The First 10 Members of the Thunderbolts, Ranked by Power

The Thunderbolts‘ first 10 members included a crew of villains, one young woman who wanted to be a hero, and eventually, Hawkeye, coming in to try to help rehabilitate them. The Thunderbolts debuted in The Incredible Hulk #449 (1997), and they launched their own series three months later. This team set out to fill the gap left when Onslaught killed the Avengers and Fantastic Four, and the world lost most of its heroes. However, the twist was that these were all former villains, taking on new roles with new codenames, all led by the long-running Hydra villain, Baron Zemo. These villains-turned-heroes all varied drastically in power levels.

Here is a look at the first 10 characters to join the Thunderbolts, both from the original team and later, when Hawkeye came in to help turn them around.

10) Blackheath (Plantman)

Plantman is one of the lesser-known members of the Thunderbolts, even though he has been a Marvel Comics character since he debuted in Strange Tales #113 (1963). His real name is Sam Smithers, and he was a lab assistant who created a plant ray gun with the hope of communicating with plants. When a lightning strike hit his ray gun, it gave him the power to control plant life. Smithers was an inmate with Hawkeye in prison when he was serving time for harboring fugitives while he led the Thunderbolts. When he helped Hawkeye stop a Justin Hammer scheme, both received pardons, and Plantman joined the team as Blackheath. His body is composed of vegetable matter, and this gives him size-changing abilities, superhuman strength, and a healing factor.

9) Charcoal (Charlie Burlingame)

Charcoal was an interesting character created specifically for the Thunderbolts comic book line. He was actually a fan-created character during a Create-A-Villain contest that Wizard Magazine hosted for Marvel Comics. Charcoal was a teenager named Charlie Burlingame who could transform his body into a dense, charcoal-like substance that generated intense levels of heat. Arnim Zola activated his powers as a weapon and then led him to fight the Thunderbolts. However, he later joined the team, seeking redemption.

8) Hawkeye

Hawkeye has no superpowers, but he is Marvel’s most accurate and precise archer. He is also the most experienced superhero on the Thunderbolts team, thanks to his years of service with the Avengers. He took over as the leader of the Thunderbolts after the team broke away from Baron Zemo and wanted to become real heroes. However, this was not an easy job since they were all wanted for various crimes, and Hawkeye had to fight to protect them, eventually at the expense of his freedom. He isn’t as powerful as others, but his experience and ability to help turn the team into real heroes show his power behind the scenes.

7) Jolt

Jolt was the only member of the original Thunderbolts who was not a villain when the team formed. Instead of being a former villain in a new identity, Jolt was a teenager who gained her powers after Onslaught’s attack on New York left her orphaned. Arnim Zola gathered her and other children to experiment on, and this gave her the power to turn into pure bio-electrical energy, which allows her to fly, shoot energy blasts and electric shocks, and exhibit superhuman strength and speed. She served as the moral compass on the team and was a counterbalance to Baron Zemo.

6) Techno (Fixer)

Techno was the villain who was previously known as the Fixer. He was a brilliant inventor and had a tech-pack neurally linked to him that allowed him to generate any gadget out of its own mass. For many years, he was a criminal-for-hire, someone who could create weapons for villains or work as a saboteur. He fought everyone from Iron Man to Captain America before Baron Zemo called on him after the Onslaught incident. This was one of the Masters of Evil members who transferred over to the new fake hero team. He used his powers to modify Songbird’s abilities and kept upgrading the Thunerbolts’ equipment.

5) Songbird (Screaming Mimi)

Songbird was the former Screaming Mimi, a character introduced in Marvel Two-in-One #54 in 1979. She had electronically-modified vocal cords that let her generate sonic blasts as well as mind-control abilities, similar to a siren. Baron Zemo had Techno upgrade her when she joined the Thunderbolts with Klaw tech acquired via Project Pegasus, and this included a Sonic Carapace harness. This gave her the additional powers to create solid sound constructs like force fields and offensive weapons. She also became one of the greatest redemption stories for the team, even taking the role of team leader at one point.

4) MACH-1 (Beetle/Abner Jenkins)

Abe Jenkins was the original Beetle, a villain who made his debut in Strange Tales #123 (1964). He was a longtime villain who fought Spider-Man and other street-level vigilantes before he finally joined the Thunderbolts. He was an engineer who used to use the Beetle armor as a freelance criminal and then worked with Techno to build a new suit, calling himself MACH-1. He had several upgrades throughout the years, each giving him a new roman numeral after his name. As the only Thunderbolts member with an active arrest warrant for murder, Hawkeye convinced him to turn himself in to serve time for his crimes. He did so willingly and was another great villain-to-hero redemption story.

3) Atlas (Goliath/Erik Josten)

Erik Josten was formerly known as Goliath, Power Man, and Smuggler. He was a longtime member of the Masters of Evil before Baron Zemo called on him to help form the Thunderbolts. He used the same powers of growth he used as Goliath and became the new hero known as Atlas. Those powers were derived from the same Baron Zemo machine that gave Wonder Man his powers. He doesn’t just grow in size, but is also a being composed of ionic energy. This made him one of the most powerful brute-force weapons the Thunderbolts had.

2) Meteorite (Moonstone)

Moonstone was one of the most powerful Thunderbolt members since her powers came from a Kree-derived Moongem. She absorbed the Moongem, and that gave her super strength, super speed, durability, flight, gravity manipulation, photon energy blasts, and intangibility. She was a former Captain America villain who debuted in 1975 and took on the Moonstone identity in 1978. Moonstone was one of the villains who really didn’t want rehabilitation, although she did have a romantic relationship with Hawkeye. She returned to the Thunderbolts when Norman Osborn reformed the team after the “Civil War” event and was part of the Dark Avengers after “Secret Invasion.”

1) Citizen V (Baron Zemo)

Citizen V was the leader of the Thunderbolts when the team formed after the Onslaught incident. He took the role of the team leader, dressed in red, white, and blue, and pretended to be a new hero set on protecting America. The true irony here is that Citizen V was Baron Zemo, the Hydra member who didn’t care about anything but gaining power. The son of the original Baron Zemo, he was the longtime leader of the Masters of Evil and used all these villains to gain more power in exploiting the dwindling superhero community. He wasn’t the most powerful in terms of strength level, but as the leader, he was one of the smartest tacticians in Marvel history and controlled everything.

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