Thunderbolts Epic Collection: Targeted For Death

Marvel’s villains turned heroes, the Thunderbolts, continue their quest for redemption!

For the good of his team, MACH-1 gave up his liberty to atone for his sins. Now he’s in prison, surrounded by the super villains who used to be his peers — and who now want him dead! Meanwhile, the Thunderbolts have a new leader in Hawkeye, a new headquarters, a new ship and a new mission: to prove themselves heroes by taking down the biggest villains at large! But with Graviton next on their list, will Archangel join the team? Citizen V returns, the T-Bolts have a rematch with the Hulk, Scourge targets Baron Zemo, and you won’t believe the identity of the new Beetle! Clint Barton leads the T-Bolts into hell and back for a fallen Avenger — but when he locks lips with Moonstone, there's only one word for it: uh-oh! Plus: Enter, Sandman!

COLLECTING: Thunderbolts (1997) 26-41, Thunderbolts Annual 2000, Avengers Annual 2000

Kurt Busiek is perhaps most famous for his Eisner Award-winning collaboration with Alex Ross on Marvels, a fully painted classic that still amazes a quarter of a century later. Busiek launched Thunderbolts in the wake of “Heroes Reborn,” later writing Avengers and Iron Man upon the heroes’ return to the Marvel Universe. He teamed his two signature supergroups in the Avengers vs. Thunderbolts miniseries and spanned the history of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Avengers Forever. He has revisited the Modern Era’s early years in such titles as Amazing Fantasy, Iron Man: The Iron Age, Thor: Godstorm and Untold Tales of Spider-Man. At DC, he has written multiple Justice League and Superman titles, and even pitted the Avengers against the JLA in a blockbuster crossover. Busiek launched his own super-hero multiverse with his Astro City series, which he’s been writing since 1995. Busiek has returned to the world of Marvels for various projects, including curating Marvels Snapshots and writing the series The Marvels.

Since his start on the New Universe’s Psi-Force and backup stories in Classic X-Men, Fabian Nicieza has written most of Marvel’s major super-teams — including Alpha Flight, the Avengers, the New Warriors, the Thunderbolts and the X-Men. Together with artist Rob Liefeld, Nicieza transformed New Mutants into the blockbuster X-Force. The writer also tackled solo heroes ranging from Cable and Deadpool (later combined in Cable & Deadpool) to Gambit and Nomad. He edited Marvel’s Star imprint, contributed to multititle X-events like “X-Cutioner’s Song” and “Phalanx Covenant,” and wrote various “pre-modern” limited series such as Adventures of Captain America and Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Elsewhere, he has written both JLA and Justice League Adventures, The 99, Turok, X-Files, and others.

Hired on the strength of his Official Marvel Tryout penciling submission, Mark Bagley rose to prominence as the artist of 1990s sleeper hit New Warriors. Following an acclaimed run on Amazing Spider-Man, he worked with writer Kurt Busiek on Thunderbolts. When Marvel launched its Ultimate line, Bagley and Brian Michael Bendis led the way with Ultimate Spider-Man, whose years of success made the pair the longest-running creative team in Marvel history. Bendis and Bagley have also collaborated on Avengers Assemble and the creator-owned Brilliant. His subsequent credits include Fantastic Four, Cataclysm: The Ultimates’ Last Stand, Hulk, All-New X-Men and Venom.

The artwork of Argentina’s Leonardo Manco has graced the pages of notable books from both Marvel and DC comics. Working in a variety of genres — from super-hero stories to Westerns and horror tales — his dark and gritty style helped define titles such as Hellstorm, Deathlok, Blaze of Glory and its award-winning sequel Apache Skies, Hellblazer and War Machine.

Best known as one of DC’s most distinctive Batman artists and the co-creator of Prime, Norm Breyfogle also drew Marvel’s Hellcat limited series.