Justice, Like Lightning: A Thunderbolts Retrospective

Blog's back, I guess. So why not show off with an overview of a comic book team I am and remain to be a huge fan of: the Thunderbolts!

In the mid to late 90s, Marvel was in a bad place. There are hundreds of videos and blogs that discuss this in further detail and why but long story short, the company was going bankrupt and creatively they were in a really bad place. After an event involving the Avengers fighting the monster Onslaught, they disappeared (probably a good thing considering their book was not doing well) and were out of the public eye on their world, but really on a parallel world because comics. But debuting in the Avengers' place on Earth were a team called the Thunderbolts. This team has had quite a run in the comics world, with different creative teams and different ideas to explore the team. Here I plan to do an overview of their most well-known runs of the story and where they are now.

For this overview, I will just go over their most well-known and prominent runs, though I may have to skip a few eras that were left in the dust. As well, I will discuss my thoughts and criticisms of said runs, whether they are good, bad or had ideas that never went anywhere. I will try to provide as best a summary of the stories I can, but some of these go on for years so sorry if I skip over a few things.

The Beginning: Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley

First, the is the debut issue of the Thunderbolts comic, though the team would debut earlier in another comic, but not too much on that. The team appeared almost out of nowhere, saving the day from supervillains and gaining the public's eye. But what the adoring public do not know is that this team of heroes are really supervillains! Forming up the Masters of Evil/Thunderbolts are as follows: Baron Zemo/Citizen V, Moonstone/Meteorite, Screaming Mimi/Songbird, Beetle/MACH-1, Goliath/Atlas, and Fixer/Techno. As this line-up, Baron Zemo brought them together to masquerade as heroes to gain the public and government's trust so they could acquire their secrets and such to conquer the world. Keep in mind that at the time, the Avengers and Fantastic 4 were presumed dead, so a vacuum was left for the Thunderbolts to take advantage of. And here is the image that showed readers that shocking plot twist:

Keep in mind, this was in the late 90s. No internet or anything to spoil this shocking moment, just fans turning the page to discover these new heroes were familiar villains!
For the first little while, the team would act like heroes in public, then return to base and return to their former selves when back in private. However, as the team continued their roles as heroes, a good number of them discovered they liked being heroes. The act of doing good was growing on them. As well, there were fun stories where they crossed over with other heroes with interesting results, such as when Spider-man was accused of a crime he didn't do. In this situation, MACH-1 wanted to take Spider-man down, as he crossed paths with the webslinger under the Beetle identity, but he was aware that Spider-man was innocent. In the end, he chose to help Spider-man and became better for it. Later in the series, a young Asian American teenage who was experimented on by a supervillain would join the Thunderbolts under the name Jolt because she had electric powers. With this new addition that didn't know the Thunderbolts were villains, the team was forced to further continue their charade even out of the public eye.
As the series progressed, they would team-up with other heroes and even meet-up with the returning Avengers. But as people would dread, this would not last. Baron Zemo outed the team as supervillains, forcing them to return to Zemo's side as the heroes won't take them in anymore and the villain community would reject them entirely for their role as superheroes. But Zemo would regret that decision as the team would turn on him, choosing to remain in the roles of heroes, no matter what anyone else thinks, continuing their paths for redemption and heroism. In this following run, the team would be taken over and led by Hawkeye, an Avenger who once walked a path of villainy, though this was way back when. This is a good move, as Hawkeye knows what it's like to be treated as a criminal and understands the long path to redemption.
Now a quick overview on the characters. First, one of my favourite characters: Songbird! Formerly Screaming Mimi, a pretty minor, D-list villain in the Marvel Universe, Songbird aka Melissa Gold started off as a shy, timid member of the team, though her Screaming Mimi persona was known to be very aggressive and unkind. Songbird's character throughout her fictional history has one of the most complex arcs I've seen in a character. She starts off as shy, timid and not very vocal, despite the fact her powers come from her voice, and then grows to be a confident, kind-hearted, outspoken leader of the Thunderbolts and later an incarnation of the Avengers. I'm generally surprised no one at Marvel are making a bigger push on the character consider the potential she has alone, whether making her a more permanent Avengers member, a new Thunderbolts book with her, or even giving her a solo title, but hey, it happens.
Citizen V aka Baron Zemo is your average villain in a disguise character, but here it's done so well that you just can't help but enjoy yourself. He plays Citizen V like a super noble Captain America, which makes sense consider that he wears the American flag on himself, which is the point since he has to gain the public's trust then he's back to villain and the switch is awesome. Moonstone is scheming, selfish and untrusting, making her a great foil against the more innocent and kindhearted Songbird. MACH-1, as mentioned before, goes on a great character journey from B-List Spider-man/miscellaneous villain to a more competent hero. Plus, you've got Atlas and Fixer, who have differing degrees of loyalty to Baron Zemo as well as different inner struggles of being a hero or a villain. Finally, there's Jolt, a super fan of heroes who you never want to see hurt, so when she discovers they're villains, it's heart-wrenching for her as it is for the reader.
This run would lead to the team starting to become a reform squad for villains, with characters leaving and new characters joining throughout. Busiek and Bagley would leave at this time, especially since Busiek would write Avengers and Bagley would eventually team with Brian Michael Bendis for Ultimate Spider-man. The team would be part of major events and crossovers through tie-ins and occasional appearances in other books, but the team would change in the next major run. But this would be taken over by Fabian Nicieza

