Nearly four months after its theatrical release in India, the recent Marvel hit Thunderbolts (aka The New Avengers) will be having its digital premiere on JioHotstar. The streamer has revealed that it will be releasing on August 27, and on the same date internationally on Disney+
In its positive review of the film, THE WEEK wrote, "Thunderbolts is also fairly competent in the filmmaking departments, most notably in the big set-pieces. It takes a while to win us over, though. As I said, it's not easy to look at a bunch of characters that we don't know anything about participating in little "group therapy" sessions in the middle of all the chaos. It takes us a while to begin caring about them. But once it gets to the big stuff, the juice, it's quite a trip — and I mean it in the literal sense of the word. When what is supposed to be this film's "main threat" shows up, Thunderbolts goes into Christopher Nolan mode — to be more specific, Inception mode."
When the Thunderbolts made their comic debut in The Incredible Hulk #449 (1997), Marvel fans were hit with a major twist: a superhero team who, in reality, were supervillains in disguise. Led by the nefarious Baron Zemo, posing as the heroic ‘Citizen V’, the team was a bait-and-switch—and the readers loved it.
The comic’s premise was devilishly brilliant. With the Avengers and the Fantastic Four presumed dead (according to the comic plotline), the Thunderbolts stepped in to fill the hero vacancy, all while secretly plotting world domination. But what they did not expect was to start liking the one thing they hated—being a hero. Cue moral dilemmas, betrayal, and a series that kept readers guessing whether these guys were actually honest or just good at faking it.
Over the years, the Thunderbolts roster changed more than any other Marvel team. Hawkeye led them for a while, followed by some spells under Luke Cage, Bucky Barnes and even Norman Osborn—yes, the Green Goblin himself.
This comic legacy is where the Thunderbolts truly shine: they're Marvel's ultimate grey area. Heroes? Villains? Something in between? Depending on the writer, the day of the week, and the line-up, the story changes.
In the film, CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) assembles a team of antiheroes including Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and Bob (Lewis Pullman), a nod to the comic character Sentry. The film does wink at the comics, especially in its chaotic team dynamics, but the core theme of villainy-gone-good is largely replaced by trauma bonding and CIA interference.
The post-credits scene hints at a return to the comic roots: worlds colliding, unexpected alliances, and maybe, just maybe—a Marvel future that remembers the Thunderbolts were never meant to be clean-cut heroes.
