With the movie arriving shortly, I decided to do a quick piece on the Thunderbolts. I’m going to start with several disclaimers. First off, this is about the original comic book Thunderbolts stories, not the movie version of characters. There is no crossover between the membership in the two versions. And I’m not going to recap who the movie Thunderbolts are, since I am betting anyone who wants to see this knows them.

There are spoilers here for the original Thunderbolts story, but it came out in 1997, so I really think it’s fair game. During the Onslaught crossover event, many of Marvel’s big heroes disappeared, sent to an alternate Earth. The heroes were presumed dead, and the world struggled in the absence of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and others. A new team of heroes showed up calling themselves the Thunderbolts.

The Thunderbolts did assorted good deeds, gaining a lot of public favor, and finally, as a show of trust and thanks, the team was given access to the headquarters and databases of the missing teams. Which was, in fact, what the goal was. The Thunderbolts, in a massive fake-out that surprised everyone (pre-social media, remember), were revealed to be a new version of the Masters of Evil, a villain group that usually clashed with the Avengers. Their leader, tactician and swordsman Citizen V, proved to be Baron Zemo, and the others, various villains that had been given a makeover, essentially.

Zemo’s scheme worked for a time, until their secret inevitably came out. Then, in another really interesting spin, a few of the disguised villains decided they actually liked being heroes. Public acclaim was nice, and respect was better than fear when they showed up places. This led to a big split in the team, and the heroic ones kept their new names and costumes, trying to be better people. They got help as they struggled, at one point from Hawkeye, an Avenger who had started off on the wrong side of the law himself.

Much later, the Thunderbolts had a new iteration, as the government used villains on missions to help people for time off their sentences. If that sounds familiar, they pretty much borrowed the concept from DC’s Suicide Squad, which was doing the same thing as of 1987. This version seems to be what they are loosely basing the move on.

Given the MCU’s overall track record, and the cast and characters in this movie, I’m really looking forward to it. I really curious about how they carry this idea forward, and if this will be a one-shot idea or if it develops as the MCU continues.

Thunderbolts comes out May 2, 2025.