May 1, 2025 • 42 mins
Whether you joined us for this months book club or not, Jason and Rosie are going to make sure you’re prepared going in to your screening of Thunderbolts* this weekend!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Today's episode contains spoilers for Thunderbolts number one from nineteen
ninety seven. It's a thirty year.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Old comic and if you listen to our book Club,
it's already been spoiled for you. But you're already If
you haven't, go listen to that and then come back
and listen to this.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hello, and it is Jason Gncepcion and our Brisday Night
and welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where
we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and
pop culture. Coming to you from I Art Podcast, where
we're bringing you three huge episodes a week every Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday plus Goose.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
In today's episode, it's all about those bad boys known
as the Thunderbolts. We're going to be talking about who's
who of the Thunderbolts, who's in the Thunderbolts, who's in
the MC version, and where were the comic book counterparts
first introduced in the wild world of the twisty team
known as the Thunderbolts. And then Jason has a banging
(01:12):
omnibus about the state of Marvel in nineteen ninety seven
and how the original Busiak and Bagley comic book was
received at the time, but.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
First year Locke, Okay, let's let's chop it up. Thunderbolts
number one. This was such a time capsule as wild.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I remember reading this. I remember not planning to read it,
but then the buzz, the buzz, the tolk of the tests, like, okay,
I'll read it. I had been you know, this was
the nineties, had introduced a lot of new characters, and
some of them I'll talk more about the nineties in
(01:51):
the omnibus. Some of them hit, some of them did not.
Some of them came in with like, you know, like Speedball,
and others came in with like Major Maine your promo,
and I think by this time, like a lot of
comic bands of the era. My my sense was like
more new guys, Like who are these new guys? I know,
I'm not sure, but turned out to be one of
(02:14):
the most influential and you know, truly surprising issues of
all time. Let's do a quick off the dome recap
of Thunderbolts number one. So I love the six one
six is in tatters. The Avengers are off the board,
They're fantastic four.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
They are dead.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
They are dead.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
They're Fantastic Four Dead Air quotes. You know, the mansion
is in fucking ruins, Fantastic four going on.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Bad stuff going on the you know, the X.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Men are there, but they've got their own problems going on,
and they've never been like the people to uh, you know,
take on the mantle.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
And New York itself is like a wreckage.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's going back to the little wreckage.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's going very very badly.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
The Statue of Statue of Liberties fucked up, like the
entire cities like in fucking ruins. Next thing, you know,
various villain groups start going well, Avengers not here, Fantastic
Before not here.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Guess what We're gonna.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Go crazy like the rat Pack. The rat Pack begin
looting New York City. The rat Pack are like if
Seal Team six decided, you know, fuck this, let's do
bank heists probably, you know. And so they're out there
(03:41):
just you know, robbing and stealing and going into vaults
and just taking stuff hand over fist.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Who can stop them?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Nobody because the Tiroes are gone and the cops are overmatched.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But then.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
A group of colorful heroes shows up and they are
and they strike like light, and they call themselves, the Thunderbolts,
and they deal with the rat Pack in a very crew.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
As well, and the Record Crew and.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They deal with a bunch of these and resurgery.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
You see them helping to fix the Statue of Liberty.
So they gotta be good guys.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They got they don't have a lot of money there.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They're headquarters is like above a pizzeria. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And then also I like the way that one of
my favorite things is like then like Black Widow, the
New Warriors, Spider Man, they're all like, yeah, the Thunderbolts
they're doing They just like putting like a tiny bit
of effort here, guys, Like I know things are bad,
but you guys are still around, Like Spider Man, you
always New York's number one hero, Like why are you
just giving these guys your thumbs up? Yes, So it
(04:46):
was a very interesting situation because they were, as you said,
all new heroes with when you look back on it,
like very bad costume design. So really I think if
there was I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Very ninety very nineties costume design, but they don't feel
they don't have that feeling like oh that's gonna hit
you know, Like sometimes you see like a new costume design,
and you think, like, wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So it probably should have hinted to us as readers
that maybe they weren't gonna be heroes for the longest time.
But all the promo, which you'll get into more leading
up to it, like didn't let us see them.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It was all it was all in shadows.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So this was the first one, the Thunderbolts, and it
looks like we got a new team. Are you interested
in them as a reader? I don't know. Maybe maybe
not until the final.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Page, final pitch.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Now it's all the setup is amazing, Like here's Spider
Man after the Thunderbolts take out the recond Crew. Quote,
Believe me, the Wrecking Crew are no pushovers, and I've
got reason to know after the way the Thunderbolts handle them,
they're okay in my book, same to your point. The
New Warriors, including Speedball, were.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Like, yeah, Thunderbolts are so great.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And then we go to the Thunderbolts. They're in there
Ramshackle headquarters above the Pizzer reel. Watching all of this
on TV, watching Spider Man and the New Warriors sing
their praises, watching you know, Natasha, the Black Widows say.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think it's great that they're here.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And their leader, the Thunderbolts leader Citizen five, walks in.
He takes off his Citizen five helmet and we see
that his head is like singed. He looks like like
Darth Vader without his mask.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
It's all like scarred, and he has no hair, and
he's like a mess.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Some of the Thunderbolts are surprised by this. Not at
pretty sight, is it, he says about his face to
his team. You would prefer it remain hidden behind a
mask very well then, but not the mask millions have
come to trust today instead, where a rather older mask, a.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Mask with dark arrows associations, the mask of helmet ogociations
thirteen Barentzemo and the leader of the Masters of Evil. Yes,
and then he reveals the true identities of his team
to be the Fixer, the Beatle, Screaming Mimi, Goliath, and Moonstone.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, so it's Meteorite, is Moonstone screaming Meme? Songbird is
really screaming Mime. And that's the most important character of
any of these, because that's the most likely who's probably
going to show up in the MCU soon. Yeah, Mac
six was Beatle Atlas was Goliath, Techno was Fixer, and yeah,
Baron Zimo. It was a huge shocking twist, and that
(07:39):
a successful launch because it actually the original Thunderbolts, the
Busiac and Bagley version. It ram for like seventy six issues,
which is basically unheard of nowadays.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It quite unheard of.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, this would go, this would go thirty and then
they'd be done or twenty five.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, so it was seventy six issues. And then we
get to the different iterations of the Thunderbolts, none of
which have kind of ever been that successful or take
a while for them to get back into their to
their way. So we have the John R. Coody, Francisco
ruse velasco which I actually think is an underrated concept,
(08:19):
which was after Thunderbolts seventy six they took over, which
was essentially and Jason, I don't know if you remember
these covers, I'm sure you do. They made each of
the covers look like men's magazines like Maxim, really weird,
silly but good, beautiful art, and essentially the interior of
(08:39):
the books was very different. It was basically a slice
of life story like what would it be like to
be a street level bad guy in a world where
superheros had ruined your life and honestly quite ahead of
its time concept. And this team was Armadillo, Daniel Axiom
and the man Killer, and it was like not well received.
