History ComicBook / Thunderbolts

There's their leader, the swashbuckling [[PatrioticFervor patriotic hero]] '''Citizen V'''; the massive size-changing '''Atlas''', the high flying '''MACH-1''', the mysterious '''Meteorite''', the beautiful '''Songbird''', and the machine-savvy '''Techno'''. They are soon warmly welcomed by New York City as their new heroes, but it is only then we discover that these "Heroes" are in fact former members of the Avengers' archfoes, the [[LegionOfDoom Masters of Evil]]: '''ComicBook/BaronZemo''', '''Power Man[=/=]Goliath''', '''The Beetle''', '''Moonstone''', '''Screaming Mimi''' and '''The Fixer'''. Their plan is to use the hero ruse to win the trust of the people, so that Zemo will be granted the Avengers' old security clearances, letting him use them to perfect a master plan for domination.

* AmicableExes: Abe and Melissa are this, although there certainly seems some lingering UnresolvedSexualTension left between them.
* BaitAndSwitch: 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.
* BigBrotherMentor: Bucky takes on a role somewhere between this and ParentalSubstitute when it comes to Kobik.
* BigNo: Bucky gets one of these when [[spoiler:Norbert shoots Kobik to stop her from overloading, shattering her into several pieces]].
* BreatherEpisode: Issue #6 is mostly the Thunderbolts doing relatively peaceful everyday things.
* TheBusCameBack: Fixer, who was trapped in a timeloop in volume 1 issue 174. [[spoiler:Issue 6 reveals that Kobik, the sentient Cosmic Cube freed him.]] Also, Songbird, who had been working with Sunspot's [[ComicBook/NewAvengers2015 New Avengers]] and thus didn't rejoin the team until issue 7, and in issue 10, [[spoiler:Jolt!]]
* CallBack: Bucky won't let Steve die again, the way he did on the courthouse steps after ''ComicBook/{{Civil War|2006}}''.
* TheCameo: [[spoiler:Ghost]] makes an appearance when everyone but Kobik is away, but seems too shy to stay and chat. [[spoiler:He surprisingly returns in issue 12, to briefly fight on the T-Bolts' side, and then saves Jolt from dying of exhaustion.]]
* TheCavalry: [[spoiler:Jolt returns from Counter Earth]] at just the right moment to save [[spoiler:Atlas]] from taking a possibly fatal beating at the hands of [[spoiler:the Masters of Evil]].
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Moonstone makes no secret of disliking Bucky's methods, and [[spoiler: finally betrays him for Zemo in issue 12.]]
* CreepyChild: ZigZagged 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 [[spoiler:ripping Karla's heart out as part of a game]] or [[spoiler:converting people to Hydra to "help" them fix the problem they have with nazis]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Bucky's actions in Issue #5, the Civil War II tie-in, seem a little impulsive, especially for a wanted fugitive: [[spoiler: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.]]
* DramaticIrony: Bucky's conversation with Steve is laced with it. [[spoiler: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.]]
* FakeArmDisarm: [[spoiler: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.]]
* GooGooGodlike: 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.
* HiddenDepths: Erik, who mostly seems to care about having a fridge full of beer [[spoiler:confesses to missing the fake family Kobik had created as part of his life in Pleasant Hill.]]
* LittleMissBadass: Due to being all-powerful, Kobik is a force to be reckoned with. [[spoiler:Man Killer, one of the Masters of Evil, discovers this to her sorrow.]]
* MentalTimeTravel: [[spoiler: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.]]
* MoralityChain: 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.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Fixer has a breakdown in issue six when [[spoiler:he realizes that Kobik rescued him from his TimeLoop]].
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:Abe is missing after Kobik's implosion levels the Thunderbolts' headquarters.]]
* OnlySaneMan: Initially, Fixer is the only one who believes Kobik is too dangerous to let run around.
* PapaWolf: 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''.
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: Winter Soldier does this, having rescued the T-Bolts from [[ComicBook/AvengersStandoff Pleasant Hill]].
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Bucky and Zemo give one to each other in issue 12.
* ShoutOut:
** Jon Malin drew a sign that says [[Film/DarkCity "Shell Beach"]] on the Thunderbolt's tie-in issue to [[ComicBook/AvengersStandoff Avengers Standoff]].
** Moonstone refers to the moonstone as their "[[Literature/LordOfTheFlies conch shell]]" when she challenges Bucky's leadership.
** When Bucky reads Kobik a goodnight story, it's a book about the adventures of Ride/DisneyThemeParks character Dreamfinder.
** Kobik has a doll that quotes WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch's motto about family, except using the Polish word "rodzina" instead of the Hawaiian "Ohana". [[spoiler:(Since the German word, "Familie", would have made her true allegiance too obvious.)]]
*** Later, Kobik argues that they can't [[spoiler:abandon Bucky to SHIELD imprisonment]] with a quote from the same movie.
---->'''Kobik:''' [[EmbarrassingNickname Buckaroo]] is family. Family means no one gets ''left behind'' or ''forgotten''.
** To ask Atlas to build a snowman with her, Kobik sings "[[WesternAnimation/{{Frozen2013}} Do you wanna build a snowman?]]"
** The Thunderbolts leave Kobik with two seasons of WesternAnimation/GravityFalls to keep her occupied.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: 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. ZigZagged when she gets upset and threatens to kill everyone, which in her case is a plausible threat.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: 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 FemaleGaze.
* WhatTheHellHero: After discovering in issue #11 that Kobik [[spoiler: 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, [[spoiler: threatening to rip reality itself apart]].

