The Wellington Comic Lover's Guide to... The Thunderbolts

By Gus

Reading guides, like lightning, should always appear to few men’s ruin, but to all men’s cheer! It’s the WCL Guide to the Thunderbolts!

Youth Youth featured Feature
Comic covers in a grid on a black background

Who are the Thunderbolts?

During the absence of The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, Baron Zemo assembled a team of villains disguised as superheroes to win the public’s trust while secretly plotting a world takeover. The villains betrayed Zemo after realising they preferred being heroes, and the Thunderbolts were born.

The team has changed rosters and purposes several times over its history, but its membership is usually made up of anti-heroes or villains conscripted into public service or actively seeking redemption.

Osborn’s Thunderbolts

The earliest Thunderbolts series we have in the collection is from after Civil War. Operating out of Colorado, these Thunderbolts publicly hunted down heroes and villains who violated the Superhuman Registration Act. Run by Norman Osborn, formerly the Green Goblin, this fractious team was split between the founding Thunderbolts like Songbird and Moonstone and Osborn’s conscripted villains such as Bullseye and Venom.

Dark Reign

When Osborn became the head of superhuman affairs after Secret Invasion, he repurposed the Thunderbolts as his personal black-ops team. Meanwhile, members from the previous Thunderbolts team became members of the ‘Dark Avengers’.

The MCU Thunderbolts team takes the most inspiration from this era, as Yelena Belova and The Ghost become Thunderbolts here, and the Sentry plays a large role in the Dark Reign grand finale, Siege.

Cage’s Thunderbolts

Under the leadership of Luke Cage, the next iteration of the Thunderbolts operated out of superhuman prison The Raft and did hero work to earn time off their sentences. New members in this series include the mercenary Crossbones, the unstoppable Juggernaut, and the swamp creature Man-Thing.

Some members of this team, such as The Shocker and Boomerang, went back to a life of crime and became a new Sinister Six in Superior Foes of Spider-Man. Original Thunderbolt member Mach-V also appears here as Boomerang’s sponsor.

General Ross’ Thunderbolts

General Ross, the Red Hulk, led a new team of Thunderbolts made up of antiheroes, including Deadpool, The Punisher, Elektra, and Ghost Rider. They were later joined by regular Hulk villain The Leader.

Kingpin’s Thunderbolts

When the Kingpin became the mayor of New York City, he instituted a law banning all superheroes. The only heroes permitted to operate in the Big Apple were his personal team of Thunderbolts, made up of USAgent and a cadre of conscripted villains, including the Rhino, Electro, and Abomination.

Later, Baron Zemo co-opted the Thunderbolts to take out the Punisher.

Hawkeye’s Thunderbolts

Once Kingpin was removed from office, new mayor Luke Cage legalised heroes again, recreating the Thunderbolts to lead by example. Under the leadership of Hawkeye, this is the rare version of the team made up mostly of heroes.

Bucky’s Thunderbolts

Recently, Bucky Barnes led a new team of revolutionary Thunderbolts (largely reflecting the membership of the MCU version) to take out the Marvel Universe’s biggest villains, from the Red Skull to Doctor Doom.

MCU Thunderbolts*

Here are the titles featuring the members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of the Thunderbolts. We covered Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian and USAgent in our Captain America blog.

White Widow

Yelena Belova, now going by White Widow, is a graduate of the Red Room, the same covert spy academy that trained Black Widow and the second Wasp.

Ghost

In the MCU, Ghost is Ava Starr, the adopted daughter of scientist Bill Foster with a condition that lets her phase through objects. In the comics, The Ghost is a male data engineer turned anti-corporate saboteur who uses intangibility tech.

Taskmaster

In the MCU, Taskmaster is Antonia Dreykov, a Red Room-trained assassin and enemy to Black Widow. In the comics, Taskmaster is Anthony Masters, a former SHIELD agent turned mercenary. Both possess the unique ability of ‘photographic reflexes’, being able to mimic any fighting move after seeing it once, making them exceptional combatants.

The Sentry

The Sentry is Robert Reynolds, a man gifted the power of ‘one million exploding suns’ but at the cost of a fractured psyche, which manifested as a dark opposite called ‘The Void’. Once a member of the Avengers, Sentry succumbed to the Void’s power and seemingly perished in the Siege crossover, but he repeatedly proves too powerful to be taken out for good. Recently, people across the planet began manifesting Sentry’s powers, as they too struggle with the burden of its influence.

Sentry appearances