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Y. M. Nelson: Hello, Nerdy Romantics. We are here talking Thunderbolts* today, and today I have with me Jen, Perry, and Marcie to talk about Thunderbolts*. As with just about everything else that I talk about TV and movie wise, we’re probably gonna spoil it, so spoiler alert.

​[spoiler alert klaxon]

Y. M. Nelson: All right, so stay tuned.

We are talking Thunderbolts* today.

This is the Nerdy Romantics Podcast, and I’m your host, YM Nelson.

How’s everybody doing?

Jen G.: Hello! Hello! Hello!

Perry C.: Hello.

Y. M. Nelson: Yay. Oh gosh. I’m so happy to have y’all here. Because with Thunderbolts*, I’ll just say they’re question marks. Okay. Question marks in my mind. So, I wanted to see what everybody else thought about Thunderbolts*.

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[00:01:22] Perry’s Update

Y. M. Nelson: But since we have the gang on here, and Perry, you know what, it’s been a minute since we’ve actually heard what you have been doing writer wise and podcast wise. Perry, tell us what you got going on writer wise and podcast wise.

Perry C.: So not a whole lot. I do have an urban fantasy trilogy out, but I’m not sure how much I can trust that publisher to keep that going.

So just refrain from advertising that. But I am doing a sci-fi serial through Patreon. So, if anyone’s interested in that, it is two episodes a week, $3 a month for advanced reading, and then one episode a week starting in December if you wanna go on the free tier.

So, if you like Firefly, if you like, any sort of like sci-fi, space pirate type stuff, you definitely wanna check that out.

And that is at PercivalConstantine.com or patreon.com/PercivalConstantine.

Y. M. Nelson: All right, cool. We will have the links in the show notes as well. And maybe down in the description below if I can get my act together. Y’all know how I do. Oh gosh.

But how’s everybody else doing today? Marcie? Jen, how y’all doing?

Marcie: Doing great. Doing great.

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[00:02:41] First thoughts on Thunderbolts*/viewing experience

Y. M. Nelson: That’s good. I’m, I’m glad to hear it. So, Thunderbolts*, let’s talk about first how we came upon Thunderbolts*. Like did we go to the movie theater? Were we looking out for this one? Did we even know that this one existed until it. Let’s be honest. Marcie, what about you?

Marcie: So, I didn’t, but my nephew is a huge movie fan, Marvel fan.

And so, when he saw that it was available that it was in theaters, he asked if we could go see it. And so, we did a little family outing to see Thunderbolts*.

Y. M. Nelson: Awesome, awesome sauce. Jen, how about you?

Jen G.: I totally knew that Thunderbolts* was coming out. I am a fan of Florence Pugh though. And so, ah, yeah.

So, she had kinda talked about some of the work that she was doing on, posting pictures and all of that kind of thing. And and then in the month or so before, it just really ramped up in terms of posting some behind the scene pictures and press tour, press junket kind of pictures. So yeah, I was excited.

I was, I was ready for this, ready to go all in and, and watch it. And I had my hesitations because I really didn’t know like, what they were gonna do with the story. And that’s always, that’s always the heart for me. I’m like, what are, what exactly are we doing? I love the special effects and all that kinda stuff, but I’m here for the story and I loved what they did.

I really loved it. So

Y. M. Nelson: cool.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Perry, how about you? Did you see this one in the theater? Was this one one that you were waiting for? I know it’s not Superman, but

Perry C.: not Superman. Yeah. But no. Yeah, I I could talk a little bit later about the, the comics influences, but I was a little bit. I was not sure what to expect from Thunderbolts*.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Because it’s,

Y. M. Nelson: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: It’s very different from what it is in the comics, so and it, it, it felt that they were just kinda like slapping the name on it and it didn’t really feel like it fit with what the comic idea was. So, I was a little bit skeptical going into it, but but I did see it in the theater.

I see pretty much all the comic book movies in theaters if I can. So, I, I did go to see this one in the theater and man, I love it. I, it was, it was a lot of fun. Really enjoyed it, seen it a few times since, you know, I’ve got it on digital and, you know, still, still digging it each time.

Marcie: Oh, I didn’t say how I felt about it, but I will agree.

The family and I enjoyed it. We loved it. Yep.

Y. M. Nelson: Okay, cool beans.

Jen G.: I’m hundred percent watching wishing though that I had watched it multiple times now because I didn’t, yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Oh, because you did. So how long has it been since you.

Jen G.: Actually, well only about 30 minutes, so I went and, oh, I went and re-watched it this afternoon.

Okay. And I was like, yeah. So, I have, there’s certain things that are fresh in my mind. I did have to fast forward a little bit, but,

Marcie: so, I have not seen it since the theater’s in July, so. Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Oh, this is gonna be an interesting discussion,

Jen G.: Uhhuh.

Y. M. Nelson: I see, I see. This is gonna be something else. Well unlike all of you, I did not see this one in the theater.

I actually, I was planning to see this one in the theater, but around the time where I was planning to see it in the theater, I lost my full-time job. And so, it’s been job search ever since then. And so that means movie money goes towards something else. But I did see it on streaming.

It’s probably right at, right as soon as it came out on streaming, like the day after I saw it on streaming, which was, as of this recording, it was probably about a month and a half, maybe two months ago, I think.

