Speaker 1: Warning.
Speaker 2: Today's episode contains spoilers for Thunderbolts number one from nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven. It's a thirty year.
Speaker 3: Old comic and if you listen to our book Club,
Speaker 3: it's already been spoiled for you. But you're already If
Speaker 3: you haven't, go listen to that and then come back
Speaker 3: and listen to this.
Speaker 2: Hello, and it is Jason Gncepcion and our Brisday Night
Speaker 2: and welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where
Speaker 2: we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and
Speaker 2: pop culture. Coming to you from I Art Podcast, where
Speaker 2: we're bringing you three huge episodes a week every Tuesday,
Speaker 2: Wednesday and Thursday plus Goose.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, it's all about those bad boys known
Speaker 3: as the Thunderbolts. We're going to be talking about who's
Speaker 3: who of the Thunderbolts, who's in the Thunderbolts, who's in
Speaker 3: the MC version, and where were the comic book counterparts
Speaker 3: first introduced in the wild world of the twisty team
Speaker 3: known as the Thunderbolts. And then Jason has a banging
Speaker 3: omnibus about the state of Marvel in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 3: and how the original Busiak and Bagley comic book was
Speaker 3: received at the time, but.
Speaker 1: First year Locke, Okay, let's let's chop it up. Thunderbolts
Speaker 1: number one. This was such a time capsule as wild.
Speaker 2: I remember reading this. I remember not planning to read it,
Speaker 2: but then the buzz, the buzz, the tolk of the tests, like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll read it. I had been you know, this was
Speaker 2: the nineties, had introduced a lot of new characters, and
Speaker 2: some of them I'll talk more about the nineties in
Speaker 2: the omnibus. Some of them hit, some of them did not.
Speaker 2: Some of them came in with like, you know, like Speedball,
Speaker 2: and others came in with like Major Maine your promo,
Speaker 2: and I think by this time, like a lot of
Speaker 2: comic bands of the era. My my sense was like
Speaker 2: more new guys, Like who are these new guys? I know,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but turned out to be one of
Speaker 2: the most influential and you know, truly surprising issues of
Speaker 2: all time. Let's do a quick off the dome recap
Speaker 2: of Thunderbolts number one. So I love the six one
Speaker 2: six is in tatters. The Avengers are off the board,
Speaker 2: They're fantastic four.
Speaker 3: They are dead.
Speaker 1: They are dead.
Speaker 2: They're Fantastic Four Dead Air quotes. You know, the mansion
Speaker 2: is in fucking ruins, Fantastic four going on.
Speaker 1: Bad stuff going on the you know, the X.
Speaker 2: Men are there, but they've got their own problems going on,
Speaker 2: and they've never been like the people to uh, you know,
Speaker 2: take on the mantle.
Speaker 1: And New York itself is like a wreckage.
Speaker 3: It's going back to the little wreckage.
Speaker 1: It's going very very badly.
Speaker 2: The Statue of Statue of Liberties fucked up, like the
Speaker 2: entire cities like in fucking ruins. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: various villain groups start going well, Avengers not here, Fantastic
Speaker 2: Before not here.
Speaker 1: Guess what We're gonna.
Speaker 2: Go crazy like the rat Pack. The rat Pack begin
Speaker 2: looting New York City. The rat Pack are like if
Speaker 2: Seal Team six decided, you know, fuck this, let's do
Speaker 2: bank heists probably, you know. And so they're out there
Speaker 2: just you know, robbing and stealing and going into vaults
Speaker 2: and just taking stuff hand over fist.
Speaker 1: Who can stop them?
Speaker 2: Nobody because the Tiroes are gone and the cops are overmatched.
Speaker 1: But then.
Speaker 2: A group of colorful heroes shows up and they are
Speaker 2: and they strike like light, and they call themselves, the Thunderbolts,
Speaker 2: and they deal with the rat Pack in a very crew.
Speaker 3: As well, and the Record Crew and.
Speaker 1: They deal with a bunch of these and resurgery.
Speaker 3: You see them helping to fix the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 3: So they gotta be good guys.
Speaker 1: They got they don't have a lot of money there.
Speaker 2: They're headquarters is like above a pizzeria. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then also I like the way that one of
Speaker 3: my favorite things is like then like Black Widow, the
Speaker 3: New Warriors, Spider Man, they're all like, yeah, the Thunderbolts
Speaker 3: they're doing They just like putting like a tiny bit
Speaker 3: of effort here, guys, Like I know things are bad,
Speaker 3: but you guys are still around, Like Spider Man, you
Speaker 3: always New York's number one hero, Like why are you
Speaker 3: just giving these guys your thumbs up? Yes, So it
Speaker 3: was a very interesting situation because they were, as you said,
Speaker 3: all new heroes with when you look back on it,
Speaker 3: like very bad costume design. So really I think if
Speaker 3: there was I mean.
Speaker 2: Very ninety very nineties costume design, but they don't feel
Speaker 2: they don't have that feeling like oh that's gonna hit
Speaker 2: you know, Like sometimes you see like a new costume design,
Speaker 2: and you think, like, wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 3: So it probably should have hinted to us as readers
Speaker 3: that maybe they weren't gonna be heroes for the longest time.
