What Marvel’s Thunderbolts* Can Learn From DC’s Suicide Squad Movies

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* has been getting a lot of comparisons to DC’s Suicide Squad movies – and not without good reason. Both films center around the idea of some less-than-heroic operatives being duped and/or coerced into carrying out a high-stakes mission by some shady government handler. In Thunderbolts*, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is the Marvel Cinematic Universe equivalent of Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, and looking over the roster of characters featured in the film, it’s easy to assume that Valentina considers the Thunderbolts to be as expendable as Task Force X is to Waller. 

DC took two swings at doing Suicide Squad movies, with David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016) and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021). Both films achieved moderate success, but neither version was the kind of universally loved box office win that Marvel Studios and Disney are hoping Thunderbolts* will be. 

Fair or not, Thunderbolts* will be getting compared to Suicide Squad before, during, and after its theatrical run. So what can Marvel Studios learn from the good, bad, and ugly experiences of DC’s Suicide Squad movies? 

1. Get to It Already – Both versions of DC’s Suicide Squad films take their sweet time even getting to the task at hand. Ayer’s film is infamous for the redundancies of its introduction and re-introduction of the principal characters; Gunn’s film had a very purposeful fake-out, with an entire team of faux protagonists slaughtered in the opening act. 

Marvel has a distinct advantage with Thunderbolts*: All of the characters on the team have already appeared in previous MCU projects. Although there will be a need to have some kind of re-introduction to the various characters (as a movie must), director Jake Schreier doesn’t have to waste much time bringing everyone together and getting them on a mission. 

2. Let. Them. Fight. – Due to the nature of Suicide Squad’s premise, there’s always a missed opportunity to see the various superpowered characters on the team going at it. There were scuffles, sure (like Peacemaker killing Rick Flag Jr.), but it took the footage of just one trailer for Thunderbolts* to showcase how very cool it is to see  Yelena/Black Widow II (Florence Pugh), John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) all fighting one another while utilizing their respective powers and skill sets. With Marvel’s Superman, The Sentry (Lewis Pullman) also in the mix, the Thunderbolts’ in-fighting could be as epic as any comic book movie bass battle against some CGI monsters. 

3. Take Heavy Losses – The beauty of Thunderbolts* is that its roster of characters is either experienced MCU fan favorites (Sebastian Stan’s Bucky, Pugh’s Yelena), or characters that fans wanted brought back, expanded on, or redeemed in some way (Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster). 

However, neither of those types is essential to the future of the MCU franchise after Thunderbolts*; Stan and Pugh could understandably be exhausted by their time in the franchise, having seen their respective careers open up to more opportunities. US Agent (Russell), Ghost (John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Kurylenko), and Red Guardian (David Harbour) are all characters that are arguably lucky to even be getting roles in this Thunderbolts* film – they are far from guaranteed to have larger arcs in the franchise, afterward. 

That’s all to say: everyone in Thunderbolts* is expendable. Yet, some of those losses (Bucky and Yelena in particular) would be hard gut punches to the fans. Both of DC’s Suicide Squad arguably had characters fans were assured wouldn’t die (Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn) or characters no one cared about seeing go (El Diablo, Killer Croc, Slipknot, Captain Boomerang, Polka-Dot Man, etc.).  If Marvel truly wants to distinguish Thunderbolts* from Suicide Squad, then having major characters on the team actually die would be a great way to it. 

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* has a release date of May 2, 2025.