Thunderbolts*: The MCU’s Most Complex Look at Grief and Trauma

I’m not really going to “review” Thunderbolts*. There’s a zillion of those, you don’t need mine. What I would like to do is talk about how it deals with the characters’ grief, depression, and loneliness. I’m doing that by looking at some of the quotes that stayed with me after watching.

We catch up first with Yelena Belova, doing clean-up work for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She is struggling mightily, with her history as a Red Room assassin, and with the loss of her sister Natasha. But right from the start, we see an issue. There’s nothing wrong *with* Yelena. She’s been through unimaginable trauma, even for someone living in the MCU. It’s understandable that she’d be in pain. She needs help, and no one is providing it.

She visits her father, Alexei (in case you don’t remember, they were all posing as a family in the US in the 90s), who Yelena hasn’t seen in a year. The former Red Guardian is stuck in the past, barely keeping things together by watching old footage of himself and ordering takeout. He yearns for connection and for his life to mean something, like it did back then. Alexei clearly cares about Yelena but isn’t quite sure how to help her.

The pattern of depression and loneliness continues as we meet the rest of the cast. John Walker, the disgraced former Captain America, whose wife left him and took his child. He had a very public failure while holding the shield, and like Yelena he tries to throw himself into his work to feel better (or feel SOMETHING). Ghost, the former Hydra!SHIELD operative who lost both her parents in the lab accident that gave her powers.

The main group of misfits is brought together when Valentina sends them all on a final “clean-up” mission at a remote site. The inevitable superhero fight occurs, but is interrupted by “Bob”. Bob isn’t sure why he’s there (he came out of suspended animation in a crate), but ends up showing off amazing powers while hinting at an even more horrific upbringing.

Valentina wastes no time in attempting to make Bob her puppet. She charms Bob with his costume, and she talks him up. Tells him he’s ‘perfect’, and that she she accepts him. He’s oblivous to the manipulation, desperate for someone to like him, to matter. She knows about the horrific abuse he dealt with, the drugs, and she’s good with him? It’s what he always wanted to hear.

As you can imagine, Bob goes off the rails quickly. She dresses him up in the costume (very comics-accurate!), coaxes him to try out his powers, tells him he can do “anything”. Valentina sets him up to easily wipe the floor with the Thunderbolts*…and he immediately questions why a god needs to take orders from her?

From here on out, it’s not a typical superhero dust-up. Val attempts to kill Sentry with a failsafe when he questions her, but of course it doesn’t take. This allows the dark side of Bob’s personality to take hold. Quite literally, the darkness envelops him, and he truly becomes the Void. Hovering ominously over New York, he begins…what seems like removing people from existence. All that’s left behind is a blast shadow. Imagine the terror the people of New York feel, still recovering from The Blip. The Void spreads outward, more and more people swallowed up.

After a heartwarming reunion between Alexei and Yelena, and everyone getting a few superhero moments rescuing civilians, Bob/The Void takes aim at our team. Yelena willingly steps into the shadow, and we see her ‘shame room’ again. It’s her first Red Room test, luring another girl into the forest to be killed. She escapes that room but only ends up in another. The Thunderbolts, trusting that Yelena knows what she is doing, follow her into the Void.

We soon learn that it isn’t killing them, but imprisoning them in a room that shows them their deepest shame. Which might be worse. Yelena fights past multiple shame rooms until she finds Bob. He’s hiding in one of the less bad rooms, which, after you see it, helps you understand just how bad his life has been.

Bucky, Walker, and the rest of the Thunderbolts finds their way out of their respective rooms and they decide that the key to getting out (and helping Bob) is to go to the worst room.

The worst room turns out to be the lab where it all started. It’s the building we see Yelena destroy at the beginning of the movie. Bob talks about how he hoped the trial drug would make him stronger, to show everyone that he was “more…something”.

The Void traps everyone else, and Bob tries to fight it. It does not go well. It becomes clear, especially to Yelena and Bucky that the Void *wants* Bob to fall fully into despair. Yelena breaks free and…hugs Bob. The rest of the team follow suit, letting him know he’s not alone, and maybe for the first time in his life, it is true.

As someone who has struggled with belonging and the fear of being alone throughout his whole life, this movie delivered one hell of a gut punch. Clearly it did, I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. But seriously, a found family story, where the “villain” was defeated through the power of love? And ends up living with that family of traumatized heroes? Honestly I was tearing up before I knew what was happening.

Is Marvel “back”? That remains to be seen. I’m on record as having my doubts about the whole RDJ as Doom plan. But I loved this, and while Brave New World was uneven, I had some fun with it. Thunderbolts was several steps above that, now we need The Fantastic Four to hit.

Thunderbolts is now available to rent or buy.