{"id":10088,"date":"2024-06-23T14:53:38","date_gmt":"2024-06-23T13:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10088"},"modified":"2024-06-23T14:53:38","modified_gmt":"2024-06-23T13:53:38","slug":"daredevil-villains-28-the-thunderbolts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10088","title":{"rendered":"Daredevil Villains #28: The Thunderbolts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DAREDEVIL #69 (October 1970)<\/strong>
\n“A Life on the Line”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Roy Thomas<\/strong>
\nArtist: Gene Colan<\/strong>
\nInker: Syd Shores<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Artie Simek<\/strong>
\nColourist: not credited<\/strong>
\nEditor: Stan Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, not those Thunderbolts.<\/p>\n

This story is set in Harlem, and there are multiple black characters with speaking parts. It’s Marvel in 1970, so that can only mean one thing: it’s time for an improving exercise in social commentary.<\/p>\n

Daredevil stops two black gang members from robbing a warehouse. A third tries to escape, only to crash their van into a brick wall. He turns out to be a 15-year-old boy. The Black Panther shows up, and the heroes race the kid to hospital. His unspecified injuries call for a top surgeon, which Daredevil and the Panther are able to sort out. Although the story doesn’t labour the point, the clear implication is that the kid would otherwise have died thanks to the wonderful American health care system.<\/p>\n

While our heroes wait for the outcome of the surgery, the Black Panther fills in some back story with an extended flashback. This is the period where the Panther had a civilian identity as school teacher Luke Charles. The kid is his brightest student, Lonnie Carver. Lonnie idolises his older brother Billy, who has just returned from Vietnam. Despite having become a pacifist as a result of his experiences, Billy wears his army uniform around the streets of Harlem, just in case we were in any doubt as to his status as a saintly veteran.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Thunderbolts are a local street gang who try to enlist him as a member. They present themselves as black radicals, but Billy is unimpressed. “Shove off, man!” he says. “I don’t dig the war any more than the next brother, but I figure there’s better ways to protest it than to join a hate-crew like you ‘Thunderbolts’! Nobody with half a brain is gonna fall for that ‘white man’s war’ jazz you guys preach!” Then he tells the gang to “flake off”.<\/p>\n

Given this response, the Thunderbolts attack Billy, who won’t fight back because he’s a pacifist now. So the Panther steps in, and he too emphasises that these radical types are definitely baddies, not like good old peace-loving uniform-wearing Billy. “Those vermin aren’t interested in black power… only in Thunderbolt power!”<\/p>\n

Yet somehow, between the flashback and the main story, Billy has joined the gang after all. A heartbroken Lonnie has followed him. But Lonnie is so disappointed that he’s lost the will to live. Literally. But never mind! Daredevil and the Panther take down the whole gang on their own – the gang dismiss the Panther as “the original establishment black man”, by the way – and it turns out that Billy was actually going undercover on behalf of the District Attorney’s office. He was a good guy all along! Lonnie’s will to live is restored, and everyone’s happy.<\/p>\n

Now, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of a black gang using activist rhetoric as a cover. Except that they’re the only\u00a0<\/em>representatives of any sort of radicalism here. They’re contrasted with a saintly “peace-loving veteran”. The story would have been a lot stronger, and would have aged a lot better, if Billy had come back from Vietnam as a radicalised activist instead; at least then he would have had a vaguely plausible reason to join the gang.<\/p>\n

Instad, this is an issue in which Daredevil makes a vanishingly rare visit to the world of black folk, to assure us that all those uncomfortable activist sorts don’t really mean it and can be safely ignored. Which means we don’t have to actually deal with any of their complaints! Look, here’s the Black Panther to vouch for the essential goodness of white liberals! Thanks, T’Challa! Maybe this played better in 1970, but it’s all rather embarrassing in 2024.<\/p>\n

It also makes an uncomfortable contrast with Phoenix in the previous issue. They were a white radical group. They were bad guys because they were… well, non-specifically radical. They weren’t an attack on any particular political opinion, heavens no! And that’s despite the fact that they were apparently serious in whatever it was that they believed in – their motivation was to raise money for their cause. When you follow that up with an issue in which the black radicals are given a more concrete agenda and aren’t even sincere about it and… well, it doesn’t look good, does it?<\/p>\n

But to be fair, the next couple of issues will redress that balance. They’re… quite something. More of that next time.<\/p>\n

There’s a surprising amount of follow-up to this rather inconsequential story. First, the story itself includes a passing mention of the Thunderbolts working for a mysterious boss. This doesn’t matter at all to Daredevil,<\/em> but a passing line of dialogue in Avengers <\/em>#82 reveals that the Thunderbolts were working for the Zodiac, of all people. Not the guy from Moon Knight<\/em>, the weirdoes who dress up as astrological signs. It’s completely at odds with the tone of this story, but both issues were written by Roy Thomas and came out weeks apart, so apparently that was the plan.<\/p>\n

Second, one of the gang members is Turk. He’ll eventually return in issue #159 and become a recurring comedy character. This isn’t really his issue, though – the focus is on the gang, and he’s just a gang member who happens to get a name. But yes, it’s his debut, and that makes it more significant. .<\/p>\n

Third, later in the 1970s, Marv Wolfman will dust off Billy Carver in Power Man <\/em>#41-43. That arc proves abortive, but Jo Duffy picks it up and resolves it in Power Man & Iron Fist <\/em>#61-62. In those stories, a Thunderbolt’s brother takes revenge on Billy by murdering Lonnie. While avenging his little brother, Billy is struck by lightning, gains superspeed from an “experimental treatment”, and becomes the costume vigilante Thunderbolt in order to hunt down the killers. Yes, he names himself after the gang, for no entirely clear reason. You’ll be pleased to hear that he manages to finish his mission before dying of accelerated ageing.<\/p>\n

And finally, the gang itself makes one further appearance, in 1979’s Black Panther<\/em> #14-15. By that point they’ve become just a regular street gang and have nothing much in common with their original incarnation. The only reason for linking them back to this story is so that the Panther can lament their degeneration from a group who at least pretended<\/em> to believe in something. It’s a generous interpretation of this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAREDEVIL #69 (October 1970) “A Life on the Line” Writer: Roy Thomas Artist: Gene Colan Inker: Syd Shores Letterer: Artie Simek Colourist: not credited Editor: Stan Lee No, not those Thunderbolts. This story is set in Harlem, and there are multiple black characters with speaking parts. It’s Marvel in 1970, so that can only mean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daredevil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10088"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10175,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10088\/revisions\/10175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}