THUNDERBIRD III (Neal Shaara)
Created By: Chris Claremont & Leinil Francis Yu
First Appearance: X-Men #100 (May 2000)
Role: The Scrappy, Flying Blaster
Country of Origin: India
Group Affiliations: The X-Men, X-Corporation
PL 9 (134)
STRENGTH 1 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 1 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 2
Skills:
Acrobatics 3 (+6)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 1 (+7)
Deception 4 (+6)
Expertise (Current Events/Pop Culture) 3 (+4)
Intimidation 4 (+6)
Perception 4 (+5)
Persuasion 4 (+6)
Ranged Combat (Blasts) 3 (+8)
Vehicles 4 (+6)
Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Benefit 2 (Wealth), Defensive Attack, Equipment (X-Men Uniform- Toughness +1), Evasion, Precise Attack (Ranged/Cover), Ranged Attack 3, Set-Up, Teamwork
Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Plasma Generation"
Blast 10 (Feats: Improved Critical 2, Split) (Extras: Penetrating) (33) -- [35]
- AE: Dazzle (Visuals) 10 (20)
- AE: Plasma Aura 8 (32)
Offense:
Unarmed +7 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Blast +8 (+10 Ranged Damage, DC 25)
Dazzle +8 (+10 Ranged Affliction, DC 20)
Plasma Aura +7 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +3
Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +3 (+4 Uniform), Fortitude +6, Will +5
Complications:
Relationship (Psylocke, Omega Sentinel, Lifeguard)- For someone so sucky, Neal sure gets around.
Responsibility (Great Power/Great Responsibility)- Neal is extra-careful with his Plasma Generation, as it may start fires or maim people.
Total: Abilities: 38 / Skills: 30--15 / Advantages: 12 / Powers: 53 / Defenses: 16 (134)
Neal Shaara- Most Boring X-Man Ever:
-Thunderbird III... man, this guy sucks. See, an Indian superhero was a VERY good idea- it's a place with a billion people in it, so it's kind of weird that they didn't get one of the "all corners of the globe" X-Men until Chris Claremont's big return to X-verse. Unfortunately, they saddled him with horribly generic powers (just a Blaster, a lesser version of Sunfire too), a lame personality (rich boy who's nonetheless super good and noble), and a name that both makes zero sense (he has plasma powers and his name is THUNDERBIRD), and is an homage to a character he's never even met (and were both Apaches, so it's not like he was inspired, unless he misinterpreted the term "Indian").
So the fans sure didn't like him. Claremont seemed to, though (funny how that always happens with him), trotting him out to various books he was working on, when literally nobody else in comics wanted to touch the guy.
-Thunderbird appears quickly with an X-team, Claremont having decided that there was a "time skip" leading up to his run, and that Neal Shaara had joined the team in the interim. He's the son of a wealthy Indian family who'd been captured by Bastion along with his girlfriend Karima, and the pair were set to be turned into Prime Sentinels. Neal had the unlikely "late-developing mutant powers" thing happen, and he burned his way free, though his brother died in the process. He fled (Karima became "Omega Sentinel" a bit later), joining the X-Men when family friend Moira MacTaggert introduced them. So a total rank amateur with his powers joins the X-Men immediately, and takes the name of a character he's never even met.
-Claremont did this weird thing where he decided the character was awesome, but didn't really show him doing awesome THINGS, and quickly had him hook up with his teammate Psylocke (thus killing the Archangel relationship that nobody would really miss anyway- though Neal was openly flirting with Betsy IN FRONT of Warren, which is pretty cold). A big running theme is his uncontrollable powers (like, maybe join a trainee squad?), and his unwillingness to use them on living beings.
Neal Goes X-Treme, Then Disappears:
-When Claremont was run out of the main two X-Men books on a rail, he was given X-Treme X-Men to play with, sort of as a peace gesture. Marvel gave him SOME credit, but essentially (and cleverly) kept him away from the stuff they REALLY wanted, and so he had his own little world that didn't have to affect anyone else's stuff. So his beloved Sage, his Thunderbird, and Psylocke, Rogue & Storm all ended up on that book, leaving them "off-limits" to the other X-Books, a move that seemed to make sense at the time, but had the nasty side effect of rendering them all in "limbo" for ages, essentially freezing their characterization in ice.
-Psylocke is killed due to an editorial issue (she was supposed to be dead for an issue or two, but Claremont had the bad timing to do this RIGHT as Joe Quesada introduced his "Nobody is allowed to come back from the dead, ever" edict, which held for a few years), leaving Thunderbird both grief-stricken, and without any plot to follow for a while. He eventually started a relationship with new recruit, Lifeguard. The two eventually left the team to search for her brother, Slipstream. And that... was the absolute end of Neal Shaara's character.
-See, without CLAREMONT to care for him, NOBODY did. He joined the "X-Corporation", a very, VERY short-lived concept that was basically "so, all the mutants we're not currently using are working in offices around the world, loyal to Xavier... which never amounted to anything because Grant Morrison wiped it out. And since Thunderbird III sucked, no OTHER writers wanted to use him, and so he utterly vanished. Like, it's hard to think of ANY X-Man who's had less of an effect on the team and its history as this guy- his last mention was after M-DAY, for God's sake (it was announced he'd kept his powers- that's it).
The Problem With Neal Shaara:
-It brings to mind just WHY he's so bad. It's not as if Claremont did his USUAL thing, where he power-geeks the crap out of his favorite and makes everyone else look like idiots. He does that with most of the FEMALE characters he likes, but Neal was just an "Uncontrolled Power" guy. Which is actually a SOLID thing, except his powers never seemed powerful enough to be THAT dangerous, and it was kind of inappropriate for an X-Man to be so low-end like that. It's an odd case where he tried to hard to NOT Power-Geek that he went the opposite direction, making him pretty lame.
-That his characterization is largely unclear from most everything I've read (his personality seems to be "Ladies' Man", since he's been with three attractive women in quick succession) doesn't help, nor does the fact that his rich-guy backstory fails to elicit much sympathy. I mean, there are worse X-Men, but at least Maggott sucks in an INTERESTING WAY- Thunderbird III really just feels like the most "bleh" character imaginable, and that Claremont invented him just because he wanted a new guy, or had an old idea that never saw fruition because he was drummed out of the X-Books years earlier. I really don't know what the POINT of him was, which might be the most damning thing about the character.
Thunderbird's Powers:
-T-Bird's just a Blaster through and through. He's very fast and rather defensible for a Blaster, but he lacks a few notable abilities (namely Power Attack) because he's so afraid of killing someone with his power. He's EXTRAORDINARILY weak in Close, and is PL 9 at Range.