And and like Jen, I saw it a little bit earlier today to remind myself exactly what was this about.

And also, because I thought I didn’t have any notes for it, but I do have some notes for it, but the notes kind of don’t make sense. So. Okay. In that vein I’m gonna to I’m gonna try to go over what I see here and ask for y’all’s help with making sure that this connects because yeah. I made some notes a few months ago and yeah, I’m like, what did I say then?

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[00:07:27] Is this the connector movie we needed?

Y. M. Nelson: What is going on here? But one thing that I wanted, I knew that I wanted to try to do a few months ago, and that I thought, you know, I thought that this movie was doing, that we were thinking other movies were doing was being a connector kind of movie.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And I don’t know if y’all felt the same way of it being kind of a I don’t wanna say tie in, but being kind of a connector, a movie that kind of connects what we may know and

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: What we may nostalgically have in our minds when we first started watching MCU and kind what we’re thinking about now.

So, in the past we’ve talked about the Marvels being a connector movie and a tie in movie, and we said maybe on that we said maybe possibly tie in kind of thing with Captain America a little bit.

But I think this one really is kind of that connector movie, or at least that movie that is pulling us forward in the MCU.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. What, what do y’all think? Yeah, Jen,

Jen G.: I feel like there was,

Y. M. Nelson: yeah,

Jen G.: I feel like there was some, some stuff that happened in the, in the TV series. So specifically in Falcon and Winter Soldier.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: That part of the, that there were some things that happened there that. If you haven’t seen the TV series, you might be a little confused and kind of come into this movie a little, you know, kind of on your back foot going, I’m not, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here. And and so this was a great movie though, to kind of bring people, like bring these folks really to the forefront of the of the theatrical release.

’cause not everybody watches everything that comes out unlike

Y. M. Nelson: Right.

Jen G.: I watch almost everything that comes out. So, I, so I do see how that was kind of getting people from, from a couple different places. I mean, Yelena made another she was obviously in in some of the movies like Widow, but she had, we saw a lot more of her in Hawkeye, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Yes.

Jen G.: She makes this appearance in Hawkeye and we get a little bit more of sort of personality, a little bit more sense of, of who she is as a person as opposed to somebody who’s sort of the. A a lower level, you know, sort of character. And of course, we had her in the Black Widow movie, which was a black widow movie.

And then Yelena was the you know, was the, the, the sister. So, we got to see, we got to see a little bit more of these guys in the t in the television shows. And so but this bringing them all to the big screen all to kind of also put them, give them all an immediate way to feel, we’re all gonna feel something about them because they, because the movie spends a lot of time going into into their, their backstories and humanizing them a lot in a way that we don’t usually see about our, our villains and our bad guys, and our, you know, comic relief, if you will that these guys have, have been playing in the previous movies.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: And I think, having also recently seen Captain America: Brave New World, of course.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: And so, seeing Valentina and then seeing her again.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: I think, you know, there was a definitely a connector there.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: And she’s one of my favorite, like, you don’t see her coming, but yeah. I love, but I love to see her on screen.

I love her dynamic. And I think, you know, Julia Louis Dreyfuss is, is killing the role. So, there was that connection there, and it was, that to me was the most recent, because I don’t watch most of the TV shows.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: So, for me, that was the most recent theatrical connection for me. ’cause I, I don’t watch most of the the series.

And so, I thought that was fun. And then of course, seeing the hidden credit and then the hidden scene, the posting credit and seeing

Y. M. Nelson: mm-hmm.

Marcie: Fantastic Four and that lead in, of course, my nephew is beside me saying, we gotta see that. So, it was also, I think, a way to try to tee up that franchise, which

Y. M. Nelson: Yes.

Marcie: Has people have mixed feelings about as well.

Y. M. Nelson: Yes, very much so. So,

Marcie: so yeah, I do think it was a connector series. I think it was also a way because it’s so long before the next Avengers comes out, that I also think they were trying to keep people engaged and excited about what might be coming.

And to Jen’s point, pulling the story forward as, as that happens, just moving us to where we’re gonna start the next round and kind of helping us to, to move past where we thought we were. ’cause you know, the timelines get a little scary.

And so, I do think it was a, it was intended to be a connector. Whether or not that works remains to be seen or whether or not it was necessary. Really.

I mean, if you’re an Avengers fan, you’re going to see their new Avengers regardless. And I don’t know if it helped Fantastic Four at all to, to have them launch them in that one, but I, I think that was the intent.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. As as one of the three here who are not necessarily comic book readers, but all in, on MCU or, or at least mostly in on MCU.

At this point in the MCU, I’ve noticed a lot of people who are either in the MCU or just got into it because they wanted to see, Chris Hemsworth swing a hammer. You know, there’s a little fatigue happening and so I think for me, or in my opinion, this movie got just revive things a little bit.

You know, I think Captain America, when I went into Captain America: Brave New World, I wanted that one to revive things, but I got confused when I left there, and I really wanted that one to do what I think this one does.

But I don’t think everybody that probably needed a little reviving or whatever. Got to see this one. I’m not sure how that happened. I think to a certain extent though, I agree that it was totally a connector movie. There’s so many different things that we’ve seen everybody in this movie, in that either if you haven’t seen ’em, you’re, you’re not as enriched. Or if you haven’t seen them, you may be a little lost now, I don’t know.

