'Thunderbolts: Doomstrike' Issue Three Review: Confusing, but things are moving forward

In the earlier reviews of previous issues, I mentioned that this has been to complete introduction to the Thunderbolts for me. I knew that there was recently a film that came out, but even so I had no idea as to what it was or who it contained; the primary reason to be reading this comic being that it is connected to the ongoing story of One World Under Doom that I've been reading, more context into the story and events that give more depth to the desperation of Doom to maintain his reign over the world as various factions attempt to both stop him or support him. Not knowing anything about the Thunderbolts has been fine up until this point though. With this issue that lack of knowledge felt like it finally caught up to me, with it being less about the Doom side of things, and more about the internal conflicts between what appears to be the old Thunderbolts and the newer Thunderbolts.

From what I had gathered: the Thunderbolts this story follows are known as Doomstrike. The original Thunderbolts being a totally different group of heroes entirely. Though it doesn't appear as if they are heroes within this story, but more a group that are supportive of Doom and his current reign, more interested in maintaining it and putting down the Doomstrike Thunderbolts. It felt like there was something I was really missing here, something that would’ve given more context into why these two factions had grown to hate each other and come to conflict. A little bit of drama between them during the conflict, mocking their abilities and appearances, but it was a bit confusing. I liked that this was a change of pacing though, that it removed the current reliance on displaying conflicts with Doom directly. Internal politics are just as interesting, and it was good to bridge something else within the story aside from the usual expected setup of the good guys trying to fight Doom and getting caught up in his traps. That was ultimately how One World Under Doom and Doom's Division have been.

Despite the confusion, I quite enjoyed the way the issue handled the fight panels. There were some really good panels that showed scale through the sizes of the different Thunderbolts. Given I hadn't really seen them before, it was a decent introduction that just might have me check out the issues the comic was referring to. The biggest part of this story though was seeing how Bucky had finally been defeated. After the previous issues of failing and just scraping by to escape, he's finally actually captured. A surrender that has him now under the control of Doom. We saw previously how Doom wanted to start a secret police with the Thunderbolts that would've been led by Bucky, and how he declined. I'm not sure how any of this will come into play with the next issue, but I'm glad it quickly made a big move.

I can see how this isn't a comic for everyone though. This is clearly referencing previous comics and it's evident that there's something deeper here that would really help to know in advance. While that One World Under Doom is connected, there's still something that this is carrying over from. For me it was quite confusing trying to figure out why the two Thunderbolts had this conflict, and it likely would just require going back and reading the previous releases. But for those that don't want to do that, I can understand the lack of appeal.