(09:03):
I think it was a little bit too different, a
little bit too weird, a little bit too cartoony, and
then it only ran for six issues. Then they rebooted
Thunderbolts to the New Thunderbolts Issue one, which was would
run for eighteen issues, and that had that This is
interesting to see the casting because you really start to
(09:24):
realize that what they're taking from now is either the
first concept of the Thunderbolts or teams that were built
in later. Because there was an eighteen issue run after
New Thunderbolts, which was Blizzard Atlas, Songbird back again, Max
Mac four this time, and that was like RAM for
(09:45):
eighteen issues, so did a little bit better. But then
when they came back with Thunderbolts and they were like,
it's Thunderbolts Issue one hundred.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We made it, guys like.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Good for us, which they always do when they basically
just ren the schemes. Then they at the time obviously
now disgraced writer, but at the time huge writer Warren Ellis,
and he basically introduced what started to look a little
bit more like the Thunderbolts that we would know going
(10:17):
on in the comics, which was Bullseye, Songbird, Moonstone, Radioactive Man, Venom, Swordsman,
and Pennance. But the trick was that those characters were
also hiding, so Matt Gargan was actually Venom, chen Lu
was Radioactive Man, and interestingly that was where Norman Osborne
(10:39):
first got involved. During the Dark Reign event, we got
the next Thunderbolts, which was like a two issue arc,
but importantly did introduce Yelena Belova as one of the Thunderbolts.
Also basically she was taking on the Black Widow Mantle.
Then we had Erico Gradier's a Man and we had
a version of God. So that's the first time we're
(11:01):
hitting two of the MCU Thunderbolts. But it was really
Dark Avengers that took Thunderbolts back into the mainstream, back
into the conversation in a way that they hadn't been
for a long time, which was you had Century, who
as we know, will be in the MCU Thunderbolts as Bob.
(11:23):
You also had Aries and then you had Novar as
Captain Marvel, but the disguised super villain's portion was still there,
so you had Moonstone who was pretending to be Miss Marvel,
Matt Gargan, he was Venom actually portraying Spider Man, so
it was a double betrayal there. And then you had
(11:46):
Bullseye portraying Hawkai and finally one of my favorite characters
all time, Wolverine Sundacon playing Wolverine and it was a
team put together by Norman Osborne who took on the
identity of the Iron Patriot. Since then, we've had other
versions of The Thunderbolts, which is where the idea of
(12:06):
Bucky being and the Thunderbolts came in, and to tie
in with the movie, there is currently the new Thunderbolt
which features Bucky Barnes. Black Widow has X twenty three,
It has a carnage, It has the Hulk, but a
younger Hulk. It has it has no more, it has
(12:27):
Clear and Wolverine and it looks very fun. Sam Humphrey's
Tunney my art. So they're trying to tie them back together,
but that's kind of a comic book who's who of
who was in this team, and as you'll see, it's
still the MCU is taking I think a lot of
Liberty's and just building like a team based on this
(12:50):
and what they want to do with it. So I
guess we should kind of just talk about who is
in the MCU Thunderbolts quickly. Sure remind everyone we'll.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Be right back after a quick break, and we're back.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So let's do a quick run through of the bios
of the Thunderbolt's number one roster. Okay, so here's the
roster for the ThunderWolves and Thunderbolts.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Number one.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You have Baron Zimo, who is pretending to be the
leader of the team. Citizen five tell us about comics
Baron Zimo, the thirteenth Baron Zemo.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, we have often talked about Baron Zimo because it
was quite controversial how beloved he became in the MCU,
seeing as in the comics he was any you know,
but he was inspired, like so many villains, after the
death of his father and then the ret of Captain America.
(14:01):
Those two things kind of inspired him to become a
true villain. He first appeared under a different name as
Phoenix in the Captain America issue one, hundred and sixty
eight in nineteen seventy three, and he was a legitimately
fantastic Captain America antagonist. He's one of the longest running
(14:25):
ones that we still know he also, if you want
to know about his messed up face and why it
was like that, he has one of the most in
hindsight hilarious but also horrifying origins, which is when he
was fighting with Captain America after he captured him, he
fell into a vat of what his father invented, a
(14:47):
chemical named adhesive X, which was essentially like a super
glue that his dad made super glue. He spilt it
on his face and permanently attached his hood to his face,
which I also just think is like so so funny
and yet obviously alas his head was stuck in that
(15:09):
Master for.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
A long time.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
That has changed and over the years, and he has
been allied with Armond Zola, which is more kind of
how we know him in the comics. Yeah, And I
would say, like the Thunderbolt aspect of his career is
really big, because that was this kind of new incarnation
of the Masters of Evil that he had always throughout
(15:31):
his career wanted to do. And yeah, he's he's just
had a rough time of it. You know, he's a
bad guy. He's he's he's gone up against a lot
of people. He has also done some wild stuff, like
he leaked the Thunderbolt's true identities and forced them to
flee with him.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Into deep space, like he did not.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
One of the fun twists of the Thunderbolt series that
original seventies six run is and I'll talk about more
this worthy of us.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
The Thunderbolts started.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
To kind of like being good guys. They start to
like it, and the funnest thing, it's part of the
fun of the series.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
They're like, wait a second, this is good. And Zemo
did not like that. He's not a fan of that.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So he leaked their identities in order to keep his
control over there, which is such a dick move.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
It's such a dick move. And also I have to
say something that's very interesting is like Zmo is involved
in a lot of the Thunderbolts comic kind of adventures.
He attempted to take over the world again in a
short that I didn't mention Avengers versus Thunderbolts. He also
was involved in creating the new Thunderbolts kind of trying
(16:41):
to manipulate from behind the scenes, and I'm interested to
see the MCU's answer for why he is not in
this version of the Thunderbolts, because he is one of
the most beloved MCU villains. The version of Baronzemo that
(17:02):
we've got out of Falcon and the Winter Soldier that
was one of people's favorite parts. He has been reimagined
there without the Nazi origins in the comics, he has
also kind of grown out of those and he has
akin to the MCU. He has sometimes allied with heroes,
whether it's Captain America or Iron Man, but he usually
(17:23):
has a scheme in his back pocket. So I just
think it's very wild that he is not in the Roster.
But who knows, maybe that's going to be a surprise,
or maybe, as some of us suspect, this will lead
to more of a Dark Avengers, hence the old asterisk
at the end of the name.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Okay, the rest of the Roster Techno is actually Fixer, yes,
who is like a technological kind of engineering type, genius
level creator of weaponry. You have the Beatle, who's the
Beatle the Beatle.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
We really get deep here, They were having a lot
of fun with this one, because the thing is one
of the best things is you can when you're doing
a reimagining like this, they're obviously like, hey, please don't
ruin any of the characters that we really love. So
the beetle mantle has been used by multiple individuals, though
(18:20):
it is he's best known as Abner Jenkins. That was
also the version that is in The Thunderbolt, and he
essentially has like an amtman costume that he created because
he's he's another he's a master mechanic. So I think
it's kind of interesting that in putting this team together
they went for people who actually had good technical skills
(18:46):
to create supersuits to put that kind of thing in
the place. And also I think it's funny because it
makes sense as Mac six looked kind of like a
robot that was people's thought, but it was actually the
beers a guy.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
It was just a guy, isn't it always just the
guy next to the songbird is actually screaming mem man.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I love this so much because this is one of
the coolest kind of This is one of the ones
that I think has has run the longest. Screaming mem
a nice nod to a classic noir movie from nineteen
fifty eight. One of my faves. This is a very
interesting character because she first appeared in Like the This
(19:35):
nineteen seventy nine Marvel two and one by Mark Grunenworld
who we know they take so much from from the MCU,
Ralph Matchio and John Byrne. She was a super villain,
supervillain supervillain, but when she came into the Thunderbolts that
started to change. She's a runaway. She's kind of got
Like I would say, if you like DC and you
(19:58):
know Black Canary, there's a lot of similarity in those powers.
