Thunderbolts is an December 2012 ongoing comic from Marvel Comics, released as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch, and initially written by Daniel Way with Steve Dillon on art, and Charles Soule took over as writer with issue 12.
The series stars a new team of Thunderbolts brought together by former long time Hulk nemesis and recent Avenger, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross aka the Red Hulk, with the initial line up consisting of Agent Venom (Flash Thompson), The Punisher, Elektra and Deadpool.
In the aftermath of Avengers vs. X-Men, General Ross decides the best way to deal with threats is to put them down for good, forming a strike-team team of former soldiers and trained killers to do just that.
Thunderbolts (2012) provides examples of:
- Anti-Hero Team: Aside from Agent Venom, everyone is a well-intentioned ruthless killer.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Compared to Parker's previous run, this relaunch is messier.
- Brick Joke: In Issue three, Deadpool notes to Ross that 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, it does happen, resulting in Deadpool telling Ross "I told 'ya!".
- Care-Bear Stare: 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.
- Color Motif: Black and red. Lampshaded in issue 21. Some of the enemies they face are red and/or black as well, for symbolic reasons.Johnny Blaze: And the red thing? You guys are all in red.
Flash Thompson: This is sort of Ross' thing, and he's the Red Hulk, so... All we need to do now is recruit Daredevil, I guess. - Continuity Nod:
- Frank Castle is killed by Mercy, but resurrected by the angel feather Deadpool put in his cap. When asked how this was possible, Castle grumps that he doesn't want to talk about it—a reference to the time he worked as a hitman for Heaven.
- Johnny Blaze attempts to use the Penance Stare to take down Agent Venom. It works about as well as the time Danny Ketch tried to use it on Eddie Brock—which is to say, it backfired horribly.
- Deal with the Devil: Ross makes one with Mercy that he later regrets so much that he contemplates and decides to make another with Mephisto in a later arc to get out of the former one.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In the annual the team goes up against Doctor Strange... who turns out to be a Cthulhumanoid named Oberoth'm'gozz—one of the eldritch gods written about by H. P. Lovecraft. One by one the team get taken down by it... except for the Punisher, since the only thing that makes him happy is killing. Which is exactly what Castle does to the King of the True Fairies.
- Dwindling Party: 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
- ET Gave Us Wifi: According to Ross, American Cheese was reverse engineered from alien technology leftover from a thwarted alien invasion.
- Everyone Hates Mimes: Ross calmly eating his meal while Deadpool slaughters killer French mimes.
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: In-Universe. Deadpool notes this of "The Mercy Problem" in issue 21.
- Honey Trap:
- 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.
- Honor Before Reason: 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.
- In Name Only: 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 is named after their leader, Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. Aside from two later revealed members The Red Leader and Mercy.
- Kidnapped by an Ally: How General Ross meets and recruits Frank Castle in the first issue.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Played for Laughs 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.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Flash's reaction to teaming up with Deadpool against Ross's mustache in Issue 22.Agent Venom: I'm going to try to forget this ever happened.
- Pin-Pulling Teeth:
- 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 Justified Trope, as her arm was pinned.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Having long since reached the physical limit on his constantly growing intellect, the Leader parceled it out in 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.
- Shout-Out: The code to open a secret base is the jukebox lineup "White Christmas", "Like A Surgeon", and a third, unrevealed song.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Agent Venom finds himself forced to cut the Venom symbiote loose on several occasions, such as when facing down the entirety of the Maggia or up against a horde of Frost Giants—its response typically being to go on a feeding frenzy. Concerned about the number of times this has happened, Flash decides to leave the team after testing them to see if they could defeat the symbiote if he truly lost control of it, letting it go on a rampage through the base.
- Token Evil Teammate: The Leader, the only member who has avoided anything approaching a hero career.
- Token Good Teammate: While no one else on the team, Who are all II-Vs on the scale of anti-heroes, is really evil, Venom (Flash Thompson) is the only member of the team who is a through and through Nice Guy, Superpowered Evil Side not withstanding.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Johnny Blaze only gets to enjoy a few issues of freedom before the Ghost Rider returns to him.
