Trivia / Thunderbolts

• All-Star Cast: The primary hook for the Warren Ellis incarnation of Thunderbolts was it was filled with several big named Antagonists for other established characters.
  • The Daniel Way/Charles Soule incarnation of the team. The entire team is made up of famous violent characters that were once villains and now have all turned Anti-Hero.
• Contest Winner Cameo: The series has used two characters created by fans and selected through contests: Charcoal and Humus Sapien. Charcoal was the winner of a Wizard magazine "Create A Villain" contest. Humus Sapien was the winner of a "Create An X-Man" contest in 1973, but who was never actually used. Both started as extras in Thunderbolts, but were then given more substantial roles.
• Executive Meddling: The original twist ending revealing the Thunderbolts to be the Masters of Evil is an example of Executive Meddling done right. To keep the twist ending of the first issue a secret, Kurt Busiek had to convince the execs not to tease at the ending in Previews. He even enlisted Peter David to get his editors to change the solicit for The Incredible Hulk issue where they first appear.
  • Charcoal was eventually killed off due to rights issues. The fan who created him claimed rights to the character.
  • Humorously, this was both the reason that Genis-Vell (Captain Marvel/Photon) was added to the team and the reason he was killed off.
• Milestone Celebration: Issue 10 of the ANAD volume marks the 20th anniversary of the Thunderbolts franchise... albeit a few months late.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: One day, two fans of Thunderbolts showed a fake ad for a 'Tastee Fruit Pies' starring the characters to Kurt Busiek, who liked it enough to show it to editorial. They came up with the idea to reillustrate the ad by giving it to Marie Severin, who had drawn many of the infamous Hostess Pie ads in the seventies. Unfortunately she was not available, so the task was given to the regular artists of the book, resulting in readers getting the uncannily-odd sensation of seeing authentic pictures of the Masters of Evil ranting about 'tasty fruit filling' and the like. You can read the entire bittersweet-tasting tale here.
• What Could Have Been:
  • At a very early stage in pre-production, Kurt Busiek had wanted Yellowjacket (Rita DeMara) to be one of the main characters in Thunderbolts. Busiek had planned to explore her backstory in greater detail, such as revealing that she was living under the name of her dead best friend after being pursued by the mob. Yellowjacket ended up being Killed Off for Real during The Crossing, making any future plans for her moot.
  • Issues 6-8 originally had the Kree instead of the Elements of Doom, possibly changed because of delays with Heroes Reborn.
  • According to Fabian Nicieza, Charcoal's apparent death at the hands of Graviton was not only meant to be temporary, but also the start of a new running subplot. The plan was to reveal that Charcoal had managed to reform his shattered body at the cost of some of his humanity, which would've eventually lead to the him becoming an outright villain. However, after the fan who designed Charcoal threatened legal action (despite not having much of a case) to regain ownership, it was decided to leave the character dead.
  • James Gunn had expressed interest in making a movie of the series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Kevin Feige said that it was a possibility if Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) did well enough at the box office. However, Guardians was a huge success (especially for a team that was relatively obscure even to most comic book fans), and plans were shelved so Gunn could work on the sequel. Amusingly enough, he's been hired to work on a Suicide Squad movie; which is also about supervillains doing heroic things. Eventually an MCU Thunderbolts movie was greenlit, albeit with a very different formation.