She has sonic screams, she can create solid sound constructs,
and she would essentially later become a part of Shield
as Songbirds. She was in the Civil War event, and
(20:21):
she has kind of died and come back and died
and come back. She's had some scary stuff where men
have become obsessed with her and kind of like fixed
her up after near death so that she can be
there singing slave. But she is a very interesting character
who played a key part in Secret Invasion and interestingly
(20:44):
during the Dark Reign event, which, as we mentioned, was
one of the big Thunderbolts kind of returns. She also
kind of created her own resistance to Norman Osborne after
he tried to get Thunderbolts to get So I'm very
interested in seeing where this goes a lot of casting
(21:05):
every time it comes up, people like, is this finally
going to be Songbird?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Because she's a really interesting, complex female character and it
would be very cool to see her powers put to
screen with like a massive, massive budget, because we have
seen in the Marvel Animated Universe there have been versions
of her, the Melissa Gold version where we kind of
(21:32):
see her as an antagonist first in Avengers Assemble, but
we have yet to see her be brought to life
on the big screen, and I think that is the
bit out of the Thunderbolts. Aside from Baronsimo, she's your
biggest name character who is probably going to be in
the MCU relatively soon.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Next up Goliath, Oh who is Atlas. Goliath is a
longtime Zemo family ally, having worked as a mercenary for
Citizen five Baron Helmet Zmo the thirteenth Baron Zuma's dad
Heinrich Zimo in South Africa, So a long time ally
(22:11):
of the Zmo family, and then finally Moonstone, the doctor
of Doctor Carla, who is my great character wonderful. I
love Moonstone, like legitimately thinks she's such a fun no.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
She is.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
It's such such a fun character she has.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Like she began as kind of like an evil doctor
who basically just manipulated her patients and tested their kind
of fear and their paranoia. But in classic Marvel fashion,
in classic comic book fashion, that was not enough. So
an Incredible Hulk two hundred and twenty eight, she had
(22:51):
to season alien Artifact and that would give her cosmic
powers and create the supervillain known as Moonstone. Yeah, I
love this character. She's legitimately fantastic. She's part of the
great cosmic kind of tradition of Marvel. She was one
of the thunderbolts who really did start to enjoy being good.
(23:14):
But she is also someone who she struggles to keep
her villainous side under wraps, and oftentimes she and Screaming
Mimia kind of teamed up to keep an eye on
each other, though though Moonstone struggles a little bit more
to Moonstone likes to be girl.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Moonstone is one of those thunderbolts.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
She likes the accolades that come with being a good guy,
not necessarily being a good guy, for she.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Enjoys being celebrated. Who amongst us does not. But yeah,
I love her. She's great.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So let's talk about the MCU team.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Here's what we know Winter Soldierspassion Sin probably the leader
or co leader of the team, along with.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yelena the Queen we love you. Yeah. Next we have
of He of the Wandering Eye, David Harder.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Of the team Yeah, the strongest question mark, strongest member
of the team. Then we have Wyatt Russell, he of
the off brand super Soldier, sal Us Agent, the disgraced
former Captain America. We have Ghost, last seen in Man.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
I'm so glad she's back. A great representation.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So glad she's back in a really cool power set
that you know. I guess Vision has a similar thing,
although you don't really see him use it in this way,
kind of like a precursor to Katy.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Kitty Pride when they whenever they bring her in.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yes, task Master, who we met in the Black Widow film,
although there's some question now about how long task Master
may be around.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
She's going to be in the movie or not. It's unclear.
It was not necessarily a very popular representation of the character,
and they reimagined it, so I wouldn't be surprised if
they were trying to kind of open up a space
to do a different version. Let's say, so.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Your thoughts about this team.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I like that they are acknowledging in the trailer, you know,
like Elena basically acknowledges like we can't fly. Yeah, we
have super strength, but it's not like the top class
super strength in the MCU. We basically just punch and
shoot people.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And yeah, it's a group of killers. Let's be real,
most of these characters were created to murder people. As
many of us recall, Bucky Bonds killed JFK. He was
the JFK assassin, and yet now he is a He's
a congressman, So that's interesting. But yeah, I think this
(25:52):
is an interesting team. I think it's pulling from lesser
known anti heroic villains from the MC I will also
say there is kind of a precedent in the comics.
Bucky Barnes did like an anti terrorist version of The Thunderbolts,
which was like volume five when they relaunched it as
(26:15):
Thunderbolts number one, and that had Contessa in it. She
kind of became involved, but obviously she was really you know,
had her own nefarious kind of viewpoints and ended up
actually taking on the mantle of Citizen five to kind
of take on the real old school Thunderbolts as a
(26:40):
new supervillain team under kind of Doctor Doom. So I
think there's some interesting potential crossover there. Basically, don't trust
Contessa Valentina, you know, Fontaine, don't trust her. Don't trust
Louis Julia, Louise Dreyfuss in this role. Obviously, we know
that Lewis Pullman as Bob is going to be Century
(27:01):
probably the main antagonist unclear currently antagonist slash wha.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I mean, it's it'll be It'll be really interesting to
see how they deal with Bob, because Bob is the
in the comics Century is like the most powerful technically hero, like,
oh yeah, your strength and question he he tears uh
you know, aries literally in half.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
At one point in the in the Marvel Comics universe. Yeah, okay,
so but he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
But his mind has been uh fractured, and he doesn't
remember a lot of his history or that he's even
this hero yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I would say this is an interesting team. It does
include Winter Soldier. He has been in a Thunderbolts comic,
Florence Pugh's Yelena as Black Widow. She has been in
one David Hobbs Red Guardian, not immediately that I know,
but he is a rather a kind of like a
low key character US agent, very complicated character. But I
(28:06):
love why at Russell. I hope that we get to
see him get explored here a bit more. Ghost been
on a Thunderbox team before. I'm very interested. As you
mentioned about Olga as task Master, will she get the
task mastering that she deserves? Will she finally get to
be task Master? Now here's my big my And I
know that they did this on purpose, just to target
me specifically, but I love Geraldine Viswanathan. If you have
(28:32):
seen Blockers, she's so funny. She's hilarious. And guess what
her name is as the kind of like human psychick,
it's mal So is she gonna be Songbird aka Screaming
mab me Ak Melissa Bo She'd better be, But you
know what she's really gonna be like just somebody who
works for Valentina, because this is always how they get me,
(28:53):
But there's a chance, and I think she would be
utterly fantastic and I'd love to see her in that role. Obviously,
we know original Thunderbots members, so that could be a
very cool twist. But we're basically gonna have to wait
until the Thunderbox movie is out to know exactly where
this is gonna go. And from the trailers, from the
way they're presenting it, it feels like they believe in
(29:16):
this as a new team, So I hope it's gonna
have that longevity. I hope this is gonna just like
the original Thunderbolts kind of become this surprising be team
to the Avengers that we know that the MCU is
gonna need as they head into this kind of doomsday
secret Wars space. But yeah, I'm I'm excited. It looks
(29:38):
good man, but I don't wanna. I don't wanna Jinx.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Next up are Omnimous. Welcome to the Omnibus where Laura
(30:02):
and understand It come together.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Today we're gonna talk about the Thunderbolts and.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
The state of Marvel and comics in general in the nineties.
When Thunderbolts Number one appeared in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Let's consist time. What a time.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Consider where the MCU is right now, right their great
run of success seemingly behind them, at the mercy of
a quickly changing marketplace, at the mercy of apparent audience apathy,
and imagine that being much much worse. That was much worse.
(30:41):
That was Marvel Comics in the nineties. It was all
of that amped up to fifty. In fact, the entire
comics industry, the entire collectibles industry, that's a larger conversation Bibbs,
you know, cards, et cetera. Everything collectible was kind of
heading into the toilet at this time, and Marvel Comics
was was a victim of that. The entire industry looked
(31:05):
like Cecovia at the end of Asia Oltron. It was
because of various factors, including a speculation boom fed by
these kind is chasing of various short term fads with.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
These collectible covers, foil covers.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Fake collectible number one issues that were created just to
juice this secondary collectible market. And it left readers feeling
exploited and really burned out and like nothing mattered anymore.
