I returned as a comic collector right around the time Civil War was making it's splash in the comic world in 2007. I had stopped collecting in the early 90's. As a relative nube to the new Marvel landscape, I had to feel my way around to get my bearings. I was completely unfamiliar with large comic book events the scale of Civil War. Once the event ended, I tried filling in some of the gaps that I had missed. Thunderbolts being one of those gaps.
The versatile Fabian Nicieza scripted the Thunderbolts' chapter of Civil War. And like a lot of Nicieza's work, I found the stories jumped around too much. I found myself rereading pages thinking that two pages must have stuck together considering the "choppiness" of the story. His use of dialogue is strong though, rarely getting caught in the cliché superhero monologuing.
The artwork is handled by Canadian penciller, Tom Grummett. He is known for a wide variety of work for both DC and Marvel, and can most recently be associated with the X-Men: Forever titles. His lines are simple and bold but he needs a new colourist. Sotocolor's J. Brown's hues are just too bubble gummish and don't suite the seedy Thunderbolts at all.
The story itself is tolerable at best. Personally, with the exception of Baron Zemo, I found most of the characters incredibly irritating. Nicieza was able to get me to feel sorry for Zemo though. His character came across as complex and unpredictable, two characteristics that really worked for him in this story.
Ultimately, the book had very little to do with Civil War. Skipping this storyline, would barely affect one's understanding of the greater story at all. This is too bad, considering this title went on to become so good after Nicieza's run!