3 weeks Ago By Cameron Bonomolo
Jeff Parker’s Thunderbolts run uncaged one of the most unorthodox teams in the comic’s history. While heroes like Hawkeye, Luke Cage, and the Winter Soldier have served as part of the Thunderbolts, the team’s ever-evolving roster typically consisted of supervillains — some reformed, others pretending to be — in the decades since Baron Helmut Zemo first formed the Thunderbolts in the absence of the Avengers. In 2010, Marvel relaunched Thunderbolts as part of the Heroic Age, a publishing initiative that followed the Norman Osborn-led Dark Reign.
Steve Rogers installed former convict turned Avenger Luke Cage as the leader of the new Thunderbolts Program, which offered criminals imprisoned in The Raft an opportunity to commute their sentences. Criminals like former Thunderbolts Songbird, MACH-V, the Fixer, Moonstone, and Ghost. Cage’s Thunderbolts team also included new recruits Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, Cain Marko/Juggernaut, and Ted Sallis/Man-Thing, an empathetic creature with a connection to the Nexus of All Realities and an ability to teleport the team around the world.
Like Cage, Ted was transformed through an attempt to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. RELATED: Who Are the Thunderbolts* in the MCU? The Marvel Team ExplainedPerhaps that’s why director Jake Schreier hoped to include Man-Thing on his team of Thunderbolts* before Marvel Studios blocked the character, who made his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Michael Giacchino-directed Werewolf by Night in 2022. “I think there was a point during pitching when I really wanted Man-Thing to be on the team,” Schreier told SFX Magazine, adding that “it all worked out for the best.
” Thunderbolts* assembles super soldiers Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Red Guardian (David Harbour), and assassins/spies Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), brought together by shadowy CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). As Yelena puts it: “So, what? We all just punch and shoot?” “It was about looking through the MCU and not just finding bad guys who could be good but characters that exist more on that morally grey plane or who were potentially destined for something else but then something went awry,” Schreier explained. “Or maybe they’re just misunderstood, someone like John Walker, where he was literally Captain America.
”As shown in the final Thunderbolts* trailer, this more grounded team of not-so-super-heroes might not be Earth’s mightiest — but they each other, and they have a shared desire for purpose and redemption. “Maybe there is something that is worth caring about. I think all of them have kind of lost touch with that idea,” Schreier said.
“At first through sheer necessity, because of the situation that they’re thrown into together, but then later more out of inspiration, as a group could they become something bigger than each of themselves could be on their own?”Here’s the official logline: “After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?” Marvel’s Thunderbolts* opens only in theaters May 2. The post Thunderbolts* Director Reveals Which Marvel Hero He Wanted for the Movie (But Wasn’t Allowed to Use) appeared first on ComicBook.
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