Marcie: Hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, I feel like the story itself, if you go in and you don’t know these people at all, and you go in and you watch the story itself, you’re gonna get a good story. You’re gonna get a good movie.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: But if you go in with at least a few of these connectors, like, Valentina and her antics, or Falcon and the Winter Soldier  or Hawkeye, Black Widow, Agents Of Shield, whatever.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: If you’ve got at least a couple of connectors, you’re going to get a little more enrichment. You know what I mean? You’re gonna feel things a little more . It’s gonna feel a little more like, when we first started watching, maybe not that, but you kind of get a little bit of the revival, or at least that’s how I felt a little bit.

Marcie: So, I didn’t get, I don’t know that I felt that as much, but what I did feel was that I got to see the other side of things. I got to see the other side of the snap, the other side of heroism. I gotta see the other side of being a superhero. And I got to see, and I think it gets reinforced in Fantastic Four, but we get to see what that sacrifice really costs them.

Because we don’t see it in the big theatrical ones. We don’t see what it costs them necessarily. Like you see, you know, Hawkeye leaving his family, you see those kinds of things. But I think it gave, it gave a different perspective of what it is to be a hero, and especially what it is to be a hero when people are fickle and when your heroism is relative, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: When you don’t deliver the way, the people expect you to, or when there are no more missions or when you do too much, you, you, you cross the line that people, you can, you can, you can save us and this many people can, can die, but this many people is too much and you know what I’m saying? Like, you get to see what it feels like when.

When you are expendable well, where you’re perceived as expendable. Yeah. And what happens in that. And I thought, to me that was to your point, a really good story and a really good perspective because I think it’s one, it was interesting to see the other side of what happens. Like we see a little bit of it in some of the Avengers where you, see, Black Widow Scarlet Witch, no Black Widow like looking for like keeping things running when everybody’s missing and, and accounted for.

You see a little bit of that and you

Y. M. Nelson: Yes.

Marcie: See a little bit of that. You see a little bit when you see Thor fat on the couch in the struggle. You see a little bit of that. But I think this to me was kind of more of that. And to your point, I really enjoy getting to know these characters in a different way and getting

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: To see more of them. In character development than we normally see when there’s a war, a big war or something.

Y. M. Nelson: Right? Exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. Perry, what about you? Did you feel that this was a connector in the MCU and, and is this even a connector in comic book world?

Perry C.: So yes, to both of those, but with some clarifying words too.

Y. M. Nelson: Okay.

Perry C.: Yes, it is, it is a connector, right? It does pick up stories from a lot of basically like supporting characters from other stuff, right? So, we see all these different characters who have had supporting roles and other stuff, like Yelena, who really is the take center stage here. This is basically her movie.

But we also get John Walker, Bucky. I mean, Bucky, you, you could argue he was more than a supporting character, but we’re picking up more stuff. He’s kind of , I think he’s like probably the glue to the larger MCU that more people are familiar with. Yeah. But then also, you know Taskmaster pops back up.

Ghost pops back up. We haven’t seen or even heard of since Antman and The Wasp. So so yeah, this is a good way to kind of like go back into these characters and touch on them in a way that felt much more organic than it did in Brave New World. And we were touching back on what happened with the Leader and the rest of the Incredible Hulk crew.

So that aspect. Yeah. I, but even though it is a connector, it is also does move things forward, right? So, we do see this new Avengers team formed as a result of this and what happens here.

And then we also get that connection to Fantastic Four. We, we get hints of what we’re gonna see in Doomsday. Cause they’re talking about, stuff happening in space.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: And, and this conflict between Sam’s Avengers and Bucky’s Avengers. So, we’ve got all this stuff going on that does link it to the larger MCU, but at the core of this movie is, it’s not a connector at its core.

At its core, this is a movie about these broken people, and I think that they really zeroed in on that, and they really kind of, yes, it connects to other stuff. Yes, we are looking back in on these characters that have been in these disparate projects, but that is not the core of this movie. The core of this movie is the characters itself.

It is dealing with their failures, dealing with their,

Marcie: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Mental issues and all that. So, I thought that was a really interesting way to do it compared to some other movies that, you know, people have thought were just. Purely about, okay, let’s just move things forward. Let’s just see how we can connect it to other stuff.

Right? This one they did, they really put character first. And the connector stuff was just, if you know, you know, type of thing. It was, it was very much sort of, it was, it was kind of a reward for people who have been keeping up with all the different movies and all the different TV shows. And if you have been doing that, then you will definitely get a lot out of this.

But I do think that this movie was a little bit underserved in the marketing because I don’t think it was marketed the best. Like I said, even going into it, yeah, I didn’t really know what to expect of it from the marketing. And I didn’t really have any preconceptions from the comics because this is very different from how it is in the comics.

So, all of that to say, like, going into it, I’m just like, I, what am, what are we gonna do here? What is this? Is this just gonna be a way to tread water and throw some of the characters together? ‘Cause we don’t have access to the big-name characters is what it felt like with from the marketing. But, when I actually went and saw it, I was blown away by how good the character stuff really was in this.

Now as for the comics, the Thunderbolts has gone through a few different incarnations. The first one was, there was this big event in the nineties called Onslaught when the, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers basically sacrificed themselves to stop this, this big threat.