And it didn't help that the writing because of this
massive infusion of content coming into the space was not
(31:42):
of a standard that.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Fans had come to enjoy. And adding to this, a
lot of Marvels.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Most buzzy creators had recently abandoned the company because of
revenue sharing and started their own company, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Across his story called Image.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Comic shops were being boarded up, you know, titles were
being canceled, and Marvel itself, in nineteen ninety six had
filed for bankruptcy protect its true very very very dark time.
DC thought about the tires on buying Marvel, like they
could have bought their oh cold long so cheap too,
(32:24):
Like it was crazy. So onto this stage appear the
Thunderbolts debuting in nineteen ninety seven in this huge period
of transition, and the transition wasn't just in the industry,
it was creatively as well. We talked about it a
little in the recap of Thunderbolts number one. This is
(32:45):
post Onslaught. So the Onslaught event was an event that
tore away and killed in the real continuity, appeared to
kill basically all of the mainstay heroes of the Marvel universe,
the Avengers, the Fantastic four thor Iron Man. They were dead,
they were gone, torn away to this separate continuity called
(33:07):
Heroes Reborn, which was itself this like desperate attempt to
use sales by.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Contriving to bring back two.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Of their fugitives to Image Comics, Jim Lee and Robleyfield,
who had done so much to add to the company's
success in the nineties, and basically being like, please do
whatever you want with these characters in this separate continuity.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
And it was they paid the six so much money,
like they were going bankrupt, but they paid these guys
hundreds of thousands of dollars to come back from Image
which had been founded just four years before and had
basically decimated, you know, Marvel coming off eight million copy
sell X Men one.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Move and listen. The sales at least initially were.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There, but like are they saving your company? Sales?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
No? No?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
And the content the stories were bad.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Amber. If you think, what what's Haros Reborn? Well, remember
if you've seen the Seen the Life Out Boob Captain
America with the crazy chest, that's from Hairs Reports. I'll
say you know what, don't look it up anyway.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So there's this huge vacuum in the six one six
continuity because all the heroes are gone, uh, and so
what do we do?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
How about a new team? How about new heroes? How
about the Thunderbolts? But where do they come from?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
They come from creators Kurt Busk, writer and long time
veteran artist Mark Bagley. Basik had dusted off an idea
that he had had previously, which is basically, you know,
for an Avengers storyline, is basically, what if the Massive
of Evil long time Avengers foils, who at one point
(35:01):
had destroyed the Avengers mansion and you know, almost killed Jarvis, YadA, YadA, YadA.
What if they disguised themselves as heroes? So with Avengers
with heroes were born getting critically slammed, and the heroes
themselves not available in the main continuity, he pitched this idea,
what about the Masters of Evil going good? When Thunderbolts
(35:26):
Number one landed, it seemed pretty straightforward for most of
the comic. You know, it's like a fun new group
of heroes into the breach, taking up the mantle, picking
up where the Avengers of the Fantastic Four might have
done their work.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
And for you know, twenty one.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Pages, you're watching Citizen five Songbird Atlas Meteorite Makwan techno
basically helps stabilize New York City and Marvel's continuity while
the city burns around them. They introduced themselves to the city,
everybody loves them, and then come back again the.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Approval the pre heroes like going great and.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Then comes the final page in that reveal, which we
talked about earlier, and you know, it's hard to understate
the influence like it was.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
It was huge.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
This was there was absolutely no inkling that this was coming.
There were no leaks about it. Yes, there was a
lot of promo about who was the Thunderbolts, who could
they be? Who are these new heroes, But the idea
that they beyond being new heroes that were being introduced,
could be actually heroes and villains that you know, that
was not being discussed. And this was early Internet. You know,
(36:36):
I was not on whatever Internet boards for comics existed
on the time, so it was all words of my mouth, yeah,
I mean, but the word of mouth was really it
was like this was one of those comics where, in
a very dark time in the industry, you walk into
your comic shop and the and the people working there
are like Thunderworld number one.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, like really talking about it, and it
really it was a rare time that you could be surprised,
you know, like you can actually it's not getting leaked,
it's there's not a bleeding cool article about it. There's
not some you know, preview toy that's connected to it.
(37:14):
This truly people didn't know until they read that last
page or their friends told them, you know, And it
was really really interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
And this is influenced you know, Marvel in particular in
lots of ways, and I see echoes of it, you know,
through various periods of the comics history, including like the
the mystery surrounding who was a lady thor you know,
who killed all these different things. The Dark Event, the
(37:46):
intro of the Dark Avengers was very clearly and.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
It's basically Dunderbolts. And also, I mean the biggest arguably
obviously we are comic book guys and we love that,
but I mean the fact we're talking about this idea
that Busiac had during a time, you know, a year
before Marvel is going to be bought and merged with
Toy Bears, and that changes the state of everything, like
(38:13):
we're talking about it now, almost thirty years later saying, oh,
they're making a Thunderbolts movie. So that's how influential. It
goes even past the comics. It's now something that they're saying, hey,
we kind of It's like you actually beautifully summed up, Jason.
This is a time that is echoing when the Avengers
(38:35):
were no longer the hottest thing, and now Marvel in
the MCU and the Avengers are no longer the hottest thing,
is saying hey, maybe this could work in the movies too.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
It was, It was an event.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
So for Marvel, Thunderbolt's Number one was a absolutely necessary
shot of adrenaline at the time when the company was
like on its s it's really honest back. It proved
that Marvel still had some tricks up their sleeve. They
could still create cool, buzzworthy moments that weren't just about
(39:05):
rehashing you know it's foil covers and creating fake collectible
number ones. They could really do it in universe, in
story in a way that felt cool and replicable. And
it's also a marker of a period where Marvel started
to take more creative risks, starting with Thunderbolts and most
(39:28):
notably continue with the Ultimate Universe. This is when men, yes,
when they started bringing in all these cool creators and
being like, just do something cool with these But in Universe,
learning the lesson from onslaught and heroes reborn, and this
laid the groundwork for a comeback that literally saw them
(39:50):
conquer the pop cultural landscape to reach heights of success
that will you know, to be fair, probably never be
matched again. And and the Thunderbolts the series, even after
the jaw dropping twist, continue to deliver really great comic
book stories because, as we mentioned the recap, our heroes
(40:13):
discover something that they kind of like being good guys,
that some of them like this. They take on a
new member named Jolt, who is this teenage hero who
doesn't know their backstories, doesn't know that she's working with villains,
and she sincerely, she sincerely wants to be a hero,
(40:34):
and her sincerity and her optimism is infectious to the
rest of her teammates, who begin to kind of gravitate
towards her, much to barren Zmo's chagrin.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
As we mentioned, goes to desperate lengths to keep his
grips on the team.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Read the rest to find out how that goes and
looking back, thunderbol Umber one stands as one of those
rare mons in culture, in comics, in any kind of
like creative enterprise, where everything kind of clicks, the creative clicks.
