Villain or Hero: the Thunderbolts

The Thunderbolts were initially a new incarnation of the Masters of Evil, a villainous counterpart to the heroic Avengers. The team was formed by Baron Zemo on accident, as Zemo's attempt to save his father's former bodyguard Goliath (Erik Josten) resulted in him summoning the help of several of his former allies from the fourth incarnation of the Masters of Evil: Beetle, Fixer, Goliath, and Screaming Mimi.

Since then, the Thunderbolts seem to have been a comic series where Marvel could temporarily dump villains into to have them `something to do` instead of spending time in a drawer before hero x or y needed another `baddy of the month`... but it has turned into a highly enjoyable title actually! Even though some argue that their membership roster is as afar down the road at 44 from start to present day, I can only argue in `go count the X-Men then...`

Of course, the `controlled villain program` that appeared during the Civil War did boost this number quite a lot as well, even though The Punisher did diminish it somewhat afterwards...



So in this first batch for the team, I managed to paint up 4 members, including two `founding fathers`

Abner Jenkins, ex- The Beetle is now Mach IV, a highly skilled but powerless mechanic

The Fixer, ex- Techno, is a child prodigy with technologies, and now has his spine working due to his techno-pack after events involving his ressurection. He is one of the more `evil` members of the team, and betrayed them on at least two critical occassions where he chose his own hide and goals over that of the team.

Swordsman `2` Unfortunaly, I can`t tell to much about this fella out of my mind, he was in the Civil War TPB of the Thunderbolts, but haven`t read to much about him after that though. I`ll take a look into him later on, but the actual model used here is that of the original Swordsman, the carnival artist and competitor of Hawkeye, but that version was never in the `bolts... yea, complicated I know.

Mr Hyde Dr. Calvin Zabo was a morally abject but brilliant medical researcher who was fascinated by the effect of hormones on human physiology. One of his favorite stories was R.L. Stevenson's 1886 classic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was convinced that the experiment in the story could actually be performed and obsessed with the idea of unleashing his full bestial nature in a superhuman form.