Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #4 - Marvel Comics

THUNDERBOLTS: DOOMSTRIKE No. 4, July 2025

Largely focused upon Doctor Victor Von Doom verbally sparing with a heavily chained-up Bucky Barnes, this twenty-page periodical’s writers still manage to do a good job in imbuing the speech bubble-laden spate with plenty of tension and dynamic drama. Indeed, Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s handling of Latveria’s tyrannical ruler is seemingly spot on, as the armoured super-villain projects an almost palpable mixture of sheer arrogance and a desperate, almost juvenile need for his opponent to succumb to his twisted vision of the world; “Would you like to feast with Doom in the light of objective truth.? Then say it.”

Furthermore, this enthrallingly claustrophobic set-piece surprisingly isn’t in any way diminished once the Fantastic Four’s arch-nemesis angrily departs either, with the Eisner Award-nominee’s actually appearing to ‘up the stakes’ once Valentina Allegra de Fontaine begins to ‘interrogate’ the Winter Soldier on her own. Admittedly, much of the Silver Age sorcerer’s physical (and magical) menace is replaced by the Countess’ seductive feminine wiles. But there can be no doubt that the Thunderbolts’ one-armed leader is in just as much physical jeopardy with Citizen V’s catlike grip as he was whilst Jack Kirby’s co-creation was torturing him with the Psi-Temples of He Who Mourns In Memory. 

Disappointingly though, the rest of the storytelling inside Issue Four of “Thunderbolts: Doomstrike” arguably isn’t as well-penned, with Natasha" Romanova’s recruitment of a second strike team occurring in a decidedly choppy manner. Much of this confusion is debatably caused by the American authors desperately trying to demonstrate just how fast and stealthy an operative Black Widow can be when highly motivated. However, in having the former Russian assassin leap from one scene set thirty thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean straight into another based some ninety-eight miles from the Texas/Mexico border, the collaborative pair simply generate a ton of unanswered questions in the audience’s mind – not least of which is why the Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. selected who she did, and how she physically located/visited them..?

Similarly as ‘hit and miss’ are artist Tommaso Bianchi’s lively layouts, which largely manage to convey all the Machiavellian menace any comic book audience would expect of a yarn spotlighting Victor Von Doom. Yet every now and then the Varese-born illustrator’s panels don’t debatably fully deliver on what is supposedly happening in the script, such as when Songbird screams so as to probably damage/destroy the flying craft she’s aboard, or Ayo and Aneka are presumably conducting some covert mission in Wakanda when they’re spotted by winged Doombots..?

The regular cover art of "THUNDERBOLTS: DOOMSTRIKE" #4 by Leinil Francis Yu & Romulo Fajardo Jr.