Thunderbolts is an May 2016 ongoing comic from Marvel Comics, released as part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch, and written by Jim Zub with art by Jon Malin.
The Winter Soldier leads a new team of Thunderbolts. This team was virtually the same as the original line-up with two exceptions: the aforementioned Winter Soldier replacing Citizen V and Kobik, the Cosmic Cube-turned little girl first introduced during Avengers Standoff.
Thunderbolts (2016) provides examples of:
- Amicable Exes: Abe and Melissa are this, although there certainly seems some lingering Unresolved Sexual Tension left between them.
- Bait-and-Switch: Erik tries to pull this on Abe by saying he's eating dog food, then revealing it's stew, but Abe thinks eating cold stew out of a can is just as gross.
- Big Brother Mentor: Bucky takes on a role somewhere between this and Parental Substitute when it comes to Kobik.
- Big "NO!": Bucky gets one of these when Norbert shoots Kobik to stop her from overloading, shattering her into several pieces.
- Breather Episode: Issue #6 is mostly the Thunderbolts doing relatively peaceful everyday things.
- The Bus Came Back: Fixer, who was trapped in a timeloop in volume 1 issue 174. Issue 6 reveals that Kobik, the sentient Cosmic Cube freed him. Also, Songbird, who had been working with Sunspot's New Avengers and thus didn't rejoin the team until issue 7, and in issue 10, Jolt!
- Call-Back: Bucky won't let Steve die again, the way he did on the courthouse steps after Civil War.
- The Cameo: Ghost makes an appearance when everyone but Kobik is away, but seems too shy to stay and chat. He surprisingly returns in issue 12, to briefly fight on the T-Bolts' side, and then saves Jolt from dying of exhaustion.
- The Cavalry: Jolt returns from Counter Earth at just the right moment to save Atlas from taking a possibly fatal beating at the hands of the Masters of Evil.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Moonstone makes no secret of disliking Bucky's methods, and finally betrays him for Zemo in issue 12.
- Creepy Child: Zig-Zagged with Kobik. She seems friendly enough, but like the all-powerful being with the mind of a four-year-old that she is, she thinks nothing of ripping Karla's heart out as part of a game or converting people to Hydra to "help" them fix the problem they have with nazis.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bucky's actions in Issue #5, the Civil War II tie-in, seem a little impulsive, especially for a wanted fugitive: he wants to keep Miles Morales, the current Spider-Man, from fulfilling one of Ulysses' premonitions, but doesn't want to kill him - what exactly he plans to do is unclear, but never becomes a problem, since he gets captured by SHIELD instead.
- Dramatic Irony: Bucky's conversation with Steve is laced with it. Bucky doesn't know that Kobik has rewritten Steve's life to a deep cover Hydra agent. He is trying to keep Kobik from the people who would abuse her powers and one of them is right in front of him and he doesn't know it.
- Fake Arm Disarm: While in SHIELD custody, Bucky's metal arm is bugged. After the remaining Thunderbolts break him out, he decides there's not enough time to get rid of the bugs and just leaves the whole arm behind.
- Goo-Goo-Godlike: Kobik mostly resembles a four-year-old little girl and is omnipotent. With no concept of consequences or morality, reigning her in is quite a task.
- Hidden Depths: Erik, who mostly seems to care about having a fridge full of beer confesses to missing the fake family Kobik had created as part of his life in Pleasant Hill.
- Little Miss Badass: Due to being all-powerful, Kobik is a force to be reckoned with. Man Killer, one of the Masters of Evil, discovers this to her sorrow.
- Mental Time Travel: In issue #10, Kobik sends Bucky back to the past, so he can fix his mistakes; he ends up in his younger body, completely unaware that thanks to Kobik's previous actions, his old mentor and friend Steve Rogers has been a covert Hydra agent since childhood.
- Morality Chain: Bucky is this to Kobik, by forbidding her from simply using her powers because she feels like it, or because she wants to be nice to someone. It works most of the time.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Fixer has a breakdown in issue six when he realizes that Kobik rescued him from his Time Loop.
- Never Found the Body: Abe is missing after Kobik's implosion levels the Thunderbolts' headquarters.
- Only Sane Man: Initially, Fixer is the only one who believes Kobik is too dangerous to let run around.
- Papa Wolf: Bucky gets quite protective of Kobik, despite the fact that she can pretty much alter reality to suit her, feeling that the way Maria Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D. used her is analogous to how the KGB used him.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Winter Soldier does this, having rescued the T-Bolts from Pleasant Hill.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Bucky and Zemo give one to each other in issue 12.
- Shout-Out:
- Jon Malin drew a sign that says "Shell Beach" on the Thunderbolt's tie-in issue to Avengers Standoff.
- Moonstone refers to the moonstone as their "conch shell" when she challenges Bucky's leadership.
- When Bucky reads Kobik a goodnight story, it's a book about the adventures of Disney Theme Parks character Dreamfinder.
- Kobik has a doll that quotes Lilo & Stitch's motto about family, except using the Polish word "rodzina" instead of the Hawaiian "Ohana". (Since the German word, "Familie", would have made her true allegiance too obvious.)
- Later, Kobik argues that they can't abandon Bucky to SHIELD imprisonment with a quote from the same movie.Kobik: Buckaroo is family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.
- Later, Kobik argues that they can't abandon Bucky to SHIELD imprisonment with a quote from the same movie.
- To ask Atlas to build a snowman with her, Kobik sings "Do you wanna build a snowman?"
- The Thunderbolts leave Kobik with two seasons of Gravity Falls to keep her occupied.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Kobik acts the way a cosmic cube thinks small children act most of the time, but when adults yell at her she takes a sterner tone. Zig-Zagged when she gets upset and threatens to kill everyone, which in her case is a plausible threat.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Winter Soldier spends a huge amount of time bare-chested, which becomes somewhat ludicrous once they end up in the Arctic. Between him and shirtless moments for Atlas and Mach X, the comic does its best to service the Female Gaze.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After discovering in issue #11 that Kobik turned Steve Rogers into a life-long Agent of HYDRA on Red Skull's behest, Bucky loses his temper and yells at her that she ruined everything. Kobik does what most small children would do and throws a tantrum, threatening to rip reality itself apart.
