Warning: Thunderbolts (2023) is a direct sequel to events in Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America: Symbol of Truth, and Captain America: Cold War, so Late Arrival Spoilers for those comics may be unmarked on this page.
Justice, like lightning.
Thunderbolts is an upcoming December 2023 ongoing comic from Marvel Comics, written by Colin Kelley and Jackson Lanzing, and art by Geraldo Borges.
It is a relaunch of Thunderbolts and the team's first ongoing monthly book since the conclusion of Jim Zub's original run prior to Secret Empire in 2017. It is also a sequel series to Kelly and Lanzing's Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, picking up Bucky Barnes' storyline following the conclusion of Team Cap's conflict with the Outer Circle.
Pre-release material for Thunderbolts provides examples of:
- The Bus Came Back:
- Bucky Barnes returns to the Thunderbolts for the first time since Jim Zub's original run (2016-2017), let alone as the team leader.
- Natasha Romanov returns to the team for the first time since Andy Diggle's Dark Reign-era run (albeit that time, she was posing as Yelena Belova).
- John Walker returns to the team for the first time since Devil's Reign.
- While Shang-Chi has never been on the team, he's at least making his return to a monthly Marvel book for the first time since the conclusion of Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings in late 2022.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Hellfire Club is often a gathering of rich villains who wish to influence or take over the world. However, issue #2 shows that all of the members don't want anything to do with the Red Skull.
- Oh, Crap!: Bucky reacts this way at the end of issue #2 when he learns that the Red Skull is already Back from the Dead and is in Latveria.
- Robot Me: The first issue reveals that the original Contessa died years ago, and that the one currently active is actually a copy of her mind in a state of the art LMD.
- Sequel Series: To Lanzing and Kelly's Captain America, picking up Bucky's storyline following the Outer Circle conflict.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The initial press release in July 2023 spoils the events of Lanzing and Kelly's Captain America Finale, which would not be released until a month later.
- Transplant: Bucky and Sharon (and to a lesser extent Nat) are carried over from Lanzing and Kelly's Captain America.
- Variant Cover: Mahmud Astar
provides the variant promo cover.