Speaker 3: But all the promo, which you'll get into more leading
Speaker 3: up to it, like didn't let us see them.
Speaker 1: It was all it was all in shadows.
Speaker 3: So this was the first one, the Thunderbolts, and it
Speaker 3: looks like we got a new team. Are you interested
Speaker 3: in them as a reader? I don't know. Maybe maybe
Speaker 3: not until the final.
Speaker 1: Page, final pitch.
Speaker 2: Now it's all the setup is amazing, Like here's Spider
Speaker 2: Man after the Thunderbolts take out the recond Crew. Quote,
Speaker 2: Believe me, the Wrecking Crew are no pushovers, and I've
Speaker 2: got reason to know after the way the Thunderbolts handle them,
Speaker 2: they're okay in my book, same to your point. The
Speaker 2: New Warriors, including Speedball, were.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, Thunderbolts are so great.
Speaker 2: And then we go to the Thunderbolts. They're in there
Speaker 2: Ramshackle headquarters above the Pizzer reel. Watching all of this
Speaker 2: on TV, watching Spider Man and the New Warriors sing
Speaker 2: their praises, watching you know, Natasha, the Black Widows say.
Speaker 1: I think it's great that they're here.
Speaker 2: And their leader, the Thunderbolts leader Citizen five, walks in.
Speaker 2: He takes off his Citizen five helmet and we see
Speaker 2: that his head is like singed. He looks like like
Speaker 2: Darth Vader without his mask.
Speaker 1: It's all like scarred, and he has no hair, and
Speaker 1: he's like a mess.
Speaker 2: Some of the Thunderbolts are surprised by this. Not at
Speaker 2: pretty sight, is it, he says about his face to
Speaker 2: his team. You would prefer it remain hidden behind a
Speaker 2: mask very well then, but not the mask millions have
Speaker 2: come to trust today instead, where a rather older mask, a.
Speaker 4: Mask with dark arrows associations, the mask of helmet ogociations
Speaker 4: thirteen Barentzemo and the leader of the Masters of Evil. Yes,
Speaker 4: and then he reveals the true identities of his team
Speaker 4: to be the Fixer, the Beatle, Screaming Mimi, Goliath, and Moonstone.
Speaker 3: Yes, so it's Meteorite, is Moonstone screaming Meme? Songbird is
Speaker 3: really screaming Mime. And that's the most important character of
Speaker 3: any of these, because that's the most likely who's probably
Speaker 3: going to show up in the MCU soon. Yeah, Mac
Speaker 3: six was Beatle Atlas was Goliath, Techno was Fixer, and yeah,
Speaker 3: Baron Zimo. It was a huge shocking twist, and that
Speaker 3: a successful launch because it actually the original Thunderbolts, the
Speaker 3: Busiac and Bagley version. It ram for like seventy six issues,
Speaker 3: which is basically unheard of nowadays.
Speaker 1: It quite unheard of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this would go, this would go thirty and then
Speaker 2: they'd be done or twenty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was seventy six issues. And then we
Speaker 3: get to the different iterations of the Thunderbolts, none of
Speaker 3: which have kind of ever been that successful or take
Speaker 3: a while for them to get back into their to
Speaker 3: their way. So we have the John R. Coody, Francisco
Speaker 3: ruse velasco which I actually think is an underrated concept,
Speaker 3: which was after Thunderbolts seventy six they took over, which
Speaker 3: was essentially and Jason, I don't know if you remember
Speaker 3: these covers, I'm sure you do. They made each of
Speaker 3: the covers look like men's magazines like Maxim, really weird,
Speaker 3: silly but good, beautiful art, and essentially the interior of
Speaker 3: the books was very different. It was basically a slice
Speaker 3: of life story like what would it be like to
Speaker 3: be a street level bad guy in a world where
Speaker 3: superheros had ruined your life and honestly quite ahead of
Speaker 3: its time concept. And this team was Armadillo, Daniel Axiom
Speaker 3: and the man Killer, and it was like not well received.
Speaker 3: I think it was a little bit too different, a
Speaker 3: little bit too weird, a little bit too cartoony, and
Speaker 3: then it only ran for six issues. Then they rebooted
Speaker 3: Thunderbolts to the New Thunderbolts Issue one, which was would
Speaker 3: run for eighteen issues, and that had that This is
Speaker 3: interesting to see the casting because you really start to
Speaker 3: realize that what they're taking from now is either the
Speaker 3: first concept of the Thunderbolts or teams that were built
Speaker 3: in later. Because there was an eighteen issue run after
Speaker 3: New Thunderbolts, which was Blizzard Atlas, Songbird back again, Max
Speaker 3: Mac four this time, and that was like RAM for
Speaker 3: eighteen issues, so did a little bit better. But then
Speaker 3: when they came back with Thunderbolts and they were like,
Speaker 3: it's Thunderbolts Issue one hundred.
Speaker 1: We made it, guys like.
