Don’t mistake the article title as describing a fictional battle between the two Marvel superhero teams. The battle is about which movie I am more excited to see this year.
And it’s close. But I’ll make my case for each film later.
Thunderbolts ⚡️
Like many MCU fans, I still have a soft spot for characters from the earlier phases of the enormous film franchise. In particular, anything with ties to the Captain America franchise, the second best MCU franchise behind Spider-Man, piques my interest.
Enter Bucky Barnes
As I’ve stated many times on this platform, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is in my top five MCU movies list. Naturally, James Buchanan Barnes aka Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier aka The White Wolf is reason enough for me to see Thunderbolts.
It’s also nice to see Ghost, last seen in Ant Man & The Wasp, make an appearance. I love her character’s backstory and stealth skillset.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
I ain’t gonna lie. I’m stoked to see if the MCU can finally get the big screen depiction of Marvel’s first family right after the fails that were: Fantastic Four (2005); Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), and Fantastic Four (2015).
I actually don’t mind the Silver Surfer film but that ‘15 version is one of the worst comic book movies that I have ever (not fully seen). Yes, it’s that bad/boring that I could not finish.
The good news here is that arguably the world’s most popular leading man right now, Pedro Pascal, is depicting the brilliant Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards. That’s reason enough to check out the film. After watching Pascal’s fate (spoiler alert) in The Last of Us, I’m eager to see him kicking ass on-screen soon!
Throw in the new Ben Grimm/Thing actor, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and I’m really excited. I loved him in Andor: Season 1 and Netflix’s Punisher series, as Micro.
The Verdict
I like actors in both movies…a lot.
And I forgot to mention David Harbour, of Stranger Things fame, being in The Thunderbolts as another reason to watch!
In the end, my love for Captain America movie IP, in this case, Bucky Barnes, makes me want to see the Thunderbolts a smidgen more than the Fantastic Four—but please MCU get “the Four” right!
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