Seeing Kev Walker draw Iron Man is frightening. I think he based the armor off a toaster.

But, once again, Walker’s able to integrate Parker’s odd fantasy elements—this issue, the majority of the action takes place in some idyllic countryside with talking frogs and such—and the issue works.

Parker shows his cards here—he plots well in advance, since Crossbones’s arc comes to an end here, with him facing off against Steve Rogers and apparently burning his face down to something akin to the “Pink Skull.” That duel isn’t particularly good; far better are Juggernaut versus Luke and Thor and Iron Man versus Ghost. Those fights develop into something. The Crossbones thing is just resolving what happens to the character (and prepping him for whatever next event he appears in).

It’s probably the best Thunderbolts issue I’ve read, but it barely stars any Thunderbolts. It’s an Avengers comic.

Poor Parker… they stuck him with an Avengers Academy crossover. It’s set up like a “scared straight” thing for superheroes and it’s an idiotic idea. The story shows all the reasons it’s totally unbelievable anyone would willy-nilly stroll around the Raft.

And having Hank Pym as a tour guide doesn’t sound safe.

Parker uses John Walker’s situational report as the narration and it kind of works… Parker can’t do the badass Luke Cage scenes though. He has one here and it flops.

The cliffhanger gets a quick resolution (at least it feels quick) and there’s some hints Crossbones will be in for some trouble soon. But the Thunderbolts really aren’t part of this issue after that resolution. Instead, it’s Luke and Walker. Maybe one other guy, but I don’t even remember who… Juggernaut?

It’s like Parker surrendered the issue to the crossover without even trying to make it work.

Once again with the Walker art… he does fine during the battle scene, but when he’s doing anything else, it’s absolutely rancid. I’m not sure why, but during regular scenes, he draws Luke as mildly deformed, like one of the Un-Men.

This issue again has the Thunderbolts fighting monsters. I wasn’t aware they were the Ghostbusters of the Marvel Universe, but so far… it seems like it. Probably because putting them up again human villains, one might have to consider Crossbones is a neo-Nazi. It makes it a little hard to believe he’s taking orders from Luke Cage. I guess the Marvel Universe is post-racial.

Parker does all right—the fight scene is better than the rest of the book. It often reads like Man-Thing is the only character Parker really enjoys writing. Maybe if it were a MAX title (it should be), it’d be better.

Okay, Parker’s getting the series on course here. It’s not perfect—Thunderbolts is still kind of a stupid idea (doesn’t DC have their own Thunderbolts series now too—or is it Suicide Squad again, which Thunderbolts ripped off)—but it’s a lot better.

Walker continues to annoy, at least until they get to the big action sequence in the second half and then he’s an asset. Just two pages before, during the briefing, he’s weak on talking heads. And when he has John Walker (U.S. Agent) show up as Luke’s supervisor… wow, does Walker draw buff blond guys bad (he drew Steve Rogers identically in the first issue).

The previous issue’s cliffhanger turns out to be a stupid ruse; if they’d just done a double-sized issue, combining this one and the previous, it’d have started the arc out on good footing. Instead, this issue feels Parker’s playing catch-up.

Wow, if Thunderbolts is so unbelievably stupid with a good writer like Jeff Parker on it, what’s it like when it’s got some regular Marvel hack writing?

It’s actually a good example of how a comic book has to visually flow together. When Baron Zemo shows up at the end, it just looks stupid. Sure, some of it is Kev Walker’s artwork—which I’d never seen before and it reminds me a little of Ed McGuinness but without any enthusiasm for superheroes. Walker’s style is a mix between McGuinness and a misanthropic Sam Kieth. It’s not just a matter of taste—Walker’s clearly incapable of putting Parker’s script on the page.

Parker’s got this big movie moment of Luke Cage jumping out of a plane to make an entrance and it just flops.

Then there’s the visually awkward prison tour.

It’s not all Walker’s fault, he just makes it worse.