One of the most successful titles DC Comics ever produced was The Suicide Squad. By now, everyone knows the premise: a ragtag group of villains is forced together by the U.S. government to go on “suicide” missions for their country in return for decades off their sentences. Marvel has tried multiple times to create their own version of the team, but none have really stuck the landing. While the closest we ever got was the Thunderbolts, it wasn’t quite the same (we’ll get to them shortly, don’t worry). We’ve been wondering about all the other times Marvel’s attempted a similar idea, and think we’ve found the best examples.
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Just because these examples aren’t all a carbon copy of Task Force X, it’s generally a lot of fun having a team of villains. Wanting to do good or being forced to be good, the Suicide Squad concept has been flipped or remixed into these 5 Marvel teams.
5) The Thunderbolts (Masters of Evil)
Easily the best-known example of Marvel’s Suicide Squad would have to be the original lineup of the Thunderbolts. Sold as a group of “heroes” to be the public’s first line of defense after the Avengers “died,” the big twist was that these weren’t heroes but, in fact, the Masters of Evil in disguise. Led (and controlled) by Baron Zemo, who was parading around as patriotic hero Citizen V, eventually, most of the group discovered that they genuinely wanted to fill in the gap the Avengers left, and actually became heroes.
They’d eventually be found out and would split up, but at the time, it was one of the coolest twists in all of comics. Having the new heroes secretly be villains was a great reversal and created some fun new power dynamics. Especially since they were led by one of the biggest haters of the Avengers in Baron Zemo. It was a great story.
5) Ultimate Sinister Six
The Jonathan Hickman version of the Sinister Six, led by Wilson Fisk as part of the Maker’s Council, has become iconic in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s a drastically different take on Spider-Man foes like Kingpin, Mr. Negative, Kraven, Mysterio, Black Cat, and Mole Man (of all characters). They work more like a cabal of gangsters running New York City, but as the series has progressed, they’ve proven to be terrible at it, with each member slowly fracturing or going their own way, in an effort to betray and dethrone the Kingpin. Meanwhile, Fisk is the “Amanda Waller” of the group, controlling his lieutenants with the threat of annihilation should they move against him.
While they have become a shell of themselves, they really have been a fun team to read. Despite being new and never actually seeing them together in an issue, they have quickly become a fan-favorite version of the Sinister Six, and echo Task Force X stories in having some members genuinely working for the good of the group, while others have their own schemes that eventually turn the squad against one another.
3) Freedom Force
Originally conceived as Mystique’s version of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Freedom Force became the government-sponsored mutant squad. Now calling themselves heroes, they were the furthest thing from it: basically a task force comprised of villains, operating like bad cops on (literal) power trips. They were a public antithesis to the “mutant menace” represented by unchecked groups like the X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood.
The kick with this team was, they were fairly well balanced. Everyone having a specialty echoes the Suicide Squad needing one person of every type. While this team isn’t active much anymore, it was a fun sight anytime they popped up, purely to see them get the tar knocked out of them by the X-Men (or other X-teams).
2) The Dark Avengers
Norman Osborn’s The Dark Avengers were created as a new version of the Avengers, thanks to Osborn’s personal and political gains after his “heroic” role repelling the Skrulls’ “Secret Invasion.” The Dark Avengers quickly became a fan-favorite villain team. They’d later team up and try to take over Asgard, which was decently successful, but disbanded after they lost to the real Avengers.
The Dark Avengers were a perfect time capsule team that felt closest to the original version of the Thunderbolts, except we knew the twist this time. They were not meant to last long, especially with characters like the Sentry, Bullseye, and Daken on the team with the ever-egotistical Norman Osborn. But it was fun while it lasted.
1) The Thunderbolts (King In Black)
The Thunderbolts appear twice on this list, but this particular version sits at the top-ranked spot because it is Marvel’s most direct copy of the Suicide Squad concept. King In Black: Suicide Squad (2021) was a three-issue tie-in series that took the idea of “Marvel’s Task Force X” and ran with it to a hilarious degree.
During the “King in Black” crossover event (which saw the symbiote “God” Knull invade Earth), NYC Mayor Wilson Fisk coerces a bunch of “B” and “C” rank villains (who have all crossed him) into a suicide mission to stop Knull – a mission he sells as a heroic sacrifice, meant to save the citizens of his city. However, those villains (Taskmaster, Mister Fear, Star, Batroc the Leaper, Figment, Man-Bull, Grizzly, Mister Hyde, Figment, Foolkiller) have varying degrees of loyalty to the task, and none of them appreciate Fisk’s “no masks” mandate, exposing their respective true identities along the way. Of course, the alternative Fisk offers is being swiftly and brutally murdered by him, so the new Thunderbolts go on their not-so-merry way to get the impossible job done, or maybe die trying. And when the Thunderbolts finally do have their mission in sight? Oh boy. It’s even wilder than a Suicide Squad story.
King In Black: Thunderbolts left no ambiguity about being a Suicide Squad knock-off during its run, even paying homage to the DC movies by featuring a scene of the Thunderbolts all comedically bantering while riding a van into a warzone. You can’t get more direct than that (legally).
What’s your favorite example of Marvel having their own Suicide Squad? Let us know what you’re thinking in the comments. And discuss with us on the ComicBook Forums!
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