Thunderbolts Appreciation 2022

[CaptainUniverse]

Have they ever acknowledged Clint’s “Avengers never kill” rule after he started killing on occasion under Bendis? I mean, he got divorced because his wife killed her rapist. And she didn’t kill him… she just didn’t save him. Still…

No, that was all but forgotten by the time of Hickman's run.

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[ComicNoobie]

I recently just obtained the classic Thunderbolts Omnibus and can't wait to start reading it later in the month. I so love the original twist of the Thunderbolts when they first debuted and the members in it.

On a different topic about the Thunderbolts movie, I recently had a thought of what if O'Grady's Ant-Man was secretly on the team in the promotional material but was hiding on Yelena like the nasty pervert he is?

[mugiwara]

Have they ever acknowledged Clint’s “Avengers never kill” rule after he started killing on occasion under Bendis? I mean, he got divorced because his wife killed her rapist. And she didn’t kill him… she just didn’t save him. Still…

It's still my headcannon that Wanda didn't him bring him back "whole" during House of M.

[OOTCS]

I loved issue #4. I think this comic could be exactly what Clint needs to bring him out of the "Hawkguy Era" (partially going back to the classic Hawkeye, but with some character growth thrown in for good measure).

[Frontier]

I recently just obtained the classic Thunderbolts Omnibus and can't wait to start reading it later in the month. I so love the original twist of the Thunderbolts when they first debuted and the members in it.

On a different topic about the Thunderbolts movie, I recently had a thought of what if O'Grady's Ant-Man was secretly on the team in the promotional material but was hiding on Yelena like the nasty pervert he is?

I keep waiting for them to introduce O'Grady with the Pym Particles that were taken in the first Ant-Man movie.

I loved issue #4. I think this comic could be exactly what Clint needs to bring him out of the "Hawkguy Era" (partially going back to the classic Hawkeye, but with some character growth thrown in for good measure).

That would be awesome!

[The Cool Thatguy]

Just wondering, have we seen Abe and Melissa since the Secret Empire series?

[The Cool Thatguy]

Have they ever acknowledged Clint’s “Avengers never kill” rule after he started killing on occasion under Bendis? I mean, he got divorced because his wife killed her rapist. And she didn’t kill him… she just didn’t save him. Still…

She instigated the fight in which he died, and to be fair, she also straight up lied to Clint about it, which contributed to his anger.

[Frontier]

Just wondering, have we seen Abe and Melissa since the Secret Empire series?

Melissa was in a recent Al Ewing comic, I think.

[Dermie]

Have they ever acknowledged Clint’s “Avengers never kill” rule after he started killing on occasion under Bendis? I mean, he got divorced because his wife killed her rapist. And she didn’t kill him… she just didn’t save him. Still…

Yes, the subject did come up in the HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD series. Jim McCann tried to acknowledge and address the out of character lapses in Bendis' run while reaffirming that Clint does still feel that Avengers shouldn't kill...even though he has struggled with that ideal himself more recently.

Melissa was in a recent Al Ewing comic, I think.

Songbird was most recently seen in an issue of THE MARVELS by Kurt Busiek, as one of several heroes from around the world responding to a particular crisis. I think the last time she was seen before that was at Wiccan and Hulkling's wedding reception (she served with them in Ewing's NEW AVENGERS).

She instigated the fight in which he died, and to be fair, she also straight up lied to Clint about it, which contributed to his anger.

Thank you for that. I know "Clint divorced Bobbi for killing her rapist" tends to be a way a lot of people shorthand that arc, but it really overlooks a lot of the context involved and makes Clint sound a lot worse than he actually was. Don't get me wrong--Clint still doesn't come off well in that arc; but he's not the complete and utter jackass that he sometimes comes across as when people summarize that arc without including the full detail.

I'm not sure I'd say that Bobbi instigated the fight though -- Phantom Rider brought that fight on himself when he abducted Bobbi, drugged her into loving him and raped her. She was the one who hunted him down after she got her free will back, sure -- but he started the whole chain of events.