Hawkeye Leads and Civil War: Fabian Nicieza

UPDATE/ADDITION NOTE: now originally I wasn't going to include Nicieza's massive contributions to the team as for the most part he carried over what Busiek did and unfortunately I haven't read or tracked down his work yet. But a comment here pointed out that he was also a massive part of the team, so from what I have read I will add what I can.
First, he continued with Hawkeye's leadership on the team, but also this was a big character exploration... some of which unfortunately got ignored. First, there is of course Songbird and all of her character development from that timid, dependent girl to falling back to her Screaming Mimi persona to finally Songbird the leader! She would eventually lead the team, which would expand in size and even grow to include Doctor Octopus and other minor villains. Also, there was Baron Zemo who joins the team to find redemption of his own. Sure, there is the story of Songbird getting close to him just so she can kill him, which that is a story I'm looking for, but it is interesting to see Zemo attempt to atone for his past evil deeds... too bad Marvel would later ignore this. Yeah, unfortunately, like all heroes and villains in comics getting passed from writer to writer, Zemo would fall back to more villainous ways. Not saying that's a bad thing but it is interesting to see Zemo attempt some kind of redemption, even if he may or may not deserve it. Eventually, I'll find some good trades of the book then be able to go more in depth of each. Plus in Civil War, Zemo was playing both sides of the war. That's a Zemo thing he would do. But in the aftermath of Civil War, the team would change...

Faith in Monsters: Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato

This is the book that changed the Thunderbolts forever in many ways good and bad. This book is a result of Marvel's status quo being changed from the event Civil War in 2007. The Pro-registration Act forces heroes that have not revealed their identities to the government on the run, and who better to stop them than the Thunderbolts. This team's line up feature two of the original teammates, Songbird and Moonstone, with Norman Osborn (you know, the Green Goblin) being the manager and leader of the team. Rounding out the rest of the team would be Swordsman, Radioactive Man, Penance, Bullseye, and Venom, with the former Scorpion Mac Gargan as the symbiote's host this time. This is the run most similar to DC's Suicide Squad, as it is primarily made up of villains being forced by the government via electric shock nanites (because comics) to hunt down unregistered heroes. Songbird, following a previous line-up where she had a relationship with Baron Zemo, is demoted from leader of the team to keep her in check but not fired because she makes the team look good, plus she's powerful so there's that. Here, Moonstone is full on villain, manipulating everyone on the team and even Norman Osborn himself to retain leadership on the team.

