Thunderbolts, ho!
The marvel Cinematic universe has a new superteam, but the live-action line-up of the Thunderbolts looks nothing like the comics version.
THE “Caps” are finally out of the bag. This pretty much summed up my feelings when the roll call for the upcoming Thunderbolts movie was recently announced at the Disney D23 event in California.
Making up half of the team are characters with strong “Captain America DNA” – US Agent (B-grade Cap), Red Guardian (Russian Cap), Winter Soldier (Cap Jr) and Taskmaster (Copy Cap).
The other members of the team are Yelena Belova (the new Black Widow, played by Florence Pugh), Ghost (the villain in the Ant Man And The Wasp movie, played by Hannah John-kamen) and Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Julia Louis-dreyfus, and probably in the team by virtue of having the longest name in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU).
Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier is the one with the longest history in the MCU, having made his first appearance in
Captain America: The First Avenger
before evolving to become the Winter Soldier later on. He and Falcon came up against Wyatt Russell’s US Agent in the Falcon And the Winter Soldier Disney+ show. That series also featured the first appearance of Contessa Valentina, who was also in the Black Widow
film that introduced Yelena, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, and Olga Kurylenko’s gender-flipped Taskmaster.
While the inclusion of most of these characters is justified by their Thunderbolts comics roots (excluding Contessa), the biggest deviation here from the comics version of the Thunderbolts is that we don’t have full-fledged villains masquerading as heroes. At best, we have a team of a few reformed villains!
Co-created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley, the original Thunderbolts made its debut in 1997’s Incredible Hulk (Vol.1) #449, just in time to fill a vacuum left by the Avengers and Fantastic Four who were supposedly killed by Onslaught (but they were actually away on Heroes Reborn duty).
They subsequently got their own standalone title that year, called
Thunderbolts.
Seizing the opportunity, Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil team remodelled themselves as Earth’s new protectors by adopting new identities – Zemo masqueraded as an American patriot named Citizen V; the criminal inventor Fixer called himself Techno; Beetle became MACH-1 thanks to a suit of armour designed by Fixer; Screaming Mimi went from screamer to singer by calling herself Songbird; the size-changing Goliath became Alas; and last but not least, Moonstone (who got her powers from a Kree gravity stone found on the moon) became Meteorite.
The original idea of the Thunderbolts was based on the premise of the Masters Of Evil replacing the Avengers and even doing their heroic deeds. Though the masquerade ended within the first issue of its regular series, the ruse is still considered as one of the best-conceived plot twists in comic book history.
From that startling starting point, the Thunderbolts have since evolved from being a bogus superhero team to a government-led black-ops team, with 11 different incarnations so far, offering a revolving-door team roster and plot twists aplenty – which we can also expected from the upcoming movie.
Banking on the hope that recent Marvel movies are more than meets the eye, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the recently announced roll call is not the final one, as there are certainly more worthy Thunderbolt-ers to be considered.
Personally, my fondest Thunderbolts memories go back to their original days. Busiek and Bagley’s pioneer team set the stage for the true deceptive nature of the team, but was somehow lost in subsequent incarnations. The recent formations come across more of a Team Up book where popular names (Deadpool, Punisher, Elektra, etc) were thrown into the mix just to generate sales.
Therefore, this week we shall revisit some of the more worthy character who have joined the Thunderbolts.
Baron Zemo
A Thunderbolts movie without Zemo is like KFC without Colonel Sanders or Mcdonalds without Ronald Mcdonald. As the actual founder of the Thunderbolts, Zemo’s contribution to the team is immense, and he has been both protagonist and antagonist in its key milestones.
I’m still holding out for the MCU’S Zemo (played by Daniel Bruhl) to become part of the team, as he has already stamped his mark in the Captain America: Civil War movie and became a fan favourite in the Falcon & The Winter Soldier TV series. While there are some major differences between the comics and MCU Zemos, his connection with the Thunderbolts name is surely too important to ignore.
Dr Karla Sofen (Moonstone)
The inclusion of Dr Karla Sofen aka Moonstone offers an intriguing proposition. Known for her scheming and mind games, Moonstone and Zemo’s direct and indirect rivalry in the early comic scripts offered many interesting plots.
Compared to the three female characters already confirmed in the upcoming MCU movie, Moonstone would be in a different league altogether, courtesy of her moonstone-enhanced powers such as super strength, healing, flight, energy manipulation, intangibility, and even gravity manipulation! In other words, we would get a character with brains and brawn combined ... which none of the three incumbents can offer!
Abe Jenkins (Beetle / MACH-I / X)
As a Spider-man villain, Abe Jenkins aka the Beetle had reached his fullest potential ... sadly as a B-grade character. It was through his role as Mach-i (to X) that made him much more interesting, as it offered a new perspective of who he truly is as well as can be.
This was evident when he displayed his technical prowess via refining his suit’s designs into the Mobile Armored Cyber-harness (aka MACH). Subsequently, he showed some actual heroism by rebelling against Zemo!
Clint Barton (Hawkeye)
Before you go “But isn’t he an Avenger ?”, well, Clint was once a Thunderbolt and even led the team (as well as had a fling with Moonstone).
Under his leadership, the team’s progression towards a force of good was more evident, as Hawkeye used his personal experience as a reformed villain to guide the Thunderbolts.
Eventually Hawkeye even managed to secure them pardons, but at his own expense, as Clint was sent to prison for his own technically-illegal vigilante activities while attached with the Thunderbolts.
With Hawkeye’s significant MCU influence, his presence in the team will definitely add more credibility as well as continuity to the movie. Besides, with Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop already introduced as a potential replacement, maybe it’s time for Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye to be promoted to a, er, management role.
Helen Takahama (Jolt)
If there’s one good person that came out of the initial Thunderbolts ruse, it has to be Helen “Hallie” Takahama aka Jolt.
Her story is like a “zero-to-hero” tale – starting as an innocent bystander who lost her parents when Onslaught invaded the Big Apple, she then found herself abducted by Arnie Zola and subjected to experiments that gave her super powers.
She managed to escape and found the Thunderbolts, who aided her in rescuing other kidnapped children. Consequently, she became a member of the original Thunderbolts and started sowing the seeds of good within the team.