Speaker 3: Good for us, which they always do when they basically
Speaker 3: just ren the schemes. Then they at the time obviously
Speaker 3: now disgraced writer, but at the time huge writer Warren Ellis,
Speaker 3: and he basically introduced what started to look a little
Speaker 3: bit more like the Thunderbolts that we would know going
Speaker 3: on in the comics, which was Bullseye, Songbird, Moonstone, Radioactive Man, Venom, Swordsman,
Speaker 3: and Pennance. But the trick was that those characters were
Speaker 3: also hiding, so Matt Gargan was actually Venom, chen Lu
Speaker 3: was Radioactive Man, and interestingly that was where Norman Osborne
Speaker 3: first got involved. During the Dark Reign event, we got
Speaker 3: the next Thunderbolts, which was like a two issue arc,
Speaker 3: but importantly did introduce Yelena Belova as one of the Thunderbolts.
Speaker 3: Also basically she was taking on the Black Widow Mantle.
Speaker 3: Then we had Erico Gradier's a Man and we had
Speaker 3: a version of God. So that's the first time we're
Speaker 3: hitting two of the MCU Thunderbolts. But it was really
Speaker 3: Dark Avengers that took Thunderbolts back into the mainstream, back
Speaker 3: into the conversation in a way that they hadn't been
Speaker 3: for a long time, which was you had Century, who
Speaker 3: as we know, will be in the MCU Thunderbolts as Bob.
Speaker 3: You also had Aries and then you had Novar as
Speaker 3: Captain Marvel, but the disguised super villain's portion was still there,
Speaker 3: so you had Moonstone who was pretending to be Miss Marvel,
Speaker 3: Matt Gargan, he was Venom actually portraying Spider Man, so
Speaker 3: it was a double betrayal there. And then you had
Speaker 3: Bullseye portraying Hawkai and finally one of my favorite characters
Speaker 3: all time, Wolverine Sundacon playing Wolverine and it was a
Speaker 3: team put together by Norman Osborne who took on the
Speaker 3: identity of the Iron Patriot. Since then, we've had other
Speaker 3: versions of The Thunderbolts, which is where the idea of
Speaker 3: Bucky being and the Thunderbolts came in, and to tie
Speaker 3: in with the movie, there is currently the new Thunderbolt
Speaker 3: which features Bucky Barnes. Black Widow has X twenty three,
Speaker 3: It has a carnage, It has the Hulk, but a
Speaker 3: younger Hulk. It has it has no more, it has
Speaker 3: Clear and Wolverine and it looks very fun. Sam Humphrey's
Speaker 3: Tunney my art. So they're trying to tie them back together,
Speaker 3: but that's kind of a comic book who's who of
Speaker 3: who was in this team, and as you'll see, it's
Speaker 3: still the MCU is taking I think a lot of
Speaker 3: Liberty's and just building like a team based on this
Speaker 3: and what they want to do with it. So I
Speaker 3: guess we should kind of just talk about who is
Speaker 3: in the MCU Thunderbolts quickly. Sure remind everyone we'll.
Speaker 1: Be right back after a quick break, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So let's do a quick run through of the bios
Speaker 2: of the Thunderbolt's number one roster. Okay, so here's the
Speaker 2: roster for the ThunderWolves and Thunderbolts.
Speaker 1: Number one.
Speaker 2: You have Baron Zimo, who is pretending to be the
Speaker 2: leader of the team. Citizen five tell us about comics
Speaker 2: Baron Zimo, the thirteenth Baron Zemo.
Speaker 3: Well, we have often talked about Baron Zimo because it
Speaker 3: was quite controversial how beloved he became in the MCU,
Speaker 3: seeing as in the comics he was any you know,
Speaker 3: but he was inspired, like so many villains, after the
Speaker 3: death of his father and then the ret of Captain America.
Speaker 3: Those two things kind of inspired him to become a
Speaker 3: true villain. He first appeared under a different name as
Speaker 3: Phoenix in the Captain America issue one, hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: eight in nineteen seventy three, and he was a legitimately
Speaker 3: fantastic Captain America antagonist. He's one of the longest running
Speaker 3: ones that we still know he also, if you want
Speaker 3: to know about his messed up face and why it
Speaker 3: was like that, he has one of the most in
Speaker 3: hindsight hilarious but also horrifying origins, which is when he
Speaker 3: was fighting with Captain America after he captured him, he
Speaker 3: fell into a vat of what his father invented, a
Speaker 3: chemical named adhesive X, which was essentially like a super
Speaker 3: glue that his dad made super glue. He spilt it
Speaker 3: on his face and permanently attached his hood to his face,
Speaker 3: which I also just think is like so so funny
Speaker 3: and yet obviously alas his head was stuck in that
Speaker 3: Master for.
Speaker 1: A long time.