My general thoughts here are simple: this is what defined the Thunderbolts for the longest time, even into their later run and also this is the run that introduced me to the team, thanks especially to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. The team using villains to attempt to reform them, but ulterior motives would put members that don't particular deserve it while the good people would be punished or made to be bad. There are people frustrated by this run as it did define the team as super villains being reformed rather than the original run, making them in some ways similar to Suicide Squad, but this is one of the best runs of the team. Yeah. So first the counter-points: 1. the Thunderbolts have always been a team of villains that do acts of heroism whether it's for their own redemption or a means to an end. 2. The concept of the team wanting to be a villain reform team was done really early in their run, this is taking an old idea and building off of it. 3. THEY ARE NOT THE SUICIDE SQUAD. All versions of the team were working towards redemption with no bomb in there necks. The team is publicly known to be a group of villains that the government are controlling. The Suicide Squad were on secret missions with a team of expendable criminals the government could off or place the blame on if needed. Though on the other hand, unfortunately some writers have looked at the team and got the absolutely wrong ideas from the team. With this, I mean that they don't realize that the whole line is made up of different characters and just think the line-up is a bunch of villains/anti-heroes, essentially a knock-off of Suicide Squad. More on that later.
With the character dynamics, you have Songbird, a character of such great depth and who has gone through so much now demoted and forced to obey the two worst people imaginable, Moonstone and Norman Osborn. Speaking of which, both Osborn and Moonstone are villainous, using their power to give them continuous leverage on the team and on each other, as well as making themselves look good for the public and the fugitive heroes look bad with theatrics, much to Songbird's dismay and concern. With the rest of the team, you have even further great character dynamics: Radioactive Man is a villain genuinely trying to be a hero even though sometimes he sees that his actions are bad; Swordsman is looking out for himself but has some heroic qualities; Venom and Bullseye are monsters who enjoy maiming those that beat them down; and Penance, formerly the hero Speedball, is on the team for redemption that he feels he doesn't deserve, using his suit and other means of self-harm to cause himself greater pain, plus his powers are activated through pain so yeah he has issues. You have a good mix of heroes and villains here and Ellis knocks it out of the park with them. With everyone's self interests and motivations here, Ellis makes a team that is on the edge of self-destructing. Plus, eventually, Osborn becomes the Green Goblin once more and leads to one of my favourite Songbird moments: Songbird vs the Green Goblin in an all-out brawl. Honestly, just get the trade because of that moment. Plus, Penance has a lot of great moments as he eventually gets help from an actual psychiatrist, Doc Samson (a Hulk character), to help him through his traumas and deals. Unfortunately, right before Dark Reign started, the team would disband and then reform into two teams: Osborn, Venom, and Moonstone would form up some of the Dark Avengers while all else ran off or where sent off elsewhere to make way for a Black-Ops stealth team. Not much to say about the Dark Reign run, but eventually it leads to the Heroic Age Run of the story.