They actually got transported to a pocket universe. But that’s whole other discussion.

Y. M. Nelson: Oh my gosh, pocket universe, let’s not.

Perry C.: But anyway, so in the main Marvel universe, though, there was no Fantastic four. There were no Avengers. So, they’re all the this question of, who’s gonna fill the void? And then this new team popped up, this new comic book popped up called Thunderbolts. And it was this team of like, all, it was built as this team of all new heroes.

And and then, and the, the first issue was billed as a, you won’t believe the shocking secret behind these characters. And then you get to the end of the first of the first issue and the leader of the team, citizen V pulls off his mask and he’s got this scarred face and he puts on another mask and he’s actually Baron Zemo.

And all the Thunderbolts* were Avengers villains who were operating in disguise. And so, it was this whole idea of we are going to pose as heroes to trick the public into trusting us, and then we’re gonna take over the world type of thing. So,

Y. M. Nelson: oh my gosh.

Perry C.: And then as the series progressed, some of these characters, they realize, hey, being a hero is actually kind of fun.

People like us now, we we’re getting all this praise, and we feel good about ourselves. So, there’s this real push and pull between the characters. So, some of the characters honestly decided to take on a redemptive side. They eventually got betrayed by Zemo.

Zemo showed his true colors and, the team broke away from him. And then Hawkeye ended up taking them under his wing and leading them for a long time and helping them reform. And they went through a few different incarnations of this idea of like trying to reform.

And then later on. After the Civil War crossover, it became more of a Suicide Squad type of thing, where the Thunderbolts was kind of like the Suicide Squad thing where they were have like these, these villains who would be forced to work for the government and that kind of thing.

And and then after that was a very terrible version with the Red Hulk leading them as his personal hit squad with like Punisher and Electra and Deadpool. And it was just, it was a terrible one. Nobody, nobody likes that one.

And eventually they’ve gone back to basics. You’ve had Bucky leading a more recent version that’s similar to what we see here. So, they were trying to do like movie synergy, but aside from those.

The characters that have had associations with the Thunderbolts Yelena was part of it. When it was the, the Suicide Squad type thing, the Ghost was too, but it was a very, it was a different version of the Ghost, like the Ava Star version was created for the MCU. There was a different version of him in the comics. Bucky was part of a later incarnation of the team. US agent was kind of involved with them, but after this big crossover, he actually got ended up in a wheelchair, and he was serving as the warden of The Raft. So, he was kind of like leading the program as like the warden of The Raft type of thing.

But yeah, none of the main characters really that people most associate with the comic are in this movie and it doesn’t really have any of those same connections to the movie.

Like at first, I thought they were gonna go for the the Suicide Squad type thing, but it’s really not that either. Right? We find out that they’re all right, they all just basically just band together out of chance, or not chance, but out of desperation more or less.

Y. M. Nelson: Right.

Perry C.: So, yeah. Yes, it’s a connector in both the comics and in the movies, but it’s also its own thing too.

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[00:24:41] The Reluctant Hero Trope

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. But it’s interesting that you say that one iteration of it is a Suicide Squad kind of thing, because that’s kind at the beginning. That’s kind of how you feel about kind of,

Marcie: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Them when they’re coming together, you get that Suicide Squad kind of feel, even though they’re not suicide squad obviously, but you get that kind of feel of a rag tag band of people who don’t wanna be heroes.

So, the reluctant hero trope

Marcie: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Is like everywhere in this, and all of them have, which this, connects with the theme of, depression and mental health. All of them have something about them that somebody could say, this person’s a loser kind of feeling.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know they all have just something about them that has that, like, no, I can’t be a leader. No, I can’t, I can’t do this.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, we’re just trying to get, like Yelena says, we’re just trying to get home. Mm-hmm. It’s like we’re not trying to lead anything.

I think the only person that really wants to get together and be is Red Guardian.

Marcie: Right. I was like, it’s not Red Guardian. He really, he really seems to be about, about this life. He was like, yeah, that’s cool.

Y. M. Nelson: I know he’s so all in it. I’m, oh gosh, he’s so all in it. I love it. It was like that same energy but times 10 from Black Widow. Like, he was like that in Black Widow, and then he just amped it up here. I was just like, this is so fun.

But we get that kind of reluctant hero here from, from all of them, and I think that’s really kind of the, to me there’s two, there’s two major things why I really like this movie.

One is they’re all reluctant heroes.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And they all have issues. And so, in a sense, they’re all relatable.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

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[00:26:42] The dramatic side of the movie

Y. M. Nelson: Right. You know, they all have something going on, so they’re all kind of relatable. And then the second thing is that the theme of depression and the character of The Void and everything like that

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Gives us kind of a humanizing of superheroes. Right?

Jen G.: Yeah.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know?

Jen G.: Exactly.

Y. M. Nelson: Kind of a dramatic, like a humanizing kind of thing, which also makes it relatable.

So even if you don’t know anything about any of these folks and you’ve never seen anything that any of these characters have been in, it’s just a really good movie based on that.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, I mean, okay, so I’m not the only one that’s thinking that. All right. All right.

Jen G.: So, no. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think that Marvel, Marvel did so many, they did so many movies that were sort of your you know, your standard superhero movie, right? We’ve got we’ve got somebody with superpowers.