-> See ComicBook/Thunderbolts2012

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!!Examples from the Daniel Way/Charles Soule (ComicBook/MarvelNOW) [=retool=]:
* AntiHeroTeam: Aside from Agent Venom, everyone is a well-intentioned ruthless killer.
* BloodierAndGorier: Compared to Parker's previous run, this relaunch is messier.
* BrickJoke: In Issue three, Deadpool notes to Ross that [[spoiler: Castle will personally put a bullet into the currently amnesic Leader's forehead if he found out Ross was using Leader to gain some insight]]. Come the end of the issue, [[spoiler: it does happen]], resulting in Deadpool telling Ross "I told 'ya!".
* CareBearStare: In the 2013 annual issue, Dr. Strange manages to immobilize most of the team with this. The only exception to this is The Punisher, who manages to resist it out of sheer joylessness.
* ColorMotif: Black and red. Lampshaded in issue 21. Some of the enemies they face are red and/or black as well, [[BlackAndGrayMorality for symbolic reasons]].
-->'''[[ComicBook/GhostRider Johnny Blaze]]:''' And the red thing? You guys are all in red.\\
'''[[ComicBook/{{Venom}} Flash Thompson]]:''' This is sort of Ross' thing, and he's the Red Hulk, so... All we need to do now is recruit ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}, I guess.
* DealWithTheDevil: Ross makes one with [[spoiler:Mercy]] that he later regrets so much that he contemplates and decides to make another with [[spoiler:Mephisto]] in a later arc to get out of the former one.
* DwindlingParty: During the Honduras arc [[spoiler:everyone save Ross is killed off one by one, mainly due to the Red Leader, only to be brought back at the end by ResetButton]].
* ETGaveUsWifi: According to Ross, American Cheese was reverse engineered from alien technology leftover from a thwarted alien invasion.
* EveryoneHatesMimes: Ross calmly eating his meal while Deadpool slaughters [[EnemyMime killer French mimes]].
* AGoodNameForARockBand: InUniverse. Deadpool notes this of "The Mercy Problem" in issue 21.
* HoneyTrap: A male example: The Punisher has Flash seduce Valkyrie so that he can steal her sword while they're busy.
** Elektra also does this when it was the Punisher's turn to set the mission. Venom, Punisher and Elektra needed to find the location of a mob hideout, so the three of them drove around all the skavvier neighborhoods with Elektra posing as a prostitute and luring thugs into the van...where Venom and Punisher were waiting to "interrogate" them.
* HonorBeforeReason: The Leader effortlessly tears the team apart by framing Ross for attempting to kill the Punisher after he leaves, knowing Frank and the team would likely take each other out, because Ross himself refuses to just tell the truth and say he didn't try to kill the Punisher.
* InNameOnly: ''Every'' single previous series, save the brief ''Fightbolts'' retool, had villains as the protagonists, and some sort of relationship with the original Thunderbolts team. This run is about a group of antiheroes, which named after their leader, Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. [[spoiler: Aside from two later revealed members The Red [[EvilGenius Leader]] and [[SealedEvilInACan Mercy]].]]
* KidnappedByAnAlly: How General Ross [[AggressiveNegotiations meets and recruits Frank Castle]] in the first issue.
* KilledMidSentence: PlayedForLaughs at the end of issue 18 when Deadpool asks someone to shoot him so he doesn't have to endure a 16 hour road trip in a van with no radio.
* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: Flash's reaction to [[ItMakesSenseInContext teaming up with Deadpool against Ross's mustache]] in Issue 22.
-->'''Agent Venom:''' I'm going to try to forget this ever happened.
* PinPullingTeeth:
** In #12, Elektra's brother Orestez Natchios does this at Hollywood. He pulls a grenade from his pocket and pulls the pin with his teeth before throwing it into the crowd, forcing The Punisher to save the bystanders rather than chase
** In #22, Elektra does this with one of Frank's grenades against Mercy. A JustifiedTrope, as her arm was pinned.
* MySkullRunnethOver: Having long since reached the physical limit on his constantly growing intellect, the Leader parceled it out in [[BrainUploading uploads]] to servers accessible over the internet with the correct code. When he gives his brother access to one the influx of information drastically inflates his head before it bursts.
* ShoutOut: The [[spoiler:code to open a secret base]] is the jukebox lineup "White Christmas", "Like A Surgeon", and a third, unrevealed song.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To Daniel Way's recently concluded Deadpool run.
* TokenEvilTeammate: The Leader, the only member who has avoided anything approaching a hero career.
* TokenGoodTeammate: While no one else on the team, Who are all II-Vs on [[Analysis/AntiHero the scale of anti-heroes]], is really ''evil'', [[ClassicalAntiHero Venom (Flash Thompson)]] is the only member of the team who is a through and through NiceGuy, SuperPoweredEvilSide not withstanding.
* YankTheDogsChain: [[spoiler:Johnny Blaze only gets to enjoy a few issues of freedom before the Ghost Rider returns to him.]]

* Hawkeye's Thunderbolts II: see ''ComicBook/Thunderbolts2022''.
* The Winter Soldier's Thunderbolts II: see ''ComicBook/Thunderbolts2023''.