Heroic Age: Jeff Parker and Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

With this run, we regain a lot of classic T-Bolt members: Songbird, Fixer, Mach V and Moonstone, with the latter member now a prisoner. This team would be led by Luke Cage, which works out fine as, like Hawkeye before him, Luke Cage has had bad run-ins with the law and understands what it's like to go through matters of redemption. This team would be formed up of villains trying to be good and also some that genuinely may not deserve such treatment but could be proof that the baddest of the bad could do good things. The rest of the team includes Ghost, Crossbones, Man-Thing and Juggernaut. More members would join in later on as a B-team, featuring characters such as Satanna, Shocker, Mr Hyde and a half-Asgardian character named Troll. Troll is a girl raised by, well trolls and acts as such. This team is a good evolution of the team, with the idea that with heroes running things now, they could make the team up of people that could actually be worthy of redemption. However, they would have nanites in their bodies to shock them in case they tried to run off or act out of disobedience. Man-thing, while not a villain, acted as the team's transport which is a cool idea and the other villains dealt with things their own way. Plus, this line-up had more a rotating roster, with some villains, such as Crossbones and Juggernaut getting benched because of things that happened in the story. Eventually, it is revealed that Fixer was communicating with Baron Zemo. Fearing that this would throw him in prison, Fixer would grab most of the Thunderbolts and hightail it out of there... into the past. Songbird, Luke Cage, MACH V and Ghost would remain in the present, with the rest of the team going into different pasts and even meeting up with the original Thunderbolts Line-up.
Then the book was relaunched as Dark Avengers, with said Dark Avengers from a completely different book coming into the book, so that confused things entirely for some people. There would be more adventures, with the Thunderbolts being sent off and the Dark Avengers continuing the book but unfortunately the book would get cancelled under this new title and these characters would just be left in limbo for the longest time. No writers using them, just waiting for someone to use the characters or even the name, which unfortunately leads to the next run.

Marvel NOW!: Red Hulk's Kill Squad: Various Writers and Artists

Here is on that a lot of people may be familiar with and also my least favourite run on the story. The reason is quite simple: it's just a Anti-hero team. That's it. Nothing particularly special about the comic, just a pretty forgettable idea attached to the name of an awesome team. The story circles around Red Hulk recruiting the Punisher, Electra, Deadpool, Venom (Flash Thompson this time), and eventually Ghost Rider into a team of anti-heroes sent out to kill high interest targets. This sounds like a good team idea but the issue is that this is as far from the Thunderbolts from any book you could imagine. Remember what I said about writers taking the wrong ideas of a team and pushing that in a book, well this is a prime example of this. No one here is looking for any kind of redemption, it's just, "the world is a dark place and we need to be the ones to kill and-" I've heard it all before so this is going to be a short excerpt on this run. This idea was already done in Rick Remender's run on X-force, except here the run is forgettable and never trying to explore anything new.
Another reason why I hate this run is that a lot of people keep seeing this run and saying, "That's cool, we can make this into an MCU movie or series" and I just roll my eyes at this because it's the same team in name only, and with this line-up, where would all the awesome characters from other line-ups of the team be involved, like Songbird, Zemo, Penance, MACH V? For some people, this may have been their first introduction to the Thunderbolts and it was a bad introduction because it doesn't even try to take advantage of the team's massive and diverse history, it just uses the name of the team because the team's leader Red Hulk has Thunderbolt as a nickname. It might have been a coincidence but. Screw this run entirely. I wish I could say the next run is a massive improvement but even then, it's just only a partial one for a few positive reasons.

All New and All Different: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Jim Zub and REDACTED