They’ve got something that they have to solve. They have to use those superpowers to like solve something. And they started exploring, you know, sort of some of these other themes in the television shows, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Jen G.: And they really started to kind of play around with how they tell a story and what it is that they’re doing to convey, you know, more, more about the character, make it, make it deeper and more meaningful with in the confines of the, of the superhero MCU kind of world, right?

And so, I love that they have taken a lot of that onto the screen as opposed to leaving it on the television shows, because I feel like in television, they really explored some themes. They explored grief, they’ve explored racism, they’ve explored you know, this this feeling of, I don’t know what place I have in the world anymore. They’ve explored that as well.

And so now we have it on the big screen. We have an exploration of regret and and all the things that you’ve done that, what are the things that you’ve done that make you who you are and what are the choices that you make going forward in terms of choosing who you want to be?

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: And and so we have, which is a really big, that’s a very big theme to like, explore within, you know, superheroes and, and explosions.

Y. M. Nelson: Right. Exactly.

Marcie: I think, I think you’re right because when you see and going back to the Captain America: Brave New World, you see Bucky choosing to be a hero, but having no special superpower.

Yeah. And then in this film, you see people who initially chose not to be the hero.

Jen G.: Right.

Marcie: And then also have to grapple with, and how can I be a hero with no special? Like, what makes a hero? Right. And yeah. And, and, and they have to overcome having already been a villain and having already made

Jen G.: exactly

Marcie: those mistakes and having to decide

Jen G.: exactly

Marcie: if that’s who you are forever.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: Or if you can choose to be something different. Yeah. And also recognizing that choice is relative. That for most of them, those choices were survival choices. At most of the points in time, they weren’t necessarily, I’m going to go out, like Megamind, I’m gonna go out and be, you know, a villain.

Today it was more this person. Most of the time there was someone who said that they saw something in them, and this was their way to be accepted in a space, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: To to be included. And it just so happened that in the doing, it was the on the bad side of the world. Right. But it got them, what they could imagine was love or family or community or something.

And so, to see them rebuild that and have to try to shed some of those layers and like you said, drop some of those, some of those things, and decide if they’re gonna continue to carry those on

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Marcie: To the future. And then have to confront those

Jen G.: Yeah.

Marcie: Things to move past them. I think you’re right, Yvonne, from a mental health perspective, , it was a good story and I think it is one that kind of resonates.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: I, I do think it’s one that we don’t often see. ’cause you do see the heroic, special powers gifted from birth. Amazing. You know, and now you see these people who have the same journeys that we would have and

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Marcie: And have to choose to be more than they think they are, more than they have been before in order. And, and they have to, they have to take a lot of flack from people who don’t even appreciate the choices they’re making.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm. Right.

Marcie: But still make them. And I think that that’s, you know, I think that was an important story.

It was also like a good story.

And you meet Bob and, Bob’s got some special challenges going on too. And

Y. M. Nelson: yeah,

Marcie: and, and so I think that there was just, I mean, it was a good story. I didn’t know nearly as much about all of the characters. ’cause again, I didn’t watch the show, so there were a few that I didn’t have any knowledge of until the movie.

But yeah, I think it was, I think they did. It was, I think to me it was one of the first times we really got to see the characters evolve and really stay with them through that evolution. Most of the time we’re coming in and out so fast.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: Because we’re telling so many stories and trying to get to so many places.

And even in Captain America: Brave New World, I felt like it was five different stories, and I was trying to keep up and trying to

Jen G.: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Marcie: Trying to follow everybody. So, I think it was nice to slow it down a little. ’cause I do feel like the pace of this one was. Slower. It felt slower. Yeah. It had more gravitas.

It was weightier. And so, I felt like it was slower and I could, we could immerse ourselves in the characters and in, in their stories and in their backstories in a way that we don’t get in some of the big

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Marcie: Bang, boom, pow kind of movies.

Jen G.: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Perry C.: Yeah. I think where, where Marvel does best or where it’s traditionally done best is when they use the superhero movie as a, basically kind of like a costume for like another type of movie.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: So,

Y. M. Nelson: yes.

Perry C.: You know, for like so I mean, the Captain America movies are a good example of this, right? The first one is basically a pulpy World War II adventure, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: The, the second one is a modern-day political thriller, right?

Marcie: Yeah.

Perry C.: But it’s just got the mask of a captain of a superhero on.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: But at, at the court, that’s what it is, right? You know, I mean, First Avenger has a lot more in common with Indiana Jones than it does with say, Superman, the movie.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: You know, Dr. Strange is this metaphysical fantasy film. The Ant Man movies are caper films and, and things like that when, that’s what the Gardens of the Galaxy movies, right? Space Opera.

And when they’ve used that and they’ve kind of clued into that as like, here’s this other type of movie we’re gonna tell, but the main character just happens to be a superhero instead. And I think some of the movies, they’ve kind of gotten away from that.

And so, like when we talked about Brave New World, they, they had some of the political thriller stuff in it, but they pulled back and whenever they did that and they focused more on the superhero, they, they put the superhero elements more as their focus as opposed to, this is a political thriller with a superhero in it, the movie itself lost focus.