The marketplace was ready for it, the fans were ready
for it, and the industry needed a rebirth.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Marvel needed to win.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Fans were looking for something that was like, authentically great
and reminded them of why they had fallen in love
with Marvel Comics in the first place, not a marketing ploy,
and everybody won thought Able Summer one.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
In the next few episodes of X ray Vision were
continuing our deep dive in and Or season two, and
on Friday, we're convening the Jedi Council for a Jedi
Council Roundtable discuss all things Star Wars. That's it for
this episode.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion, I'm rosday
Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Kolefman.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
All produces are Common Laurent Dean, Jonathan and bai Wag.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
The theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Arn Kauffman.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator,
Warning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Today's episode contains spoilers for Thunderbolts number one from nineteen
ninety seven. It's a thirty year.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Old comic and if you listen to our book Club,
it's already been spoiled for you. But you're already If
you haven't, go listen to that and then come back
and listen to this.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hello, and it is Jason Gncepcion and our Brisday Night
and welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where
we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and
pop culture. Coming to you from I Art Podcast, where
we're bringing you three huge episodes a week every Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday plus Goose.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
In today's episode, it's all about those bad boys known
as the Thunderbolts. We're going to be talking about who's
who of the Thunderbolts, who's in the Thunderbolts, who's in
the MC version, and where were the comic book counterparts
first introduced in the wild world of the twisty team
known as the Thunderbolts. And then Jason has a banging
(01:12):
omnibus about the state of Marvel in nineteen ninety seven
and how the original Busiak and Bagley comic book was
received at the time, but.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
First year Locke, Okay, let's let's chop it up. Thunderbolts
number one. This was such a time capsule as wild.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I remember reading this. I remember not planning to read it,
but then the buzz, the buzz, the tolk of the tests, like, okay,
I'll read it. I had been you know, this was
the nineties, had introduced a lot of new characters, and
some of them I'll talk more about the nineties in
(01:51):
the omnibus. Some of them hit, some of them did not.
Some of them came in with like, you know, like Speedball,
and others came in with like Major Maine your promo,
and I think by this time, like a lot of
comic bands of the era. My my sense was like
more new guys, Like who are these new guys? I know,
I'm not sure, but turned out to be one of
(02:14):
the most influential and you know, truly surprising issues of
all time. Let's do a quick off the dome recap
of Thunderbolts number one. So I love the six one
six is in tatters. The Avengers are off the board,
They're fantastic four.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
They are dead.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
They are dead.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
They're Fantastic Four Dead Air quotes. You know, the mansion
is in fucking ruins, Fantastic four going on.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Bad stuff going on the you know, the X.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Men are there, but they've got their own problems going on,
and they've never been like the people to uh, you know,
take on the mantle.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
And New York itself is like a wreckage.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's going back to the little wreckage.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's going very very badly.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
The Statue of Statue of Liberties fucked up, like the
entire cities like in fucking ruins. Next thing, you know,
various villain groups start going well, Avengers not here, Fantastic
Before not here.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Guess what We're gonna.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Go crazy like the rat Pack. The rat Pack begin
looting New York City. The rat Pack are like if
Seal Team six decided, you know, fuck this, let's do
bank heists probably, you know. And so they're out there
(03:41):
just you know, robbing and stealing and going into vaults
and just taking stuff hand over fist.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Who can stop them?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Nobody because the Tiroes are gone and the cops are overmatched.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
But then.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
A group of colorful heroes shows up and they are
and they strike like light, and they call themselves, the Thunderbolts,
and they deal with the rat Pack in a very crew.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
As well, and the Record Crew and.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They deal with a bunch of these and resurgery.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
You see them helping to fix the Statue of Liberty.
So they gotta be good guys.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They got they don't have a lot of money there.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
They're headquarters is like above a pizzeria. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And then also I like the way that one of
my favorite things is like then like Black Widow, the
New Warriors, Spider Man, they're all like, yeah, the Thunderbolts
they're doing They just like putting like a tiny bit
of effort here, guys, Like I know things are bad,
but you guys are still around, Like Spider Man, you
always New York's number one hero, Like why are you
just giving these guys your thumbs up? Yes, So it
(04:46):
was a very interesting situation because they were, as you said,
all new heroes with when you look back on it,
like very bad costume design. So really I think if
there was I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Very ninety very nineties costume design, but they don't feel
they don't have that feeling like oh that's gonna hit
you know, Like sometimes you see like a new costume design,
and you think, like, wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So it probably should have hinted to us as readers
that maybe they weren't gonna be heroes for the longest time.
But all the promo, which you'll get into more leading
up to it, like didn't let us see them.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It was all it was all in shadows.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So this was the first one, the Thunderbolts, and it
looks like we got a new team. Are you interested
in them as a reader? I don't know. Maybe maybe
not until the final.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Page, final pitch.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Now it's all the setup is amazing, Like here's Spider
Man after the Thunderbolts take out the recond Crew. Quote,
Believe me, the Wrecking Crew are no pushovers, and I've
got reason to know after the way the Thunderbolts handle them,
they're okay in my book, same to your point. The
New Warriors, including Speedball, were.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Like, yeah, Thunderbolts are so great.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And then we go to the Thunderbolts. They're in there
Ramshackle headquarters above the Pizzer reel. Watching all of this
on TV, watching Spider Man and the New Warriors sing
their praises, watching you know, Natasha, the Black Widows say.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think it's great that they're here.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And their leader, the Thunderbolts leader Citizen five, walks in.
He takes off his Citizen five helmet and we see
that his head is like singed. He looks like like
Darth Vader without his mask.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
It's all like scarred, and he has no hair, and
he's like a mess.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Some of the Thunderbolts are surprised by this. Not at
pretty sight, is it, he says about his face to
his team. You would prefer it remain hidden behind a
mask very well then, but not the mask millions have
come to trust today instead, where a rather older mask, a.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Mask with dark arrows associations, the mask of helmet ogociations
thirteen Barentzemo and the leader of the Masters of Evil. Yes,
and then he reveals the true identities of his team
to be the Fixer, the Beatle, Screaming Mimi, Goliath, and Moonstone.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, so it's Meteorite, is Moonstone screaming Meme? Songbird is
really screaming Mime. And that's the most important character of
any of these, because that's the most likely who's probably
going to show up in the MCU soon. Yeah, Mac
six was Beatle Atlas was Goliath, Techno was Fixer, and yeah,
Baron Zimo. It was a huge shocking twist, and that
(07:39):
a successful launch because it actually the original Thunderbolts, the
Busiac and Bagley version. It ram for like seventy six issues,
which is basically unheard of nowadays.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It quite unheard of.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, this would go, this would go thirty and then
they'd be done or twenty five.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, so it was seventy six issues. And then we
get to the different iterations of the Thunderbolts, none of
which have kind of ever been that successful or take
a while for them to get back into their to
their way. So we have the John R. Coody, Francisco
ruse velasco which I actually think is an underrated concept,
(08:19):
which was after Thunderbolts seventy six they took over, which
was essentially and Jason, I don't know if you remember
these covers, I'm sure you do. They made each of
the covers look like men's magazines like Maxim, really weird,
silly but good, beautiful art, and essentially the interior of
(08:39):
the books was very different. It was basically a slice
of life story like what would it be like to
be a street level bad guy in a world where
superheros had ruined your life and honestly quite ahead of
its time concept. And this team was Armadillo, Daniel Axiom
and the man Killer, and it was like not well received.
(09:03):
I think it was a little bit too different, a
little bit too weird, a little bit too cartoony, and
then it only ran for six issues. Then they rebooted
Thunderbolts to the New Thunderbolts Issue one, which was would
run for eighteen issues, and that had that This is
interesting to see the casting because you really start to
(09:24):
realize that what they're taking from now is either the
first concept of the Thunderbolts or teams that were built
in later. Because there was an eighteen issue run after
New Thunderbolts, which was Blizzard Atlas, Songbird back again, Max
Mac four this time, and that was like RAM for
(09:45):
eighteen issues, so did a little bit better. But then
when they came back with Thunderbolts and they were like,
it's Thunderbolts Issue one hundred.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
We made it, guys like.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Good for us, which they always do when they basically
just ren the schemes. Then they at the time obviously
now disgraced writer, but at the time huge writer Warren Ellis,
and he basically introduced what started to look a little
bit more like the Thunderbolts that we would know going
(10:17):
on in the comics, which was Bullseye, Songbird, Moonstone, Radioactive Man, Venom, Swordsman,
and Pennance. But the trick was that those characters were
also hiding, so Matt Gargan was actually Venom, chen Lu
was Radioactive Man, and interestingly that was where Norman Osborne
(10:39):
first got involved. During the Dark Reign event, we got
the next Thunderbolts, which was like a two issue arc,
but importantly did introduce Yelena Belova as one of the Thunderbolts.
