Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers.
I had never watched a single Marvel movie until I came to college. I grew up in a “Star Wars” family, and the thought of sitting through dozens of movies just to catch up to the new ones was never appealing to me.
But when my best friends invited me to Finch Hall for an “Avengers” movie night during the fall semester of my second year at PLNU, I couldn’t say no. I figured I would see what a ll the hype was about.
Marvel claimed an irreplaceable spot in my heart on that October night. The storytelling, the score, even the way Marvel deals with their characters’ mental health — it all swelled into a beautiful symphony, and I kept reaching for another chorus. The camaraderie between the characters on the screen was reminiscent of the companionship continuing to deepen between my friends and me every time I showed up to Finch for another movie night.
Since that pivotal night curled up in my friends’ room with my eyes glued to the small laptop screen, I’ve gotten a Marvel tattoo in New York City and my entire apartment is covered in Spider-Man and Avengers posters. My friends and I even have an entire bookshelf purely dedicated to comic books. I was introduced to a fictional world that has entirely wrecked my reality in the best way possible.
Of course, I went to see Marvel’s “Thundersbolts*” the night it premiered in theaters on May 2.
It was my second opening-night Marvel experience, and I was hesitant to get too excited since my first experience was such a flop with “Captain America: Brave New World,” which is the proud owner of one star on my Letterboxd. But I will gladly take any and every experience I can to see my favorite character, Bucky Barnes, on the big screen.
“Thunderbolts*” follows a team of antiheroes from previous Marvel movies and TV shows — Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Alexei Shostakov, Ava Starr and John Walker. A mission-gone-wrong introduces them to Robert (Bob) Reynolds, a former drug addict who took part in Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s Sentry project, which gave volunteers an amplified version of super-serum. Together, the antiheroes go on a mission that leads them to confront the darkest parts of themselves.
To my surprise, “Thunderbolts*” far exceeded all of my expectations. I knew there was something special about this movie when Yelena Belova’s opening line was, “There is something wrong with me. An emptiness.”
I knew this movie would be about something so much bigger than anything Marvel has tackled before.
For the first time, the enemy our superheroes face isn’t a villain like Thanos or Hydra — the enemy is the darkness inside of them.
“I’ve been where you are,” Barnes says in the film. “You can run, but it doesn’t go away. Sooner or later, it catches up to you, and when it does, it’s too late. So you can either do something about it now or live with it forever.”
Bob is a broken character with a dark past who’s led down a path of loneliness and suicidal thoughts. In the film, Marvel dives deep into topics they’ve barely touched on before. Valentina turns Bob into the antihero Sentry, but when she attempts to take his life, he turns into The Void — a dark, terrifying villain that is really just Bob’s own mental health personified. He engulfs New York City in this void, making everyone relive their worst memories.
The only way the Thunderbolts can stop this void is by coming together. Bob believes he can defeat the darkness on his own, but it’s only when Yelena, Bucky, Alexei, Ava and John wrap their arms around him that his endless nightmare ceases.
“I’m here,” Yelena whispers before the darkness of Bob’s memory ends. “You are not alone.”
Most Marvel movies include themes of bravery and found family. “Thunderbolts*” taps into those as well, but its main message of mental health advocacy is what made me fall in love with it.
Films have an immense amount of influence, and the messages they convey can impact audiences for generations. This movie is such a beautiful reminder that no matter how dark our world may get, we are not alone.
Each character in “Thunderbolts*” has a story of rising from the darkness. Bucky endures psychological torture at the hands of Hydra as the Winter Soldier, and Yelena is raised as a child assassin. But each of these characters finds hope and healing. These stories are what make Marvel so special, and seeing them tackle themes of mental health made me love the franchise even more.
Just before the movie was released to streaming on Disney+ in August, I got Bucky’s Winter Soldier star tattooed on my ankle. Yes, because I’m a nerd, but mostly because his story symbolizes that new life can still be born even after the darkest of seasons. That’s what this film is all about — that’s what these characters are about. That’s what I hope my own life is about.
The “Thunderbolts*” tagline rings true: “Everyone deserves a second shot.”
Adee Tulcan