Whereas this one, it clued in the fact that this is gonna be a story about mental health. This is gonna be a character study piece. And yeah, it just so happens that the characters in it happen to wear, funny costumes and that was it.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: That was, but otherwise, at its core, it was that, that character driven movie and

Marcie: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: And it was nice because if you had that advanced knowledge of these characters from things like Falcon and the Winter Soldier or Black Widow, then you go in and you have your, preconceptions about these characters.

I mean, like, you know, Florence Pugh she’s been amazing in every single project we’ve gotten a lot of Yelena and she’s been like the, she’s been the standout star of pretty much every single MCU project she’s even been involved in.

Right. Black Widow, she was the standout in that

Y. M. Nelson: she was.

Perry C.: Hawkeye even though she, she only had like two episodes, she’s still the standout in that too. And then here, like this is basically her movie at its core. So, we knew we were gonna get a lot of Yelena . We’ve seen a lot of her development over the time.

But we also got, John Walker. Like, I don’t know how. I don’t know how to tell you how many times I’ve gone on Reddit, and I’ve seen people before and after this movie, before this movie, talking about how, oh, John Walker is such a piece of s**t. He’s the worst character ever.

And then afterwards being like, my God, John Walker is such an interesting guy, I really feel for him, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Or even, you know, Red Guardian. Like, he was kind of like the, he was fun in Black Widow, but he wa there wasn’t a whole lot of meat in his character there, but here, right? We see like him struggling with this idea of like, well, I was a hero. Now what do I do that the right that I was this national hero and my nation fell. So now what do I do?

Or, Valentina. Val, right? We get a whole lot about her worldview and how that formed. Whereas before, she’s just kinda like the scenery, chewing villain you love to hate, but here you, you watch her and you’re like, oh, she’s got some pathos there behind

Marcie: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Driving that and she’s, that’s driving, driving her to do these things. So, all of it.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: It gave us a very good window into who these characters are and why they do the things they do. Why they’ve, you know, why does someone become a super villain? I think this, and even they’re not, not all of ’em are necessarily super villains, but that does give you kind of a hint as to how that kind of happens.

And I think that the idea of, Marcie had mentioned this, this thing about someone tell, tells you something and I think, you look at Val and you think about. All these kind of like shyster and grifters out there, and you kind see, like Val is kind of a stand in for that because she promises them all.

Like, oh, you want to be a hero. I, I can make you a hero. I can make you a hero.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: You just have to do these little things first and then, you sell a little bit of your soul a little bit more, a little bit more. And then before you know what, you’re too deep.

Mm-hmm. And that’s what’s happened to all of them.

Marcie: Yep.

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Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

[00:36:56] Family relationships: Yelena and Alexi

Marcie: Yeah. I also think that the story of Red Guardian and Yelena as they try to repair their relationship in the midst of all of this other stuff, I think was a, was a great storyline as well, because I think it did give some depth in the both of their characters on their motivations all along.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: And the misconceptions they had about one another and their places in each other’s lives and, and that kind of thing. I think it was, the way they weave that story into the bigger story, I think was also quite well done. I enjoyed watching that play out. I think, I think to Perry’s point, it gave a lot of depth to Red Guardian as more than just a happy go, go-lucky, you know, kind of, it, it really kind of helps you understand his motivation and, and to see him have to be vulnerable so that Yelena could be vulnerable so that she could move past, you know, her, the guilt she had about herself.

I think those things were really strong and they really did. I mean, they delivered. They acted. I mean, I think, I think that’s one of the things about people not getting to see this necessarily, that it didn’t get the viewership that it should have.

Y. M. Nelson: Right.

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[00:38:13] Marketing and reception of Thunderbolts*

Marcie: Because they really, they probably had to act more than most Marvels because the story was driven by your connection to them in a way that we don’t always see when there’s a bunch of things blowing up and everybody is a comic foil.

This time they had to like really dig in and show us who they were in a different way. And so, I do kind of regret that people didn’t, didn’t, that it wasn’t quite sure what it was people were going to see. Mm-hmm. And you had to risk it. You just, I think that that’s the thing that I was most disappointed about is that Marvel made the way that it was presented.

Didn’t give people enough to want to risk it. So most, I think most people didn’t. And I think that that’s the biggest kind of flaw for me was that I feel like, I don’t know if anybody’s ever seen that Cosby Show episode where it’s the stake on the, on the garbage can lid. But I feel like that’s kind of what it was.

It was, a really great film that was presented in a not-so-great way. And I think it, and it allowed people to overlook it.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Jen G.: Yeah. I think it created a disconnect between the movie you thought you were seeing and then the movie you actually saw.

Marcie: Mm-hmm. And then I think people just voted, I don’t wanna see either one.

Like, I, don’t know what I’m gonna see, so I don’t wanna see any, and I think that that was a disservice to the, the,

Jen G.: yeah.

Marcie: Family itself.

Jen G.: Agreed.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. So, I was gonna ask the question, what did y’all think about the the response and the marketing and thing, but you, everybody’s kind of said it and I wanna kind of piggyback on that.

Yes. I mean, just like Perry and Marcie and Jen are saying. Marvel kind of dropped the ball here on the marketing ’cause you’re not sure what you’re going to get when you went in for this movie.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And I think the people that don’t know any of these characters are like, now why do I wanna get to know these characters?

What are their powers? Whatever, or even do I care. Right.

Jen G.: Right.

