbird worked out very well, even though we used her out of desperation more than anything else. We needed another female Master of Evil in the team, and she was the only (living) one that would fit. So we gave her a new look, a new name, a new history, a new personality and new powers...essentially creating a whole new character. And she turned out very well.

So I'm not sorry we had to do that. But I'm also confident that if we'd done as much with Rita as we did with Mimi (since naming her Melissa was one of our many changes), readers would have liked her a lot, too.

kdb

It's not fair to throw all those amazing what could have beens at me letting me know what an awesome story I missed out on. I might go cry in the corner now lol. What it also tells me though is that perhaps you should pitch that to Marvel again and create another awesome run on something with a fantastic character arc that will elevate the character to star status....yes? haha. (Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us though. It is appreciated.)