Speaker 3: That has changed and over the years, and he has
Speaker 3: been allied with Armond Zola, which is more kind of
Speaker 3: how we know him in the comics. Yeah, And I
Speaker 3: would say, like the Thunderbolt aspect of his career is
Speaker 3: really big, because that was this kind of new incarnation
Speaker 3: of the Masters of Evil that he had always throughout
Speaker 3: his career wanted to do. And yeah, he's he's just
Speaker 3: had a rough time of it. You know, he's a
Speaker 3: bad guy. He's he's he's gone up against a lot
Speaker 3: of people. He has also done some wild stuff, like
Speaker 3: he leaked the Thunderbolt's true identities and forced them to
Speaker 3: flee with him.
Speaker 1: Into deep space, like he did not.
Speaker 2: One of the fun twists of the Thunderbolt series that
Speaker 2: original seventies six run is and I'll talk about more
Speaker 2: this worthy of us.
Speaker 1: The Thunderbolts started.
Speaker 2: To kind of like being good guys. They start to
Speaker 2: like it, and the funnest thing, it's part of the
Speaker 2: fun of the series.
Speaker 1: They're like, wait a second, this is good. And Zemo
Speaker 1: did not like that. He's not a fan of that.
Speaker 2: So he leaked their identities in order to keep his
Speaker 2: control over there, which is such a dick move.
Speaker 3: It's such a dick move. And also I have to
Speaker 3: say something that's very interesting is like Zmo is involved
Speaker 3: in a lot of the Thunderbolts comic kind of adventures.
Speaker 3: He attempted to take over the world again in a
Speaker 3: short that I didn't mention Avengers versus Thunderbolts. He also
Speaker 3: was involved in creating the new Thunderbolts kind of trying
Speaker 3: to manipulate from behind the scenes, and I'm interested to
Speaker 3: see the MCU's answer for why he is not in
Speaker 3: this version of the Thunderbolts, because he is one of
Speaker 3: the most beloved MCU villains. The version of Baronzemo that
Speaker 3: we've got out of Falcon and the Winter Soldier that
Speaker 3: was one of people's favorite parts. He has been reimagined
Speaker 3: there without the Nazi origins in the comics, he has
Speaker 3: also kind of grown out of those and he has
Speaker 3: akin to the MCU. He has sometimes allied with heroes,
Speaker 3: whether it's Captain America or Iron Man, but he usually
Speaker 3: has a scheme in his back pocket. So I just
Speaker 3: think it's very wild that he is not in the Roster.
Speaker 3: But who knows, maybe that's going to be a surprise,
Speaker 3: or maybe, as some of us suspect, this will lead
Speaker 3: to more of a Dark Avengers, hence the old asterisk
Speaker 3: at the end of the name.
Speaker 2: Okay, the rest of the Roster Techno is actually Fixer, yes,
Speaker 2: who is like a technological kind of engineering type, genius
Speaker 2: level creator of weaponry. You have the Beatle, who's the
Speaker 2: Beatle the Beatle.
Speaker 3: We really get deep here, They were having a lot
Speaker 3: of fun with this one, because the thing is one
Speaker 3: of the best things is you can when you're doing
Speaker 3: a reimagining like this, they're obviously like, hey, please don't
Speaker 3: ruin any of the characters that we really love. So
Speaker 3: the beetle mantle has been used by multiple individuals, though
Speaker 3: it is he's best known as Abner Jenkins. That was
Speaker 3: also the version that is in The Thunderbolt, and he
Speaker 3: essentially has like an amtman costume that he created because
Speaker 3: he's he's another he's a master mechanic. So I think
Speaker 3: it's kind of interesting that in putting this team together
Speaker 3: they went for people who actually had good technical skills
Speaker 3: to create supersuits to put that kind of thing in
Speaker 3: the place. And also I think it's funny because it
Speaker 3: makes sense as Mac six looked kind of like a
Speaker 3: robot that was people's thought, but it was actually the
Speaker 3: beers a guy.
Speaker 2: It was just a guy, isn't it always just the
Speaker 2: guy next to the songbird is actually screaming mem man.
Speaker 3: I love this so much because this is one of
Speaker 3: the coolest kind of This is one of the ones
Speaker 3: that I think has has run the longest. Screaming mem
Speaker 3: a nice nod to a classic noir movie from nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty eight. One of my faves. This is a very
Speaker 3: interesting character because she first appeared in Like the This
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine Marvel two and one by Mark Grunenworld
Speaker 3: who we know they take so much from from the MCU,
Speaker 3: Ralph Matchio and John Byrne. She was a super villain,
Speaker 3: supervillain supervillain, but when she came into the Thunderbolts that
Speaker 3: started to change. She's a runaway. She's kind of got
Speaker 3: Like I would say, if you like DC and you
Speaker 3: know Black Canary, there's a lot of similarity in those powers.