Y. M. Nelson: Other thing is when people are going in. They may be thinking, they may be on the, like, how Jen is a, a Florence Pugh fan. You know, maybe you’re just going in for that. Like, do I want to take a leap on this where it looks like she’s leading it?

I like her. Do I wanna take a leap? You know you know, or a fan of whoever. Right. So, it’s like, do I want to do that? ’cause I don’t know what this movie is really about, and if it’s a superhero movie, do I wanna get caught up in this? Right.

You know?

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: So, there’s that.

And then like Perry is saying, if you’re a comic book fan, this does not look anything like the comic book. So

Perry C.: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Why am I going in. And what is my MCU connection and do I care? And then, there’s, the MCU fans out there who, ever since Endgame, they’re like, what,

Marcie: what is this?

Y. M. Nelson: Right? What is this next thing? Like, do I need to know these people? Like, I see Robert Downey Jr’s gonna be another character. Do I need to know who these people are first? I mean, do I really have to watch this?

Marcie: Right. There was all of that hype like two weeks before about what was coming in 2026 and then two weeks later, right, we get Thunderbolts* also.

Right? Perry, I didn’t know what the asterisk meant and I was like,

Perry C.: well, no one did. That was the, that was the big thing everybody was wondering, right? Nobody did. What is the asterisk all about? And the theory everyone had that was the kinda the popular theory was that, Oh, it’s actually gonna be Dark Avengers. ‘Cause that was another comic book where you had like a bunch of

Y. M. Nelson: Ooh yeah.

Perry C.: Villains who were become basically ripped off the Thunderbolts concept. So, I’m like, okay, well maybe it’ll, maybe it’ll be the Dark Avengers then.

So, then they ended up being New Avengers, I’m like, oh, okay. That’s interesting. So yeah, it was, but I’m also gonna, I had said that it wasn’t marketed that well, but I’m also gonna argue against myself here because I think Marvel was also kind of in a bind because how do you market this?

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: That’s the other thing. That was the other thing that I wanted to say about it. Because just like what you said, Perry, it is a movie about depression. It is a character study. It is a dramatic movie with people in costume. Right. Or with people being superheroes.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And you are MCU.

Do you market that? Right. How am I gonna get my audience to come to this? Because my audience, I don’t really know about my audience, let’s be honest. Right. They know that there’s big parts of their audience that are coming for different things. They’re, a lot of people are not coming to see a movie about how to deal with depression, especially when they might be going through depression Right.

At that moment. I mean,

Jen G.: oh, exactly. Exactly

Marcie: right.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, and plus the timing in the US of this was awful. Like

Perry C.: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, I’m not the only person who lost their job around the time that this came out. A whole lot of people from the federal government lost their jobs.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Right. So, it was starting, things were starting to implode.

Jen G.: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Y. M. Nelson: At that moment. So

Jen G.: yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Marketing this as a movie about dealing with depression, that’s not gonna fly. Right,

Marcie: right.

Y. M. Nelson: Second thing is you got superheroes in it, and so we’ve got to figure out how to market this to the people that are actually coming to a Marvel movie to see Marvel superheroes.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And even some of these superheroes are superheroes that we might know. Right. You know, or villains or whatever you wanna call ’em. Anti-heroes, I don’t know, whatever you wanna call ’em. How do you market that? You’re back, your audience is so disparate,

Marcie: right.

Perry C.: I feel like this is one of those movies that people are gonna be discovering later and they’re gonna be like, how come I never heard of this thing? How did I miss out on this? You know?

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Perry C.: And, and it kind of makes me think of in some ways to like, you know, The Amazing Spider-Man or Superman Returns, where at the time those movies didn’t do as well as the studios wanted them to.

A lot of people were complaining about them. And then, you know, after Brandon Routh pops up in Crisis of Infinite Earths as Superman. Or after, we see Andrew Garfield pop up in Spider-Man: No Way Home. People go back and they’re like,

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Hey, wait a minute. These are actually kind of solid.

How come? So, I think,

Y. M. Nelson: right,

Perry C.: I think like after, I think Avengers Doomsday is going to introduce a lot of these characters for the Thunderbolts* to people. And they’re gonna be like, I really liked seeing that group over there. Wait, they were in a movie together. Let me go, check that out on Disney Plus, they’re like, oh my God, how did I miss out on this the first time?

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. I think that’s what’s gonna happen, too. I agree. And I think that’s what’s gonna happen definitely to Thunderbolts*. I think it’s gonna happen to maybe even a couple of the TV shows, maybe.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: But maybe even the Black Widow movie that people slept on ’cause of the pandemic.

Jen G.: Well,

Y. M. Nelson: you know, I think, I, I think that’s, that’s what’s gonna happen. Doomsday is going to give ’em. Kind of a bounce back kind of thing. So

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: And then, we are going to have an episode on the Fantastic Four. So, we are not talking about Fantastic Four right now, but

Marcie: Okay.

Y. M. Nelson: It links together so much that it does.

I think it’s also going to give maybe even a bounce back to Fantastic Four, which also has its own issues because good Lord, how many times have they tried to do the Fantastic four?

Perry C.: This is the fourth, this is the, this is the fourth time they’ve done it.

