Why the love for Thunderbolts?

For the record, I adore the movie and each of the characters. It was fantastic! That being said, why do I have Black Widow’s Dad, Faux Pas Captain America, and Ant-Man’s most mediocre foe as members of the new Avengers? Again, I really like the characters but I’m absolutely bewildered that these guys are getting the Avengers treatment whereas Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, and more have been lost to the abyss.

I’m very glad we got Thunderbolts but what is Marvel doing at this point? Why is it that the supporting characters get more love and better treatment than characters who SHOULD be at the level of Cap, Tony, or Wanda in terms of popularity? I suppose I’m glad to see Red Guardian getting some love but he doesn’t have nearly the amount of potential as Shang-Chi or Moon Knight. Same for She-Hulk: she’s one of Marvel’s most popular and best seeking female characters but the most they can do is a flawed TV show whereas Ghost has had three separate appearances, two of those being in fairly solid projects?

What little love and care Marvel has left for characters, they seem to be devoting it to background or supporting characters. How are we seeing more of characters like Ms. Marvel’s Dad or Wong when most of the main MCU post-endgame characters have yet to show up for a second appearance?? Don’t get me wrong, please, I love love love Wong but I don’t think he deserves to be the face of the post-Endgame MCU and he arguably IS!

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Commentaires

rubyschnees2025-10-20 23:33

wow the point of the movie just went right over your head, didn't it?

A_Serious_House2025-10-21 00:11

The point of the movie went over your head too cause there was definitely a point about not acting like a dick :)

RubiconPizzaDelivery2025-10-21 02:16

Actually that's Quantumania, not Thunderbolts that had a point of not acting like a dick

A_Serious_House2025-10-21 03:42

No, no, Thunderbolts was very much about love and acceptance

RubiconPizzaDelivery2025-10-21 03:49

The joke

Your head

A_Serious_House2025-10-21 03:51

Right back at you lol your joke was obvious, I’m just doubling down for the fun of being contrarian

WordyNerd12025-10-20 23:40

Why not just let things play out and see how everything unfolds?

urgasmic2025-10-20 23:46

i dislike the comparing here. you can want to see those characters but that has nothing to do with thunderbolts imo.

A_Serious_House2025-10-21 00:11

I disagree. Thunderbolts could’ve been an Avengers movie featuring the characters I mentioned, they went for who they went for. Why not ask why?

Aglet_Green2025-10-20 23:56

>For the record, I adore the movie and each of the characters. It was fantastic! That being said, why do I have Black Widow’s Dad, Faux Pas Captain America, and Ant-Man’s most mediocre foe as members of the new Avengers?

David Harbour could have played a guy selling pizza on a stick (or whatever Bruce Campbell was selling) and I'd still have seen this movie on Disney+ just like I did a month ago. It was a great movie, and Alexei is worthy of his Wheaties box. He just naturally seems to understand what it takes to play the father of an actress with an English accent who is playing a superhero of another nationality. .

DavidEDavid222025-10-21 00:24

See that’s the thing my good sir the thing most on this sub won’t want to admit, is that thunderbolts aren’t in fact that loved. The movie flopped and with a cast including Florence pue and Sebastian Stan that’s saying something. It’s a good movie tho and has its fans but ur right when u mention that marvel is in a very sensitive place right now and them focusing on side characters is gonna hurt them in the long run. Believe me if the roster to thunderbolts was anything like the the characters they use in the comics it would have been a big hit but people here wanna insist yelena is tony stark level important

mrbaryonyx2025-10-21 00:28

>Why is it that the supporting characters get more love and better treatment than characters who SHOULD be at the level of Cap, Tony, or Wanda in terms of popularity?

Because after Tony, Steve, and Natasha bailed, Marvel's next big hitters were Strange, T'Challa, Carol and Peter (Parker).

Of the actors who play those, one suffered an IRL tragedy, one got embroiled in a weird, too-lengthly-to-talk-about-here internet kerfuffle, one is owned by another company, and that just leaves Strange, whose actor ran out his contract and is almost assuredly asking Marvel for more money (I can think of no other reason why he hasn't shown up since appearing in Phase 4's two biggest movies and being the obvious choice for "new Tony Stark" going forward). And also COVID happened so Marvel doubled down on original made-for-D+ projects.

So Marvel wound up without any protagonists, and so they just decided to play up their big antagonist in Kang as the next Thanos--which was a dumb idea to being with--and that didn't work out either, so now we're here.

spidervenom6192025-10-21 02:42

Also keep in mind that whether his fans like or not (and trusted me I hated saying this as a Strange fan lol), the 3rd member of this big 4 isn't exactly the most popular hero right now cause of his actions from Infinity War and Endgame...

Their best option out of the four is owned by SONY. there's a reason why they had to look to the "Side-characters" for their next Ace.

mrbaryonyx2025-10-21 04:19

>the 3rd member of this big 4 isn't exactly the most popular hero right now cause of his actions from Infinity War and Endgame...

kind of confused about this, who is this referring to?

spidervenom6192025-10-22 01:56

Dr. Strange prior to Multiverse of Madness.

AdultSWIMDeep2025-10-21 00:31

None of those characters you named worked for Valentina and the Thunderbolts becoming The New Avengers was so Valentina could save her own ass with good PR, did you watch the movie? Also Shang-Chi is clearly in the original Avengers team, did you watch the post-credit scene to that movie??

sevenlabors2025-10-21 00:40

Because Marvel was forced to try something of a Hail Mary with the characters and actors they had available to them.

It felt desperate, even if it was lampshaded in the film and its marketing. I'm concerned who, outside of the hardcore MCU fans, really knew who these characters were? There is a lack of connection on the part of the wider audience to this rag tag assortment of random supporting characters.

I think the box office results largely bared that out.

A_Serious_House2025-10-21 00:55

Thank you for the great response, contextualizing Thunderbolts as a Hail Mary seems pretty accurate and I can understand that.

SeekerVash2025-10-21 01:16

Um...

Thunderbolts was announced in 2022. Quantumania, where they realized they might be in trouble was February 2023. The Marvels, where they knew they were in trouble was November 2023.

There was no "Hail Mary", they fully and intentionally planned that out.

N8CCRG2025-10-21 00:50

>Ant-Man’s most mediocre foe

I will not stand for this Ghost slander. At the very least, she's certainly way better than Darren.

A_Serious_House2025-10-21 00:53

Thats fair. Ghost is easily the best Ant-Man villain so excuse the unreasonable slander. I’m not mad that Ghost is getting her time to shine at all, I just wish other characters were treated anywhere close to as well as Ghost has been.

CulturalDragonfly6312025-10-21 01:55

Because these are all characters that the audience liked a lot, played by talented actors that audiences like. I think the movie would have done much better if the one that preceded it hadn't been so awful.

[deleted]2025-10-21 02:45

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faithdies2025-10-21 03:21

Eh. The amount of Planet Avenger cannon(canon?) fodder for Doomsday is astronomical. We need 10 different teams all dealing with 30 different threats and then just get wiped by various incursion related events and crossovers. Is it Avenger's World? In the comics? We are almost there now with the amount of teams and support throughout the world. Eternals. Dr Strange and his team. Spiderman. Ant-Man and related ant Man support. Falcon and the Avengers. Bucky and the new avengers. Shangchi. Hulk(s). Thor. Guardians. Daredevil+Netflix teams. Black Panther and wakanda. Namor. That's so many good guy teams(mostly) and they all need to die very soon.

TopStrategy43932025-10-21 11:59

Because all the other movies and shows were pretty mid and some even sucked, and no one could ever grow to like them.