And here is the last run of the book before it was cancelled and the associated characters of the team are as of now left in limbo yet again. For this run, it features most if not all of the original team members, the exclusions being Songbird, as she was being an awesome Avenger at the time (seriously, about time someone made her an Avenger, she was one in Avengers: Forever), Jolt, who would join the book very late and Baron Zemo, who was doing villain stuff again. New members include a little girl named Kobik, who was a piece of the ever powerful cosmic cube made into a sentient child, and the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier is a good choice for a team leader as he has a path of redemption of his own and this team fits his bill. Bucky Barnes would lead the team on the run from the law as they hid Kobik and faced off against various threats. Eventually, Songbird herself would return to the team and it was nice to have her back, plus two Thunderbolts leaders: there's a lot of fun to be had there.
OK, I've put it off long enough, onto the art, where the artist of said art shall not be named of this book because he is a misogynistic, racist, alt-right tool-bag and I don't to even mention his name because I don't want to give him the satisfaction of a mention. Plus, his art is awful, I mean it looks like a knock-off of Rob Liefield's. Twice, they switch to better artists, one of which is original Thunderbolts artist Mark Bagley, but then they keep coming back to this moron of an artist who can barely draw fingers and a woman's waist. I'm not even going to show it here, I'm just putting up a variant cover by the incredible Mark Bagley instead. I wish he did more than half an issue on this run.
Anyway, the story: Jim Zub writes this book and you can tell he has a passion for these characters, just check his other work such as his stuff on Avengers, including the ever awesome No Surrender story, and his work on Champions. But the book's sales didn't really pan out well enough, maybe it was because of the art or maybe it was because of Marvel release way too many books at once and not promoting them, that's a post for another day, but all in all, it got cancelled. So after Songbird would return to the team, Jolt coming back as well, and even Ghost making cameo appearances in the book, the book ended with most of the members joining Baron Zemo's latest Masters of Evil, as part of the Secret Empire event, MACH X getting killed off, and Songbird just alone, walking off, with Ghost and Jolt following closely behind. The story was never picked up, despite Jim Zub, according to his twitter at least, pitching to Marvel a continuation of the story and some fans even pushing to make it happen, it didn't.
These characters are as of now either still evil, just running around, dead, or in the case of Ghost, Jolt, and one of my favourite characters Songbird, just left in the wind. So far, the closest there has been to a Thunderbolts appearance was in the Old Man Hawkeye series, where they apparently betrayed and killed the Avengers. Which is insultingly out of character for some members of the team, especially Songbird where it's stupidly out of character for her! She gets a bit of redemption in this depressing alternate future, which I am done with because it's been done to death, but alternate realities don't count when it comes to full fledged appearances. Marvel had her as an Avenger and then they just forgot about her. This happens with a lot of characters but this one has and continues to have so much potential for stories, but instead I guess we're treated to another Punisher revenge series and too many Spider-man books, and this is coming from someone who loves Spider-man.

Final Say
So finally, to close out on the Thunderbolts, all I say is this: they came in at a time where ideas for good comics where in fear of being short supply and the industry was in shambles due to practices trying to cash in on the collector craze. But while this team is massively under-rated and under-used in comics, but thankfully, they have been getting an increased presence in other media: in the Avengers Assemble show, the team made their animated debut, with their original story being adapted into a multi-episode story arc. While I am no fan of the show, as I stand by the fact that Earth's Mightiest Heroes is the better show, they did a good job on the arc and I'll give them that. Plus in said show's Civil War story, Songbird was made an Avenger so good on that. But then they disappeared from the show, so I guess nothing lasts anymore. There have been appearances in some video games, such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which was my first introduction to the Thunderbolts and Songbird, but mostly they have some appearances in the iPhone games, which while a big market, not really much to it and the Lego Marvel Games. Some characters have retained fan favourite status and gotten action figures made to be released alongside movie tie-in lines, such as Infinity War with Songbird and Endgame with Citizen V, thanks to fan-polls. But I do have hope that eventually they will make their way back to the public eye, and while there is rumours that a Thunderbolts movie is in development... with mostly just the living MCU villains making up the team, I am hopeful, though a bit doubtful, that they will look to the team's entire history and use all aspects of the Thunderbolts, because goddamn it I want to see Songbird in the MCU and I don't want to see that opportunity squandered... because it would be cool to see her team up with all the other Marvel women as well. If you the reader are interested in the team, give them or any associated characters a bit of a google search or check out some of my recommended readings of the team.

Recommended Readings
Thunderbolts Classic Vol 1-3
Thunderbolts Ultimate Collection. Warren Ellis/Mike Deodato
Women of Marvel Vol 1 Issue 2: here is a really good Songbird solo story.

There are other runs of the story, but unfortunately, I'm not sure which one's are still in print and what not. Honestly, this could have easily been a Songbird appreciation post. Thanks for reading! And remember: Don't read the Red Hulk stuff, read the Songbird stuff!

All Images and Characters belong to their respective owners.