But where Bobbi did screw up was lying to Clint about it--repeatedly--after the fact. He specifically asked her if he had tried to sexually assault her, and she lied both about that and about the true circumstances of Phantom Rider's death. She had her reasons for it, of course...but she still lied. She eventually felt guilty about it and decided to tell Clint the truth. Phantom Rider's ghost realized that if Clint knew the truth of what happened he would forgive her--so he got to Clint first and told a very distorted version of events, painting Bobbi in the role of a murderer. Unfortunately the fact that Bobbi had lied to Clint about it before now undermined her credibility when she tried to tell the truth of what happened. Clint got pissed off about the lies and about her allowing Phantom Rider to die (and probably just plain hurt that his wife would keep this from him) and Bobbi got pissed off about being criticized for killing the man that raped her. Both of them are hot tempered and stubborn as hell -- so they each ended up digging in their heels, escalating the conflict instead of working through it.

[Sutekh]

Just wondering, have we seen Abe and Melissa since the Secret Empire series?

I'm not sure about the timing, but Abe showed up in Superior Foes of Spider-Man, IIRC.

[OOTCS]

Thank you for that. I know "Clint divorced Bobbi for killing her rapist" tends to be a way a lot of people shorthand that arc, but it really overlooks a lot of the context involved and makes Clint sound a lot worse than he actually was. Don't get me wrong--Clint still doesn't come off well in that arc; but he's not the complete and utter jackass that he sometimes comes across as when people summarize that arc without including the full detail.

I'm not sure I'd say that Bobbi instigated the fight though -- Phantom Rider brought that fight on himself when he abducted Bobbi, drugged her into loving him and raped her. She was the one who hunted him down after she got her free will back, sure -- but he started the whole chain of events.

But where Bobbi did screw up was lying to Clint about it--repeatedly--after the fact. He specifically asked her if he had tried to sexually assault her, and she lied both about that and about the true circumstances of Phantom Rider's death. She had her reasons for it, of course...but she still lied. She eventually felt guilty about it and decided to tell Clint the truth. Phantom Rider's ghost realized that if Clint knew the truth of what happened he would forgive her--so he got to Clint first and told a very distorted version of events, painting Bobbi in the role of a murderer. Unfortunately the fact that Bobbi had lied to Clint about it before now undermined her credibility when she tried to tell the truth of what happened. Clint got pissed off about the lies and about her allowing Phantom Rider to die (and probably just plain hurt that his wife would keep this from him) and Bobbi got pissed off about being criticized for killing the man that raped her. Both of them are hot tempered and stubborn as hell -- so they each ended up digging in their heels, escalating the conflict instead of working through it.

Let's not go overboard and make it seem like they were equally at fault, though. Most people, if they found out their significant other had lied about not being raped, their first reaction would probably be, "Oh my God, they were raped" instead of "Oh my God, they lied." Yes, she lied, but it was her thing to lie about, if that makes sense. It may not have been ideal, but it's reasonable for someone who was raped to not be able to say it out loud right away. After all, nobody wants to think of themselves as a rape victim, and nobody wants other people to think of them as a rape victim, so sometimes it's easier at first to just pretend it never happened and try to move on, rather than facing the truth. Obviously, people react to trauma in different ways and this isn't true for all people, but it could explain why Bobbi lied, even when asked point-blank. She wanted to continue living her life as if the whole thing had never happened, and as far as she knew, the Phantom Rider was dead and would never bother them again, so why not pretend it never happened, to the extent that she could?

When Clint found out the truth, he acted like she had fudged the report for an official Avengers mission, but from her perspective, she hadn't been on any Avengers mission—she was separated from the team and had no idea if she would ever see them again, and had something deeply personal and traumatic happen to her during that time. She dealt with it, and once it was over, she was, fortunately, reunited with them, but the time in between was her own private hell, and she wasn't ready to share. When Clint asked her if she had been raped, anything other than an outright denial would have forced her to share the entire story. So yes, she lied, but the thing she lied about was her own private business and she had very understandable and human reasons for doing so.