Speaker 3: She has sonic screams, she can create solid sound constructs,
Speaker 3: and she would essentially later become a part of Shield
Speaker 3: as Songbirds. She was in the Civil War event, and
Speaker 3: she has kind of died and come back and died
Speaker 3: and come back. She's had some scary stuff where men
Speaker 3: have become obsessed with her and kind of like fixed
Speaker 3: her up after near death so that she can be
Speaker 3: there singing slave. But she is a very interesting character
Speaker 3: who played a key part in Secret Invasion and interestingly
Speaker 3: during the Dark Reign event, which, as we mentioned, was
Speaker 3: one of the big Thunderbolts kind of returns. She also
Speaker 3: kind of created her own resistance to Norman Osborne after
Speaker 3: he tried to get Thunderbolts to get So I'm very
Speaker 3: interested in seeing where this goes a lot of casting
Speaker 3: every time it comes up, people like, is this finally
Speaker 3: going to be Songbird?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Because she's a really interesting, complex female character and it
Speaker 3: would be very cool to see her powers put to
Speaker 3: screen with like a massive, massive budget, because we have
Speaker 3: seen in the Marvel Animated Universe there have been versions
Speaker 3: of her, the Melissa Gold version where we kind of
Speaker 3: see her as an antagonist first in Avengers Assemble, but
Speaker 3: we have yet to see her be brought to life
Speaker 3: on the big screen, and I think that is the
Speaker 3: bit out of the Thunderbolts. Aside from Baronsimo, she's your
Speaker 3: biggest name character who is probably going to be in
Speaker 3: the MCU relatively soon.
Speaker 2: Next up Goliath, Oh who is Atlas. Goliath is a
Speaker 2: longtime Zemo family ally, having worked as a mercenary for
Speaker 2: Citizen five Baron Helmet Zmo the thirteenth Baron Zuma's dad
Speaker 2: Heinrich Zimo in South Africa, So a long time ally
Speaker 2: of the Zmo family, and then finally Moonstone, the doctor
Speaker 2: of Doctor Carla, who is my great character wonderful. I
Speaker 2: love Moonstone, like legitimately thinks she's such a fun no.
Speaker 3: She is.
Speaker 1: It's such such a fun character she has.
Speaker 3: Like she began as kind of like an evil doctor
Speaker 3: who basically just manipulated her patients and tested their kind
Speaker 3: of fear and their paranoia. But in classic Marvel fashion,
Speaker 3: in classic comic book fashion, that was not enough. So
Speaker 3: an Incredible Hulk two hundred and twenty eight, she had
Speaker 3: to season alien Artifact and that would give her cosmic
Speaker 3: powers and create the supervillain known as Moonstone. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: love this character. She's legitimately fantastic. She's part of the
Speaker 3: great cosmic kind of tradition of Marvel. She was one
Speaker 3: of the thunderbolts who really did start to enjoy being good.
Speaker 3: But she is also someone who she struggles to keep
Speaker 3: her villainous side under wraps, and oftentimes she and Screaming
Speaker 3: Mimia kind of teamed up to keep an eye on
Speaker 3: each other, though though Moonstone struggles a little bit more
Speaker 3: to Moonstone likes to be girl.
Speaker 1: Moonstone is one of those thunderbolts.
Speaker 2: She likes the accolades that come with being a good guy,
Speaker 2: not necessarily being a good guy, for she.
Speaker 3: Enjoys being celebrated. Who amongst us does not. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I love her. She's great.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the MCU team.
Speaker 2: Here's what we know Winter Soldierspassion Sin probably the leader
Speaker 2: or co leader of the team, along with.
Speaker 1: Yelena the Queen we love you. Yeah. Next we have
Speaker 1: of He of the Wandering Eye, David Harder.
Speaker 2: Of the team Yeah, the strongest question mark, strongest member
Speaker 2: of the team. Then we have Wyatt Russell, he of
Speaker 2: the off brand super Soldier, sal Us Agent, the disgraced
Speaker 2: former Captain America. We have Ghost, last seen in Man.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad she's back. A great representation.
Speaker 2: So glad she's back in a really cool power set
Speaker 2: that you know. I guess Vision has a similar thing,
Speaker 2: although you don't really see him use it in this way,
Speaker 2: kind of like a precursor to Katy.
Speaker 1: Kitty Pride when they whenever they bring her in.
Speaker 2: Yes, task Master, who we met in the Black Widow film,
Speaker 2: although there's some question now about how long task Master
Speaker 2: may be around.
Speaker 3: She's going to be in the movie or not. It's unclear.
Speaker 3: It was not necessarily a very popular representation of the character,
Speaker 3: and they reimagined it, so I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 3: they were trying to kind of open up a space
Speaker 3: to do a different version. Let's say, so.
Speaker 1: Your thoughts about this team.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: I like that they are acknowledging in the trailer, you know,
Speaker 2: like Elena basically acknowledges like we can't fly. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: have super strength, but it's not like the top class
Speaker 2: super strength in the MCU. We basically just punch and
Speaker 2: shoot people.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's a group of killers. Let's be real,
Speaker 3: most of these characters were created to murder people. As
Speaker 3: many of us recall, Bucky Bonds killed JFK. He was
Speaker 3: the JFK assassin, and yet now he is a He's
Speaker 3: a congressman, So that's interesting. But yeah, I think this
Speaker 3: is an interesting team. I think it's pulling from lesser
Speaker 3: known anti heroic villains from the MC I will also
Speaker 3: say there is kind of a precedent in the comics.