Also basically she was taking on the Black Widow Mantle.
Then we had Erico Gradier's a Man and we had
a version of God. So that's the first time we're
(11:01):
hitting two of the MCU Thunderbolts. But it was really
Dark Avengers that took Thunderbolts back into the mainstream, back
into the conversation in a way that they hadn't been
for a long time, which was you had Century, who
as we know, will be in the MCU Thunderbolts as Bob.
(11:23):
You also had Aries and then you had Novar as
Captain Marvel, but the disguised super villain's portion was still there,
so you had Moonstone who was pretending to be Miss Marvel,
Matt Gargan, he was Venom actually portraying Spider Man, so
it was a double betrayal there. And then you had
(11:46):
Bullseye portraying Hawkai and finally one of my favorite characters
all time, Wolverine Sundacon playing Wolverine and it was a
team put together by Norman Osborne who took on the
identity of the Iron Patriot. Since then, we've had other
versions of The Thunderbolts, which is where the idea of
(12:06):
Bucky being and the Thunderbolts came in, and to tie
in with the movie, there is currently the new Thunderbolt
which features Bucky Barnes. Black Widow has X twenty three,
It has a carnage, It has the Hulk, but a
younger Hulk. It has it has no more, it has
(12:27):
Clear and Wolverine and it looks very fun. Sam Humphrey's
Tunney my art. So they're trying to tie them back together,
but that's kind of a comic book who's who of
who was in this team, and as you'll see, it's
still the MCU is taking I think a lot of
Liberty's and just building like a team based on this
(12:50):
and what they want to do with it. So I
guess we should kind of just talk about who is
in the MCU Thunderbolts quickly. Sure remind everyone we'll.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Be right back after a quick break, and we're back.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So let's do a quick run through of the bios
of the Thunderbolt's number one roster. Okay, so here's the
roster for the ThunderWolves and Thunderbolts.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Number one.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You have Baron Zimo, who is pretending to be the
leader of the team. Citizen five tell us about comics
Baron Zimo, the thirteenth Baron Zemo.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, we have often talked about Baron Zimo because it
was quite controversial how beloved he became in the MCU,
seeing as in the comics he was any you know,
but he was inspired, like so many villains, after the
death of his father and then the ret of Captain America.
(14:01):
Those two things kind of inspired him to become a
true villain. He first appeared under a different name as
Phoenix in the Captain America issue one, hundred and sixty
eight in nineteen seventy three, and he was a legitimately
fantastic Captain America antagonist. He's one of the longest running
(14:25):
ones that we still know he also, if you want
to know about his messed up face and why it
was like that, he has one of the most in
hindsight hilarious but also horrifying origins, which is when he
was fighting with Captain America after he captured him, he
fell into a vat of what his father invented, a
(14:47):
chemical named adhesive X, which was essentially like a super
glue that his dad made super glue. He spilt it
on his face and permanently attached his hood to his face,
which I also just think is like so so funny
and yet obviously alas his head was stuck in that
(15:09):
Master for.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
A long time.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
That has changed and over the years, and he has
been allied with Armond Zola, which is more kind of
how we know him in the comics. Yeah, And I
would say, like the Thunderbolt aspect of his career is
really big, because that was this kind of new incarnation
of the Masters of Evil that he had always throughout
(15:31):
his career wanted to do. And yeah, he's he's just
had a rough time of it. You know, he's a
bad guy. He's he's he's gone up against a lot
of people. He has also done some wild stuff, like
he leaked the Thunderbolt's true identities and forced them to
flee with him.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Into deep space, like he did not.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
One of the fun twists of the Thunderbolt series that
original seventies six run is and I'll talk about more
this worthy of us.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
The Thunderbolts started.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
To kind of like being good guys. They start to
like it, and the funnest thing, it's part of the
fun of the series.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
They're like, wait a second, this is good. And Zemo
did not like that. He's not a fan of that.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So he leaked their identities in order to keep his
control over there, which is such a dick move.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
It's such a dick move. And also I have to
say something that's very interesting is like Zmo is involved
in a lot of the Thunderbolts comic kind of adventures.
He attempted to take over the world again in a
short that I didn't mention Avengers versus Thunderbolts. He also
was involved in creating the new Thunderbolts kind of trying
(16:41):
to manipulate from behind the scenes, and I'm interested to
see the MCU's answer for why he is not in
this version of the Thunderbolts, because he is one of
the most beloved MCU villains. The version of Baronzemo that
(17:02):
we've got out of Falcon and the Winter Soldier that
was one of people's favorite parts. He has been reimagined
there without the Nazi origins in the comics, he has
also kind of grown out of those and he has
akin to the MCU. He has sometimes allied with heroes,
whether it's Captain America or Iron Man, but he usually
(17:23):
has a scheme in his back pocket. So I just
think it's very wild that he is not in the Roster.
But who knows, maybe that's going to be a surprise,
or maybe, as some of us suspect, this will lead
to more of a Dark Avengers, hence the old asterisk
at the end of the name.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Okay, the rest of the Roster Techno is actually Fixer, yes,
who is like a technological kind of engineering type, genius
level creator of weaponry. You have the Beatle, who's the
Beatle the Beatle.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
We really get deep here, They were having a lot
of fun with this one, because the thing is one
of the best things is you can when you're doing
a reimagining like this, they're obviously like, hey, please don't
ruin any of the characters that we really love. So
the beetle mantle has been used by multiple individuals, though
(18:20):
it is he's best known as Abner Jenkins. That was
also the version that is in The Thunderbolt, and he
essentially has like an amtman costume that he created because
he's he's another he's a master mechanic. So I think
it's kind of interesting that in putting this team together
they went for people who actually had good technical skills
(18:46):
to create supersuits to put that kind of thing in
the place. And also I think it's funny because it
makes sense as Mac six looked kind of like a
robot that was people's thought, but it was actually the
beers a guy.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
It was just a guy, isn't it always just the
guy next to the songbird is actually screaming mem man.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
I love this so much because this is one of
the coolest kind of This is one of the ones
that I think has has run the longest. Screaming mem
a nice nod to a classic noir movie from nineteen
fifty eight. One of my faves. This is a very
interesting character because she first appeared in Like the This
(19:35):
nineteen seventy nine Marvel two and one by Mark Grunenworld
who we know they take so much from from the MCU,
Ralph Matchio and John Byrne. She was a super villain,
supervillain supervillain, but when she came into the Thunderbolts that
started to change. She's a runaway. She's kind of got
Like I would say, if you like DC and you
(19:58):
know Black Canary, there's a lot of similarity in those powers.
