As the build begins for Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, the question is whether the company is making the wrong move with the team.
After a rough 2023, the MCU took time off to regroup, pushed on by the Hollywood strikes. They are trying to bounce back with Deadpool & Wolverine and Captain America: Brave New World. Their big summer entry is Thunderbolts* (the asterisk is intentional), which looks fun.
The plotline has several supporting characters from previous Marvel movies pushed into a team: Bucky/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).
The trailer hints at some wild action and comedy, unlike Guardians of the Galaxy or DC’s Suicide Squad. Yet that seems to be a missed opportunity for the movie version of the Thunderbolts to replicate the comics.
“Heroes” in disguise
Thunderbolts is always remembered by Marvel Comics fans because of its genius first issue. In 1996, Marvel made the controversial decision to allow superstar artists Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld (who had left the company years before to form Image Comics) to produce “Heroes Reborn,” intended as a fresh start for major characters.
To facilitate this, the Avengers and Fantastic Four appeared to “die” fighting the monstrous Onslaught. In reality, they were transported to an alternate world where they’d begin their superhero lives in a new way.
“Heroes Reborn” ended up being a poorly received project that ended up as a debacle, with Leifeld fired midway through. It inspired some new titles, with other Marvel heroes trying to handle a world without the Avengers or FF.
Thunderbolts was promoted as being a brand-new team of heroes trying to fill the gap left by the Avengers. Writer Kurt Busiek and artist Mark Bagley talked of creating new characters from scratch, and Marvel hyped up the book as a great new team.
The first issue, published in February 1997, showed Citizen V, MACH-1, Techno, Songbird, Atlas, and Meteorite making a big splash by fighting villains and winning over the public. It looked like a perfect new team of heroes learning the ropes.
Then came the shocking ending. In what remains one of the greatest twists in comic book history, the final page featured the revelation that the T-Bolts were actually Baron Helmut Zemo, the Beetle, the Fixer, Screaming Mimi, Goliath and Moonstone, veteran supervillains the Masters of Evil.
With the Avengers and FF seemingly dead, Zemo had hit upon the inspired idea of having the Masters pose as heroes to gain public and government trust, all as part of his plan to take over the world.
The fact Marvel kept this such a secret was more amazing than the twist itself. The book was an instant hit and one of the hottest titles around.
The seduction of good
The early push of Thunderbolts was obvious, with the villains acting as heroes and plotting in secret while the reader wondered when they’d be exposed. It got trickier when they took on Jolt, a teenager unaware of their secret, forcing them to keep up the act 24/7.
However, the book soon moved into its true purpose with a wrinkle Zemo never expected: That several of these villains would realize they actually liked being heroes. The adulation and fame got to them, along with how it felt to help others. Busiek quoted a reader summarizing that while many books talked about “the seduction of evil,” Thunderbolts was the first book to bring up “the seduction of good.”
Eventually, the majority of the T-Bolts turned on Zemo, stopping his plans and then trying to be heroes for real. A nice turn had Avenger Hawkeye (who’d started on the wrong side of the law himself) taking up leadership to help them out.
As time went on, the book shifted and later turned into Marvel’s Suicide Squad of anti-heroes like the Punisher, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and others. Yet that original concept is what fans remember and why it’s better for a movie.
Why the original Thunderbolts concept should be used
The trailer has a line from scheming Contessa Valentina (Julia-Louis Dreyfus) telling a Congressional committee, “The Avengers aren’t coming.” That means a gap is needed for heroes, which is where the Thunderbolts should be coming in.
It seemed to be where things were going when The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ended with Walker taking up the US Agent identity. Valentina has been shown manipulating events in other movies and, so having her create her own super-team to fill the gap of the Avengers is only logical.
Now, it’s possible the asterisk in the title means this is a “placeholder” name and by the end of the movie, these guys become a new Avengers or another team like it. Yet going for a full-fledged costumed team from the beginning might work better.
We could have used new MCU takes on the original team, like MACH-1 and Songbird or a scheming Meteorite. Having Daniel Bruhl reprise his role as Zemo under a new identity leading the team would have been cool too.
It could still work in Walker, Yelena and Ghost with more blatantly costumed identities (Yelena putting up with a Widow suit would offer comedy) and maybe still Bucky involved. That idea of a new Avengers-like team loved by the public while used by the government has serious potential.
It would obviously set up a conflict with the real Avengers and play into Marvel’s later movies. It just seems a major missed opportunity for Marvel not to have the Thunderbolts be like that classic comic setup of “heroes” with a darker secret and would make the MCU a lot more fun.
Thunderbolts+ premieres in theaters Friday May 2nd.