Speaker 3: Bucky Barnes did like an anti terrorist version of The Thunderbolts,
Speaker 3: which was like volume five when they relaunched it as
Speaker 3: Thunderbolts number one, and that had Contessa in it. She
Speaker 3: kind of became involved, but obviously she was really you know,
Speaker 3: had her own nefarious kind of viewpoints and ended up
Speaker 3: actually taking on the mantle of Citizen five to kind
Speaker 3: of take on the real old school Thunderbolts as a
Speaker 3: new supervillain team under kind of Doctor Doom. So I
Speaker 3: think there's some interesting potential crossover there. Basically, don't trust
Speaker 3: Contessa Valentina, you know, Fontaine, don't trust her. Don't trust
Speaker 3: Louis Julia, Louise Dreyfuss in this role. Obviously, we know
Speaker 3: that Lewis Pullman as Bob is going to be Century
Speaker 3: probably the main antagonist unclear currently antagonist slash wha.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it'll be It'll be really interesting to
Speaker 2: see how they deal with Bob, because Bob is the
Speaker 2: in the comics Century is like the most powerful technically hero, like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, your strength and question he he tears uh
Speaker 2: you know, aries literally in half.
Speaker 1: At one point in the in the Marvel Comics universe. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so but he doesn't.
Speaker 2: But his mind has been uh fractured, and he doesn't
Speaker 2: remember a lot of his history or that he's even
Speaker 2: this hero yeah, so.
Speaker 3: I would say this is an interesting team. It does
Speaker 3: include Winter Soldier. He has been in a Thunderbolts comic,
Speaker 3: Florence Pugh's Yelena as Black Widow. She has been in
Speaker 3: one David Hobbs Red Guardian, not immediately that I know,
Speaker 3: but he is a rather a kind of like a
Speaker 3: low key character US agent, very complicated character. But I
Speaker 3: love why at Russell. I hope that we get to
Speaker 3: see him get explored here a bit more. Ghost been
Speaker 3: on a Thunderbox team before. I'm very interested. As you
Speaker 3: mentioned about Olga as task Master, will she get the
Speaker 3: task mastering that she deserves? Will she finally get to
Speaker 3: be task Master? Now here's my big my And I
Speaker 3: know that they did this on purpose, just to target
Speaker 3: me specifically, but I love Geraldine Viswanathan. If you have
Speaker 3: seen Blockers, she's so funny. She's hilarious. And guess what
Speaker 3: her name is as the kind of like human psychick,
Speaker 3: it's mal So is she gonna be Songbird aka Screaming
Speaker 3: mab me Ak Melissa Bo She'd better be, But you
Speaker 3: know what she's really gonna be like just somebody who
Speaker 3: works for Valentina, because this is always how they get me,
Speaker 3: But there's a chance, and I think she would be
Speaker 3: utterly fantastic and I'd love to see her in that role. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we know original Thunderbots members, so that could be a
Speaker 3: very cool twist. But we're basically gonna have to wait
Speaker 3: until the Thunderbox movie is out to know exactly where
Speaker 3: this is gonna go. And from the trailers, from the
Speaker 3: way they're presenting it, it feels like they believe in
Speaker 3: this as a new team, So I hope it's gonna
Speaker 3: have that longevity. I hope this is gonna just like
Speaker 3: the original Thunderbolts kind of become this surprising be team
Speaker 3: to the Avengers that we know that the MCU is
Speaker 3: gonna need as they head into this kind of doomsday
Speaker 3: secret Wars space. But yeah, I'm I'm excited. It looks
Speaker 3: good man, but I don't wanna. I don't wanna Jinx.
Speaker 2: Next up are Omnimous. Welcome to the Omnibus where Laura
Speaker 2: and understand It come together.
Speaker 1: Today we're gonna talk about the Thunderbolts and.
Speaker 2: The state of Marvel and comics in general in the nineties.
Speaker 2: When Thunderbolts Number one appeared in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Let's consist time. What a time.
Speaker 2: Consider where the MCU is right now, right their great
Speaker 2: run of success seemingly behind them, at the mercy of
Speaker 2: a quickly changing marketplace, at the mercy of apparent audience apathy,
Speaker 2: and imagine that being much much worse. That was much worse.
Speaker 2: That was Marvel Comics in the nineties. It was all
Speaker 2: of that amped up to fifty. In fact, the entire
Speaker 2: comics industry, the entire collectibles industry, that's a larger conversation Bibbs,
Speaker 2: you know, cards, et cetera. Everything collectible was kind of
Speaker 2: heading into the toilet at this time, and Marvel Comics
Speaker 2: was was a victim of that. The entire industry looked
Speaker 2: like Cecovia at the end of Asia Oltron. It was
Speaker 2: because of various factors, including a speculation boom fed by
Speaker 2: these kind is chasing of various short term fads with.
Speaker 1: These collectible covers, foil covers.
Speaker 2: Fake collectible number one issues that were created just to
Speaker 2: juice this secondary collectible market. And it left readers feeling
Speaker 2: exploited and really burned out and like nothing mattered anymore.
