WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for King in Black: Thunderbolts #3 by Matthew Rosenberg, Juan Ferreyra and VC’s Joe Sabino, on sale now.
King in Black has reshaped entire swathes of the Marvel Universe. The shroud of living darkness has brought nearly every hero and villain out to do their part in saving the world, with some truly incredible appearances. The golden gods and cosmic guardians might be the ones who ultimately bring Knull to his knees, but they won’t be reaping the rewards of their eventual victory. Instead, the Thunderbolts have been set up to take most of the credit, at least as far as the public is concerned, and it’s all thanks to a job that they didn’t even manage to pull off.
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The team, headed up by Taskmaster, has been brought together at the behest of Wilson Fisk, former Kingpin and current Mayor of New York City. This version of the Thunderbolts doesn’t have much in the way of heavy hitters, besides the Reality Stone empowered Star, but they’ve been tasked with personally stopping Knull’s invasion nonetheless. Their plan is to recover the remains of the Sentry, piece him back together as best they can and use the latent energy still inside his corpse as a bomb. There is little doubt that the attack will kill any of the Thunderbolts unfortunate enough to be anywhere near it, though there isn’t much hope that it will actually defeat Knull. When the time comes, Fisk and Typhoid Mary are perched on a rooftop for the best possible view. The explosion is massive, providing quite the show, but as was expected it doesn’t do any damage. It’s an unfortunate outcome, even if it was one that Fisk was already prepared for.
There may have been some chance that the Thunderbolts’ plan would have worked, but the risk was not worth the reward. Norman Osborn, who devised the plan for the Thunderbolts, is also currently the head of the Ravencroft Institute. When the team needed to make a hasty exit from the facility after it became overrun with symbiotes, they inadvertently brought some of the inmates along for the ride. It was a good thing they did so, as the illusion conjuring abilities of Figment were what allowed the Thunderbolts to make their mission appear successful in the first place. Of course, without the added muscle of Mr. Hyde, Grizzly and Man-Bull, they might not have made it that far, but the youngest of their new recruits made sure she left an impact far beyond that of her peers.
Nobody was really expecting the Thunderbolts to pull off the greatest hit job of all time, let alone survive the encounter, and that includes Wilson Fisk. Even though Fisk immediately set about producing prerecorded statements regarding the team’s sacrifice during their “victory” over Knull, this was only to ensure that he receives credit as the savior of the world. Now that the Thunderbolts are still around, Fisk isn’t only going to have to rewrite his script, he’s going to have to figure out how to keep them in the public eye without ruining anyone’s reputation. Considering who he is dealing with, that’s going to be easier said than done, and with the team’s track record so far, it might be best to keep them on the sidelines as often as possible.
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