In Clint's defense, I doubt his reaction was so cold-blooded as to think of all these factors and then react the way he did anyway. Like many men in the 80s, he was ignorant of the realities of sexual assault and he didn't know how to even begin to put himself in her shoes. And since we're speaking of understandable mistakes, the fact that he had trust issues from so many important figures in his life mistreating him or manipulating him didn't help; the lying was probably a trigger for him because of his personal issues. Clint has a history of people using him and lying to him. The difference is that usually, when people lie to Clint, it's because they have a hidden agenda involving him that will end up hurting him; in this case, Bobbi lied because she was afraid that she would get hurt.

On top of that, I think Clint felt powerless when he found out the truth. He found out this awful thing had happened to his wife when he wasn't around and that he hadn't been able to protect her, but he wasn't ready to deal with whatever feelings might have come up in response to that, so he shut off that part of his brain and focused only on what he could control—as the Avengers chairperson, it was his job to make sure his team followed the rules and to discipline them accordingly if they didn't. The same way some people's initial response to a personal tragedy is to focus on the practical tasks ahead of them instead of their grief, Clint turned to the black-and-white Avengers rulebook in order to avoid feeling the pain of what had happened to Bobbi.

When talking about characters I love, it's always more interesting to try to understand what led them to the choices they made than it is to point fingers, but at the end of the day, Clint hurt Bobbi a lot more than she can be argued to have hurt him. He acted like he was the main character in an arc where he should have been a supporting one.

Just wondering, have we seen Abe and Melissa since the Secret Empire series?

I think Abe is Schrodinger's Comic Book Character at the moment. At the end of the last Thunderbolts, he appeared to have died, although no body = no death in comics. But we haven't seen him in order to confirm that he's alive (I think all his appearances since then have been flashbacks), so theoretically any writer could come in and say he's been presumed dead since Secret Empire.

[Frontier]

I think I remember Songbird out for Zemo's blood at the end of the run and that never went anywhere.

[Dermie]

Let's not go overboard and make it seem like they were equally at fault, though. Most people, if they found out their significant other had lied about not being raped, their first reaction would probably be, "Oh my God, they were raped" instead of "Oh my God, they lied." Yes, she lied, but it was her thing to lie about, if that makes sense. It may not have been ideal, but it's reasonable for someone who was raped to not be able to say it out loud right away. After all, nobody wants to think of themselves as a rape victim, and nobody wants other people to think of them as a rape victim, so sometimes it's easier at first to just pretend it never happened and try to move on, rather than facing the truth. Obviously, people react to trauma in different ways and this isn't true for all people, but it could explain why Bobbi lied, even when asked point-blank. She wanted to continue living her life as if the whole thing had never happened, and as far as she knew, the Phantom Rider was dead and would never bother them again, so why not pretend it never happened, to the extent that she could?

When Clint found out the truth, he acted like she had fudged the report for an official Avengers mission, but from her perspective, she hadn't been on any Avengers mission—she was separated from the team and had no idea if she would ever see them again, and had something deeply personal and traumatic happen to her during that time. She dealt with it, and once it was over, she was, fortunately, reunited with them, but the time in between was her own private hell, and she wasn't ready to share. When Clint asked her if she had been raped, anything other than an outright denial would have forced her to share the entire story. So yes, she lied, but the thing she lied about was her own private business and she had very understandable and human reasons for doing so.

In Clint's defense, I doubt his reaction was so cold-blooded as to think of all these factors and then react the way he did anyway. Like many men in the 80s, he was ignorant of the realities of sexual assault and he didn't know how to even begin to put himself in her shoes. And since we're speaking of understandable mistakes, the fact that he had trust issues from so many important figures in his life mistreating him or manipulating him didn't help; the lying was probably a trigger for him because of his personal issues. Clint has a history of people using him and lying to him. The difference is that usually, when people lie to Clint, it's because they have a hidden agenda involving him that will end up hurting him; in this case, Bobbi lied because she was afraid that she would get hurt.

On top of that, I think Clint felt powerless when he found out the truth. He found out this awful thing had happened to his wife when he wasn't around and that he hadn't been able to protect her, but he wasn't ready to deal with whatever feelings might have come up in response to that, so he shut off that part of his brain and focused only on what he could control—as the Avengers chairperson, it was his job to make sure his team followed the rules and to discipline them accordingly if they didn't. The same way some people's initial response to a personal tragedy is to focus on the practical tasks ahead of them instead of their grief, Clint turned to the black-and-white Avengers rulebook in order to avoid feeling the pain of what had happened to Bobbi.