Speaker 2: And it didn't help that the writing because of this
Speaker 2: massive infusion of content coming into the space was not
Speaker 2: of a standard that.
Speaker 1: Fans had come to enjoy. And adding to this, a
Speaker 1: lot of Marvels.
Speaker 2: Most buzzy creators had recently abandoned the company because of
Speaker 2: revenue sharing and started their own company, you know.
Speaker 1: Across his story called Image.
Speaker 2: Comic shops were being boarded up, you know, titles were
Speaker 2: being canceled, and Marvel itself, in nineteen ninety six had
Speaker 2: filed for bankruptcy protect its true very very very dark time.
Speaker 2: DC thought about the tires on buying Marvel, like they
Speaker 2: could have bought their oh cold long so cheap too,
Speaker 2: Like it was crazy. So onto this stage appear the
Speaker 2: Thunderbolts debuting in nineteen ninety seven in this huge period
Speaker 2: of transition, and the transition wasn't just in the industry,
Speaker 2: it was creatively as well. We talked about it a
Speaker 2: little in the recap of Thunderbolts number one. This is
Speaker 2: post Onslaught. So the Onslaught event was an event that
Speaker 2: tore away and killed in the real continuity, appeared to
Speaker 2: kill basically all of the mainstay heroes of the Marvel universe,
Speaker 2: the Avengers, the Fantastic four thor Iron Man. They were dead,
Speaker 2: they were gone, torn away to this separate continuity called
Speaker 2: Heroes Reborn, which was itself this like desperate attempt to
Speaker 2: use sales by.
Speaker 1: Contriving to bring back two.
Speaker 2: Of their fugitives to Image Comics, Jim Lee and Robleyfield,
Speaker 2: who had done so much to add to the company's
Speaker 2: success in the nineties, and basically being like, please do
Speaker 2: whatever you want with these characters in this separate continuity.
Speaker 3: And it was they paid the six so much money,
Speaker 3: like they were going bankrupt, but they paid these guys
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of dollars to come back from Image
Speaker 3: which had been founded just four years before and had
Speaker 3: basically decimated, you know, Marvel coming off eight million copy
Speaker 3: sell X Men one.
Speaker 1: Move and listen. The sales at least initially were.
Speaker 3: There, but like are they saving your company? Sales?
Speaker 2: No? No?
Speaker 1: And the content the stories were bad.
Speaker 3: Amber. If you think, what what's Haros Reborn? Well, remember
Speaker 3: if you've seen the Seen the Life Out Boob Captain
Speaker 3: America with the crazy chest, that's from Hairs Reports. I'll
Speaker 3: say you know what, don't look it up anyway.
Speaker 2: So there's this huge vacuum in the six one six
Speaker 2: continuity because all the heroes are gone, uh, and so
Speaker 2: what do we do?
Speaker 1: How about a new team? How about new heroes? How
Speaker 1: about the Thunderbolts? But where do they come from?
Speaker 2: They come from creators Kurt Busk, writer and long time
Speaker 2: veteran artist Mark Bagley. Basik had dusted off an idea
Speaker 2: that he had had previously, which is basically, you know,
Speaker 2: for an Avengers storyline, is basically, what if the Massive
Speaker 2: of Evil long time Avengers foils, who at one point
Speaker 2: had destroyed the Avengers mansion and you know, almost killed Jarvis, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: What if they disguised themselves as heroes? So with Avengers
Speaker 2: with heroes were born getting critically slammed, and the heroes
Speaker 2: themselves not available in the main continuity, he pitched this idea,
Speaker 2: what about the Masters of Evil going good? When Thunderbolts
Speaker 2: Number one landed, it seemed pretty straightforward for most of
Speaker 2: the comic. You know, it's like a fun new group
Speaker 2: of heroes into the breach, taking up the mantle, picking
Speaker 2: up where the Avengers of the Fantastic Four might have
Speaker 2: done their work.
Speaker 1: And for you know, twenty one.
Speaker 2: Pages, you're watching Citizen five Songbird Atlas Meteorite Makwan techno
Speaker 2: basically helps stabilize New York City and Marvel's continuity while
Speaker 2: the city burns around them. They introduced themselves to the city,
Speaker 2: everybody loves them, and then come back again the.
Speaker 3: Approval the pre heroes like going great and.
Speaker 2: Then comes the final page in that reveal, which we
Speaker 2: talked about earlier, and you know, it's hard to understate
Speaker 2: the influence like it was.
Speaker 1: It was huge.
Speaker 2: This was there was absolutely no inkling that this was coming.
Speaker 2: There were no leaks about it. Yes, there was a
Speaker 2: lot of promo about who was the Thunderbolts, who could
Speaker 2: they be? Who are these new heroes, But the idea
Speaker 2: that they beyond being new heroes that were being introduced,
Speaker 2: could be actually heroes and villains that you know, that
Speaker 2: was not being discussed. And this was early Internet. You know,
Speaker 2: I was not on whatever Internet boards for comics existed
Speaker 2: on the time, so it was all words of my mouth, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, but the word of mouth was really it
Speaker 2: was like this was one of those comics where, in
Speaker 2: a very dark time in the industry, you walk into
Speaker 2: your comic shop and the and the people working there
Speaker 2: are like Thunderworld number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly, like really talking about it, and it
Speaker 3: really it was a rare time that you could be surprised,
Speaker 3: you know, like you can actually it's not getting leaked,
Speaker 3: it's there's not a bleeding cool article about it. There's
Speaker 3: not some you know, preview toy that's connected to it.
