Marvel’s MCU Thunderbolts Movie Should Copy Civil War And Suicide Squad

With the Thunderbolts possibly joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe soon, Marvel Studios should copy the Civil War comics and Suicide Squad movie to introduce them. Fans have long expected Marvel’s team of villains to join the MCU before too long. After eleven years of waiting, though, the setup for Thunderbolts is finally growing in Phase 4. Marvel hasn’t announced plans for the team to get a movie or Disney+ series yet, but it might just be a matter of time before they debut.

The Thunderbolts have had many iterations in the comics, but they were originally created by Baron Zemo. In the wake of the Avengers dying in a major event, the Thunderbolts emerged to pick up the slack. It was later revealed in a twist that the members of Thunderbolts were actually Zemo and other villains posing as heroes. While Zemo planned for their heroics to help him conquer the world, some of the other reformed villains began to like playing heroes. Although this twist worked for the comics, the process of making and marketing a movie could keep a similar origin story from happening for the Thunderbolts. A version of it could still work as an in-universe twist to MCU heroes, but that concept can’t last.

If Marvel does make a Thunderbolts movie or show, they shouldn’t follow the “villains secretly playing heroes” approach. Instead, it could work better for them to borrow from the team’s usage in the comic Civil War story. It was there that the Thunderbolts were formed under the government supervision after Iron Man, Hank Pym, and Reed Richards suggested they could hunt down supervillains. With Zemo at the helm, the new-look Thunderbolts gave any villains they encountered the choice of going to prison or joining the Thunderbolts to hunt rogue heroes and others who were against the Superhuman Registration Act.

If this approach sounds a bit familiar, that’s because it is also almost identical to the setup for Suicide Squad. The DC movie recruited villains to join Task Force X to go on dangerous missions that, if successful, would reduce their sentencing. Even though the 2016 film wasn’t well-received, the core concept wasn’t the issue. Marvel could use the Thunderbolts to put their villains in a new light that could also prove to be a tonal and ideological break from the rest of the MCU’s heroic adventures.

Even though this would inevitably lead to comparisons between Suicide Squad and Thunderbolts, those are likely to come no matter how Marvel introduces their super-villain team. The good news for Marvel Studios is there is room to improve on what came before. James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad might prove to be the ideal version of the concept on the big screen both in terms of the scope and tone, but Marvel’s track record indicates Thunderbolts could better execute Suicide Squad‘s approach than the first film. Meanwhile, general audiences are not familiar with the Thunderbolts’ story in the Civil War comics, so Marvel can make any necessary changes in bringing them to the big screen with a similar setup.

Since Marvel’s Phase 4 slate doesn’t include Thunderbolts yet, it remains to be seen when a potential movie could be released and how the story will be adapted. There are certainly some intriguing possibilities ahead, though, depending on how Marvel Studios decides to bring the Thunderbolts into the fold.