Thunderbolts

I didn't intend to upset you. Sorry.

Now - what about the Dark Avengers? (Will they get a movie?)
Similar concept to the original Thunderbolts, but instead of being villains posing as new superheroes, they were villains posing as established superheroes in order to gain the public's trust. For example:
Bullseye posed as Hawkeye
Venom posed as Spider-Man
Moon Stone posed as Ms. Marvel
Daken (son of Wolverine) posed as Wolverine
Norman Osborne (Green Goblin) posed as Iron Patriot (a former Tony Stark armor) as the leader of the group

There were a few other misguided heroes & villains in the group (such as Sentry and a new "Captain Marvel" along with Ares), but the ruse didn't last quite as long as the Tunderbolts'.

I mean don’t get me wrong guys, I will specifically spend $10 to stream Disney + in a few months when Thunderbolts lands. I’m a huge Florence Pugh fan, or is it Pogh, oh and is her butt bigger than JLos? I kid, but that is $10 they’ve successfully got from me. That’s a win

Geezus what a load of nonsense.

This is a better idea than the watered-down B-team version they did. So long as they would NOT Suicide Squad it and Travis Bickle the baddies into misunderstood plucky wannabe goodies.

I see what I choose to see 🧐

I'm surprised that DC hasn't voiced criticisms of Marvel for stealing their Suicide Squad concept (or have they? I'm not really up on either comic book or movie news these days).

Granted, the Suicide Squad movies weren't very good (the 2nd being a bit more entertaining than the first), but it was still DC's idea. I remember loving the concept of the comic (2nd version featuring super villains) when it first came out - I loved most comics that featured super villains on a team.

But even the concept itself wasn't all that original. It was basically the same concept as the 1967 movie The Dirty Dozen (recruiting criminals for a suicide mission) except the comic lacked the military & WWII aspect.

Thunderbolts* is leagues above either version of Suicide Squad.

It's not really even trying to do the same thing at all.

True, it's not exactly the same.

But it does have some very basic similarities - most of the characters chosen for the movie version of Thunderbolts are either genuine supervillains, foreign operatives or anti-heroes.

Suicide Squad (both comic & movie iterations) did the same - they were mostly villains, but had a few government operatives, anti-heroes and even established heroes (such as Katana) thrown in as well.

Now if, as I've mentioned before, they followed the concept of the original comic, then they would have made something completely original, but rather we just get an alternate version of DC's Suicide Squad. (Since the MCU is all multiverses now, we could just say this is a counter-concurrent, alternate continuity version of the Suicide Squad that takes place on Earth SS69-25or624!)

Yeah, but neither version of Suicide Squad ended with its members becoming the New Justice League.

Now there's an idea!

The kiss of death for the film is them trying to intice people to see this calling it the “New Avengers”?! They’re just begging* to be made an example of.

I don't think that's the case at all.

I think so. The arrival of

They're kind of like The Watchmen in that they have one character who is so OP that he's not really a member of the team, but a force of nature everyone else is a bit afraid of. They're not a balanced team. They're Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandits.

If anyone's interested, the NYT has a pretty good interview with Lewis Pullman, where he talks at length about his character in Thunderbolts*.

Needless to say, spoilers abound, so don't read it unless you've already watched the movie or you don't care about spoilers.



No paywall link

It's just extremely overused. It used to mean people that get upset when people say things like 'hey guys' to a group that contains both men and women, but now it's used to label people that shows any human empathy at all, especially if they show it to strangers.

It is used fairly and unfairly, as a self-descriptor and an other-descriptor, as a badge and as an epithet. That stated, there is a store of utility in its usage. Should it be used more judiciously? Yes. Is it basically "fightin words" now? Yes. Are typical cases of uses groan-inducing? Yes. Will I continue to use the word? Yes. Has this been an exercise in my own cognitive dissonance? Yes.

Yknow, if the sequel to this movie was Punisher vs Thunderbolts I’d see that! Especially if they Marvel Predator formula some way a normal man would kill all the powered mid-tier derpy fodder.
Except Widow, she’d get a pass

There is more Punisher coming, but it’s going to be on the small screen.

Jon Bernthal?