Speaker 3: This truly people didn't know until they read that last
Speaker 3: page or their friends told them, you know, And it
Speaker 3: was really really interesting.
Speaker 2: And this is influenced you know, Marvel in particular in
Speaker 2: lots of ways, and I see echoes of it, you know,
Speaker 2: through various periods of the comics history, including like the
Speaker 2: the mystery surrounding who was a lady thor you know,
Speaker 2: who killed all these different things. The Dark Event, the
Speaker 2: intro of the Dark Avengers was very clearly and.
Speaker 3: It's basically Dunderbolts. And also, I mean the biggest arguably
Speaker 3: obviously we are comic book guys and we love that,
Speaker 3: but I mean the fact we're talking about this idea
Speaker 3: that Busiac had during a time, you know, a year
Speaker 3: before Marvel is going to be bought and merged with
Speaker 3: Toy Bears, and that changes the state of everything, like
Speaker 3: we're talking about it now, almost thirty years later saying, oh,
Speaker 3: they're making a Thunderbolts movie. So that's how influential. It
Speaker 3: goes even past the comics. It's now something that they're saying, hey,
Speaker 3: we kind of It's like you actually beautifully summed up, Jason.
Speaker 3: This is a time that is echoing when the Avengers
Speaker 3: were no longer the hottest thing, and now Marvel in
Speaker 3: the MCU and the Avengers are no longer the hottest thing,
Speaker 3: is saying hey, maybe this could work in the movies too.
Speaker 1: It was, It was an event.
Speaker 2: So for Marvel, Thunderbolt's Number one was a absolutely necessary
Speaker 2: shot of adrenaline at the time when the company was
Speaker 2: like on its s it's really honest back. It proved
Speaker 2: that Marvel still had some tricks up their sleeve. They
Speaker 2: could still create cool, buzzworthy moments that weren't just about
Speaker 2: rehashing you know it's foil covers and creating fake collectible
Speaker 2: number ones. They could really do it in universe, in
Speaker 2: story in a way that felt cool and replicable. And
Speaker 2: it's also a marker of a period where Marvel started
Speaker 2: to take more creative risks, starting with Thunderbolts and most
Speaker 2: notably continue with the Ultimate Universe. This is when men, yes,
Speaker 2: when they started bringing in all these cool creators and
Speaker 2: being like, just do something cool with these But in Universe,
Speaker 2: learning the lesson from onslaught and heroes reborn, and this
Speaker 2: laid the groundwork for a comeback that literally saw them
Speaker 2: conquer the pop cultural landscape to reach heights of success
Speaker 2: that will you know, to be fair, probably never be
Speaker 2: matched again. And and the Thunderbolts the series, even after
Speaker 2: the jaw dropping twist, continue to deliver really great comic
Speaker 2: book stories because, as we mentioned the recap, our heroes
Speaker 2: discover something that they kind of like being good guys,
Speaker 2: that some of them like this. They take on a
Speaker 2: new member named Jolt, who is this teenage hero who
Speaker 2: doesn't know their backstories, doesn't know that she's working with villains,
Speaker 2: and she sincerely, she sincerely wants to be a hero,
Speaker 2: and her sincerity and her optimism is infectious to the
Speaker 2: rest of her teammates, who begin to kind of gravitate
Speaker 2: towards her, much to barren Zmo's chagrin.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned, goes to desperate lengths to keep his
Speaker 1: grips on the team.
Speaker 2: Read the rest to find out how that goes and
Speaker 2: looking back, thunderbol Umber one stands as one of those
Speaker 2: rare mons in culture, in comics, in any kind of
Speaker 2: like creative enterprise, where everything kind of clicks, the creative clicks.
Speaker 2: The marketplace was ready for it, the fans were ready
Speaker 2: for it, and the industry needed a rebirth.
Speaker 1: Marvel needed to win.
Speaker 2: Fans were looking for something that was like, authentically great
Speaker 2: and reminded them of why they had fallen in love
Speaker 2: with Marvel Comics in the first place, not a marketing ploy,
Speaker 2: and everybody won thought Able Summer one.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 2: In the next few episodes of X ray Vision were
Speaker 2: continuing our deep dive in and Or season two, and
Speaker 2: on Friday, we're convening the Jedi Council for a Jedi
Speaker 2: Council Roundtable discuss all things Star Wars. That's it for
Speaker 2: this episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion, I'm rosday
Speaker 1: Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Kolefman.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 3: All produces are Common Laurent Dean, Jonathan and bai Wag.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 2: songs by Arn Kauffman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Speaker 3: Heidi our discord moderator,