She has sonic screams, she can create solid sound constructs,
and she would essentially later become a part of Shield
as Songbirds. She was in the Civil War event, and
(20:21):
she has kind of died and come back and died
and come back. She's had some scary stuff where men
have become obsessed with her and kind of like fixed
her up after near death so that she can be
there singing slave. But she is a very interesting character
who played a key part in Secret Invasion and interestingly
(20:44):
during the Dark Reign event, which, as we mentioned, was
one of the big Thunderbolts kind of returns. She also
kind of created her own resistance to Norman Osborne after
he tried to get Thunderbolts to get So I'm very
interested in seeing where this goes a lot of casting
(21:05):
every time it comes up, people like, is this finally
going to be Songbird?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Because she's a really interesting, complex female character and it
would be very cool to see her powers put to
screen with like a massive, massive budget, because we have
seen in the Marvel Animated Universe there have been versions
of her, the Melissa Gold version where we kind of
(21:32):
see her as an antagonist first in Avengers Assemble, but
we have yet to see her be brought to life
on the big screen, and I think that is the
bit out of the Thunderbolts. Aside from Baronsimo, she's your
biggest name character who is probably going to be in
the MCU relatively soon.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Next up Goliath, Oh who is Atlas. Goliath is a
longtime Zemo family ally, having worked as a mercenary for
Citizen five Baron Helmet Zmo the thirteenth Baron Zuma's dad
Heinrich Zimo in South Africa, So a long time ally
(22:11):
of the Zmo family, and then finally Moonstone, the doctor
of Doctor Carla, who is my great character wonderful. I
love Moonstone, like legitimately thinks she's such a fun no.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
She is.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
It's such such a fun character she has.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Like she began as kind of like an evil doctor
who basically just manipulated her patients and tested their kind
of fear and their paranoia. But in classic Marvel fashion,
in classic comic book fashion, that was not enough. So
an Incredible Hulk two hundred and twenty eight, she had
(22:51):
to season alien Artifact and that would give her cosmic
powers and create the supervillain known as Moonstone. Yeah, I
love this character. She's legitimately fantastic. She's part of the
great cosmic kind of tradition of Marvel. She was one
of the thunderbolts who really did start to enjoy being good.
(23:14):
But she is also someone who she struggles to keep
her villainous side under wraps, and oftentimes she and Screaming
Mimia kind of teamed up to keep an eye on
each other, though though Moonstone struggles a little bit more
to Moonstone likes to be girl.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Moonstone is one of those thunderbolts.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
She likes the accolades that come with being a good guy,
not necessarily being a good guy, for she.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Enjoys being celebrated. Who amongst us does not. But yeah,
I love her. She's great.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So let's talk about the MCU team.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Here's what we know Winter Soldierspassion Sin probably the leader
or co leader of the team, along with.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yelena the Queen we love you. Yeah. Next we have
of He of the Wandering Eye, David Harder.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Of the team Yeah, the strongest question mark, strongest member
of the team. Then we have Wyatt Russell, he of
the off brand super Soldier, sal Us Agent, the disgraced
former Captain America. We have Ghost, last seen in Man.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
I'm so glad she's back. A great representation.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So glad she's back in a really cool power set
that you know. I guess Vision has a similar thing,
although you don't really see him use it in this way,
kind of like a precursor to Katy.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Kitty Pride when they whenever they bring her in.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yes, task Master, who we met in the Black Widow film,
although there's some question now about how long task Master
may be around.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
She's going to be in the movie or not. It's unclear.
It was not necessarily a very popular representation of the character,
and they reimagined it, so I wouldn't be surprised if
they were trying to kind of open up a space
to do a different version. Let's say, so.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Your thoughts about this team.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I like that they are acknowledging in the trailer, you know,
like Elena basically acknowledges like we can't fly. Yeah, we
have super strength, but it's not like the top class
super strength in the MCU. We basically just punch and
shoot people.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And yeah, it's a group of killers. Let's be real,
most of these characters were created to murder people. As
many of us recall, Bucky Bonds killed JFK. He was
the JFK assassin, and yet now he is a He's
a congressman, So that's interesting. But yeah, I think this
(25:52):
is an interesting team. I think it's pulling from lesser
known anti heroic villains from the MC I will also
say there is kind of a precedent in the comics.
Bucky Barnes did like an anti terrorist version of The Thunderbolts,
which was like volume five when they relaunched it as
(26:15):
Thunderbolts number one, and that had Contessa in it. She
kind of became involved, but obviously she was really you know,
had her own nefarious kind of viewpoints and ended up
actually taking on the mantle of Citizen five to kind
of take on the real old school Thunderbolts as a
(26:40):
new supervillain team under kind of Doctor Doom. So I
think there's some interesting potential crossover there. Basically, don't trust
Contessa Valentina, you know, Fontaine, don't trust her. Don't trust
Louis Julia, Louise Dreyfuss in this role. Obviously, we know
that Lewis Pullman as Bob is going to be Century
(27:01):
probably the main antagonist unclear currently antagonist slash wha.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I mean, it's it'll be It'll be really interesting to
see how they deal with Bob, because Bob is the
in the comics Century is like the most powerful technically hero, like,
oh yeah, your strength and question he he tears uh
you know, aries literally in half.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
At one point in the in the Marvel Comics universe. Yeah, okay,
so but he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
But his mind has been uh fractured, and he doesn't
remember a lot of his history or that he's even
this hero yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I would say this is an interesting team. It does
include Winter Soldier. He has been in a Thunderbolts comic,
Florence Pugh's Yelena as Black Widow. She has been in
one David Hobbs Red Guardian, not immediately that I know,
but he is a rather a kind of like a
low key character US agent, very complicated character. But I
(28:06):
love why at Russell. I hope that we get to
see him get explored here a bit more. Ghost been
on a Thunderbox team before. I'm very interested. As you
mentioned about Olga as task Master, will she get the
task mastering that she deserves? Will she finally get to
be task Master? Now here's my big my And I
know that they did this on purpose, just to target
me specifically, but I love Geraldine Viswanathan. If you have
(28:32):
seen Blockers, she's so funny. She's hilarious. And guess what
her name is as the kind of like human psychick,
it's mal So is she gonna be Songbird aka Screaming
mab me Ak Melissa Bo She'd better be, But you
know what she's really gonna be like just somebody who
works for Valentina, because this is always how they get me,
(28:53):
But there's a chance, and I think she would be
utterly fantastic and I'd love to see her in that role. Obviously,
we know original Thunderbots members, so that could be a
very cool twist. But we're basically gonna have to wait
until the Thunderbox movie is out to know exactly where
this is gonna go. And from the trailers, from the
way they're presenting it, it feels like they believe in
(29:16):
this as a new team, So I hope it's gonna
have that longevity. I hope this is gonna just like
the original Thunderbolts kind of become this surprising be team
to the Avengers that we know that the MCU is
gonna need as they head into this kind of doomsday
secret Wars space. But yeah, I'm I'm excited. It looks
(29:38):
good man, but I don't wanna. I don't wanna Jinx.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Next up are Omnimous. Welcome to the Omnibus where Laura
(30:02):
and understand It come together.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Today we're gonna talk about the Thunderbolts and.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
The state of Marvel and comics in general in the nineties.
When Thunderbolts Number one appeared in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Let's consist time. What a time.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Consider where the MCU is right now, right their great
run of success seemingly behind them, at the mercy of
a quickly changing marketplace, at the mercy of apparent audience apathy,
and imagine that being much much worse. That was much worse.
(30:41):
That was Marvel Comics in the nineties. It was all
of that amped up to fifty. In fact, the entire
comics industry, the entire collectibles industry, that's a larger conversation Bibbs,
you know, cards, et cetera. Everything collectible was kind of
heading into the toilet at this time, and Marvel Comics
was was a victim of that. The entire industry looked
(31:05):
like Cecovia at the end of Asia Oltron. It was
because of various factors, including a speculation boom fed by
these kind is chasing of various short term fads with.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
These collectible covers, foil covers.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Fake collectible number one issues that were created just to
juice this secondary collectible market. And it left readers feeling
exploited and really burned out and like nothing mattered anymore.