When talking about characters I love, it's always more interesting to try to understand what led them to the choices they made than it is to point fingers, but at the end of the day, Clint hurt Bobbi a lot more than she can be argued to have hurt him. He acted like he was the main character in an arc where he should have been a supporting one.

Don't get me wrong -- I am not trying to suggest they are equally at fault. Clint absolutely screwed up, in several ways. I just find that a lot of comic fans who never actually read the storyline and are just going by the nutshell summaries that they've read online are missing a LOT of the context and just come away with the attitude that Clint was a complete and utter a$$hole that had no sympathy whatsoever to his wife's assault and and that is entirely black-and-white in his head that since she killed a man she was no longer worthy of being an Avenger or his wife. THAT is the misinterpretation of the events that I think needs to be fought against.

The only true "villain" in the piece is Phantom Rider. The fact that Clint found out about what happened FROM HIM and that he lied and distorted what actually happened is another factor that is often overlooked in why Clint reacted the way he did (and not just Clint -- Wonder Man also referred to Bobbi as a "murderess" the first time he saw her after hearing Phantom Rider's story, before the truth came out).

I absolutely agree that Bobbi had her reasons for lying (as I acknowledged in my original post) and that it was certainly understandable given both what she had been through--and also her own background as a spy. I think its safe to say that Clint would have understood as well if she had been given the chance to finally tell him herself on her own terms--after all, that was exactly what Phantom Rider was afraid would happened and why he made sure to get to Clint first and tell his pack of lies about what had happened.

[OOTCS]

Don't get me wrong -- I am not trying to suggest they are equally at fault. Clint absolutely screwed up, in several ways. I just find that a lot of comic fans who never actually read the storyline and are just going by the nutshell summaries that they've read online are missing a LOT of the context and just come away with the attitude that Clint was a complete and utter a$$hole that had no sympathy whatsoever to his wife's assault and and that is entirely black-and-white in his head that since she killed a man she was no longer worthy of being an Avenger or his wife. THAT is the misinterpretation of the events that I think needs to be fought against.

The only true "villain" in the piece is Phantom Rider. The fact that Clint found out about what happened FROM HIM and that he lied and distorted what actually happened is another factor that is often overlooked in why Clint reacted the way he did (and not just Clint -- Wonder Man also referred to Bobbi as a "murderess" the first time he saw her after hearing Phantom Rider's story, before the truth came out).

I absolutely agree that Bobbi had her reasons for lying (as I acknowledged in my original post) and that it was certainly understandable given both what she had been through--and also her own background as a spy. I think its safe to say that Clint would have understood as well if she had been given the chance to finally tell him herself on her own terms--after all, that was exactly what Phantom Rider was afraid would happened and why he made sure to get to Clint first and tell his pack of lies about what had happened.

I also think the later writers really went too far with this—while it was arguably understandable for Clint to have a bad reaction in the moment, it made no sense that thirty-odd issues later, he would still hold a grudge about it. Of course continuity in some of those issues was tricky, since their story kept going in two parallel books, and they kept making up and then a few issues later would be on the outs again with no explanation.

[Dermie]

I also think the later writers really went too far with this—while it was arguably understandable for Clint to have a bad reaction in the moment, it made no sense that thirty-odd issues later, he would still hold a grudge about it. Of course continuity in some of those issues was tricky, since their story kept going in two parallel books, and they kept making up and then a few issues later would be on the outs again with no explanation.

Yeah, that was a screw up on Roy Thomas' part. Hawkeye's ongoing solo feature in AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT specifically addressed them working through their issues (including seeing a marriage counselor at one point), and the two of them repairing their relationship. Byrne also showed them reuniting and being a couple again. Then Roy Thomas took over the book and had Clint leave Bobbi with the Great Lakes Avengers while he returned to active duty with the Whackos. He just had them suddenly estranged again for no given reason....and then ultimately put them back together again himself!

I assume he just decided it was more interesting for character drama to have them as a bickering estranged couple -- but it was rather surprising and annoying to see them suddenly back to that while Clint's solo book was showing them happily together again.