Y. M. Nelson: Geez.

Perry C.: Movies, but four times, but four attempts at mm-hmm. The Tim Story one’s got two films, so that, but it’s five movies, but four different versions basically.

Marcie: Right. ’cause that other one had Rise of the Silver Surfer too. Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Perry C.: Well, no Rise of the Silver. That was part of the Tim story ones, but there was the Rocket

Marcie: Exactly.

Perry C.: That was going back from 1994.

Marcie: Yeah. Yeah, because that was the one with Michael B. Jordan, and then they had the two in there.

Perry C.: No, Michael B. Jordan one. Was there, there have been. So, the first one was actually the, actually 1990.

The first one was 1994. It was a low budget version that was, that they destroyed the negatives of, because Avi Rod didn’t want it be released ’cause they’d paid Roger Corman. Basically, Roger Corman made this movie basically just so that the studio could hold onto the rights. And so, it was made, had a budget of like $2 million and you can find it on YouTube, but it’s like very low b, very low budget.

Marcie: Oh!

Perry C.: Really interesting. Yeah. There’s also a really good documentary about it, about the making of it and how the cast got like screwed over and nobody knew that this was basically being made just to be shoved in a drawer documentary called Doomed. It’s really, really interesting.

But yeah. Then the Tim story ones from the early two thousands. That was the second attempt actually that was the one with Chris Evans and Michael Chilklis.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Tim Stall. But then

Marcie: I did, I enjoyed both of those. I did.

Perry C.: They were both, they, they have their flaws, but they’re mostly enjoyable. And then there was the the Josh Tran one that was in the like 20 13, 24, somewhere around there.

Marcie: Is that the Michael B. Jordan one?

Perry C.: That’s the Michael B. Jordan one. And that is obvious, definitely the worst of the bunch.

Marcie: It was not great.

Perry C.: No, but we’ll be talking about that later.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Right. Yeah. We’ll be talking about that in the, but the other one. But yes, what I was trying to say, I think [Avengers] Doomsday is going to end up giving us, giving people that, oh, I need to go back and watch this.

Right. And I think with Thunderbolts*, they’re really going to enjoy this because I really feel. I mean, I really like the story on this one. Yeah.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: The family, I really like the story. I agree with Marcie about the pacing.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And that’s, that kind of pacing gave us the time to actually get to know these characters.

Marcie: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And the story helps, right? Because every time Bob touches somebody, we get backstory, y’all. Yeah. Yeah. And we get a deeper level of appreciation for these characters, and that’s also contributing to the story. I really just love the way that this story was put together. And I know we mentioned some of our some characters here and what they brought or whatever, but but everybody do we have a favorite?

Oh, before I get into that, so the other thing about the story part and the other thing about kind of the marketing of this and I can see why they would have a problem. You know, when Perry and Marcie were talking about the fact that these are, character driven, and they just happen to have superheroes suits on like the, that one scene where they’re on the street and they’re arguing and they’re like, no, we do not wanna, we’re not gonna be the Thunderbolts. We’re not gonna be these people. The Thunderbolts was a soccer team. No, we don’t wanna do this. Right. And they’re arguing and they’re on a New York City street, and Yelena says she’s a loser.

And this woman is just walking by her, like looking at her like, what is wrong with you? I mean, that is the perfect scene right there that mm-hmm. Actually, captures the essence of this movie.

Marcie: Yeah.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, you’ve got these superheroes walking around on the street, arguing in the middle of New York City, and people are just walking by living their lives.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: It, it really. You know, puts together the genius I think of this movie. And it also, in a sense makes it very hard to market, especially if you are a superhero company.

This would be different if it was, you know, like just something on A B C, right?

Marcie: Yeah. Right. On ABC and as anti-trailer person.

Y. M. Nelson: Oh yeah.

Marcie: I can see how it would be very hard to put, I mean, I could see why it was so hard to put together a trailer

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Marcie: That didn’t give away the best parts of the movie because I hate

Y. M. Nelson: exactly

Marcie: feeling like I saw the best parts of the movie in the trailer, and then I’m like. You know, and so I can understand how you, you couldn’t put it into a trailer.

And so, I get, I get it was hard to market. I do hope that you’re right, that in the run up to the new films that people and all the podcasters and that guy who makes his, his family, you know, yells at ’em and gives ’em the, the timeline and you gotta watch this movie in this order. Like, I hope that those people are including this in including these movies mm-hmm.

In that discussion and reminding people that they’re out there to be seen for all the people who wanna like, prep for the next Avengers that they do, that this does become part of the conversation. Because I think you’re right, it needs to be, and I do think it helps it’ll, it’ll help people.

Refresh their minds, but also have a fresh perspective coming into what I’m hoping moves us forward from where we were.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: So, I do hope you’re right, that it becomes, it, it becomes one of those like cult classics that people didn’t see in the theaters, but like everybody talks about

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Marcie: ’cause is one that deserves that kind.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Marcie: That kind of recognition. I mean, it was a great film. So, my family went to see this. So, we’re talking about from teenagers to middle age to a senior citizen, and we all loved it.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Marcie: It is really a movie that everybody can look at and take something from.

Y. M. Nelson: Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

We will continue this discussion on our next episode. Make sure you’re subscribed to Nerdy Romantics Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts and visit nerdyromanticspodcast.com to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can get show notes directly in your inbox. Thank you for listening.

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