And it didn't help that the writing because of this
massive infusion of content coming into the space was not
(31:42):
of a standard that.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Fans had come to enjoy. And adding to this, a
lot of Marvels.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Most buzzy creators had recently abandoned the company because of
revenue sharing and started their own company, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Across his story called Image.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Comic shops were being boarded up, you know, titles were
being canceled, and Marvel itself, in nineteen ninety six had
filed for bankruptcy protect its true very very very dark time.
DC thought about the tires on buying Marvel, like they
could have bought their oh cold long so cheap too,
(32:24):
Like it was crazy. So onto this stage appear the
Thunderbolts debuting in nineteen ninety seven in this huge period
of transition, and the transition wasn't just in the industry,
it was creatively as well. We talked about it a
little in the recap of Thunderbolts number one. This is
(32:45):
post Onslaught. So the Onslaught event was an event that
tore away and killed in the real continuity, appeared to
kill basically all of the mainstay heroes of the Marvel universe,
the Avengers, the Fantastic four thor Iron Man. They were dead,
they were gone, torn away to this separate continuity called
(33:07):
Heroes Reborn, which was itself this like desperate attempt to
use sales by.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Contriving to bring back two.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Of their fugitives to Image Comics, Jim Lee and Robleyfield,
who had done so much to add to the company's
success in the nineties, and basically being like, please do
whatever you want with these characters in this separate continuity.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
And it was they paid the six so much money,
like they were going bankrupt, but they paid these guys
hundreds of thousands of dollars to come back from Image
which had been founded just four years before and had
basically decimated, you know, Marvel coming off eight million copy
sell X Men one.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Move and listen. The sales at least initially were.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
There, but like are they saving your company? Sales?
Speaker 2 (34:03):
No? No?
Speaker 1 (34:04):
And the content the stories were bad.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Amber. If you think, what what's Haros Reborn? Well, remember
if you've seen the Seen the Life Out Boob Captain
America with the crazy chest, that's from Hairs Reports. I'll
say you know what, don't look it up anyway.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So there's this huge vacuum in the six one six
continuity because all the heroes are gone, uh, and so
what do we do?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
How about a new team? How about new heroes? How
about the Thunderbolts? But where do they come from?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
They come from creators Kurt Busk, writer and long time
veteran artist Mark Bagley. Basik had dusted off an idea
that he had had previously, which is basically, you know,
for an Avengers storyline, is basically, what if the Massive
of Evil long time Avengers foils, who at one point
(35:01):
had destroyed the Avengers mansion and you know, almost killed Jarvis, YadA, YadA, YadA.
What if they disguised themselves as heroes? So with Avengers
with heroes were born getting critically slammed, and the heroes
themselves not available in the main continuity, he pitched this idea,
what about the Masters of Evil going good? When Thunderbolts
(35:26):
Number one landed, it seemed pretty straightforward for most of
the comic. You know, it's like a fun new group
of heroes into the breach, taking up the mantle, picking
up where the Avengers of the Fantastic Four might have
done their work.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
And for you know, twenty one.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Pages, you're watching Citizen five Songbird Atlas Meteorite Makwan techno
basically helps stabilize New York City and Marvel's continuity while
the city burns around them. They introduced themselves to the city,
everybody loves them, and then come back again the.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Approval the pre heroes like going great and.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Then comes the final page in that reveal, which we
talked about earlier, and you know, it's hard to understate
the influence like it was.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
It was huge.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
This was there was absolutely no inkling that this was coming.
There were no leaks about it. Yes, there was a
lot of promo about who was the Thunderbolts, who could
they be? Who are these new heroes, But the idea
that they beyond being new heroes that were being introduced,
could be actually heroes and villains that you know, that
was not being discussed. And this was early Internet. You know,
(36:36):
I was not on whatever Internet boards for comics existed
on the time, so it was all words of my mouth, yeah,
I mean, but the word of mouth was really it
was like this was one of those comics where, in
a very dark time in the industry, you walk into
your comic shop and the and the people working there
are like Thunderworld number one.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, like really talking about it, and it
really it was a rare time that you could be surprised,
you know, like you can actually it's not getting leaked,
it's there's not a bleeding cool article about it. There's
not some you know, preview toy that's connected to it.
(37:14):
This truly people didn't know until they read that last
page or their friends told them, you know, And it
was really really interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
And this is influenced you know, Marvel in particular in
lots of ways, and I see echoes of it, you know,
through various periods of the comics history, including like the
the mystery surrounding who was a lady thor you know,
who killed all these different things. The Dark Event, the
(37:46):
intro of the Dark Avengers was very clearly and.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
It's basically Dunderbolts. And also, I mean the biggest arguably
obviously we are comic book guys and we love that,
but I mean the fact we're talking about this idea
that Busiac had during a time, you know, a year
before Marvel is going to be bought and merged with
Toy Bears, and that changes the state of everything, like
(38:13):
we're talking about it now, almost thirty years later saying, oh,
they're making a Thunderbolts movie. So that's how influential. It
goes even past the comics. It's now something that they're saying, hey,
we kind of It's like you actually beautifully summed up, Jason.
This is a time that is echoing when the Avengers
(38:35):
were no longer the hottest thing, and now Marvel in
the MCU and the Avengers are no longer the hottest thing,
is saying hey, maybe this could work in the movies too.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
It was, It was an event.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
So for Marvel, Thunderbolt's Number one was a absolutely necessary
shot of adrenaline at the time when the company was
like on its s it's really honest back. It proved
that Marvel still had some tricks up their sleeve. They
could still create cool, buzzworthy moments that weren't just about
(39:05):
rehashing you know it's foil covers and creating fake collectible
number ones. They could really do it in universe, in
story in a way that felt cool and replicable. And
it's also a marker of a period where Marvel started
to take more creative risks, starting with Thunderbolts and most
(39:28):
notably continue with the Ultimate Universe. This is when men, yes,
when they started bringing in all these cool creators and
being like, just do something cool with these But in Universe,
learning the lesson from onslaught and heroes reborn, and this
laid the groundwork for a comeback that literally saw them
(39:50):
conquer the pop cultural landscape to reach heights of success
that will you know, to be fair, probably never be
matched again. And and the Thunderbolts the series, even after
the jaw dropping twist, continue to deliver really great comic
book stories because, as we mentioned the recap, our heroes
(40:13):
discover something that they kind of like being good guys,
that some of them like this. They take on a
new member named Jolt, who is this teenage hero who
doesn't know their backstories, doesn't know that she's working with villains,
and she sincerely, she sincerely wants to be a hero,
(40:34):
and her sincerity and her optimism is infectious to the
rest of her teammates, who begin to kind of gravitate
towards her, much to barren Zmo's chagrin.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
As we mentioned, goes to desperate lengths to keep his
grips on the team.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Read the rest to find out how that goes and
looking back, thunderbol Umber one stands as one of those
rare mons in culture, in comics, in any kind of
like creative enterprise, where everything kind of clicks, the creative clicks.
The marketplace was ready for it, the fans were ready
for it, and the industry needed a rebirth.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Marvel needed to win.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Fans were looking for something that was like, authentically great
and reminded them of why they had fallen in love
with Marvel Comics in the first place, not a marketing ploy,
and everybody won thought Able Summer one.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
In the next few episodes of X ray Vision were
continuing our deep dive in and Or season two, and
on Friday, we're convening the Jedi Council for a Jedi
Council Roundtable discuss all things Star Wars. That's it for
this episode.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion, I'm rosday
Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Kolefman.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
All produces are Common Laurent Dean, Jonathan and bai Wag.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
The theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Arn Kauffman.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator,
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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