Dive deep into how "Thunderbolts" tackles mental health through superhero storytelling. From Yelena's trauma to Bob's struggle with the Void, we explore how this MCU film portrays depression, PTSD, and healing through connection. See how Marvel's antiheroes become each other's strongest support system in their battle against inner demons.
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00:00There's something wrong with me.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're unpacking the mental health themes explored in Marvel's Thunderbolts.
00:10Look how damn where you are. The past doesn't go away.
00:13We will be going into some significant spoilers.
00:17Thunderbolts isn't the first MCU project to touch upon mental health.
00:21Even some of the original Avengers like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner had their fair share of inner demons to work through.
00:27Are you okay, Mr. Stark?
00:30Take it easy, Tony.
00:32How did you get out of the wormhole?
00:35Wait a minute, Tony.
00:37That said, Tony got over his PTSD pretty quickly in Iron Man 3,
00:41and 2008's The Incredible Hulk cut out a heavy-handed scene where Bruce considers taking his own life.
00:47Jessica Jones didn't hold back in its portrayal of trauma.
00:50He made me dig it up.
00:54And then he told me...
00:56He forced me...
00:59Since that was initially developed for Netflix, though, it could go to places the MCU was usually afraid to touch.
01:08The MCU stopped tiptoeing around mental health with WandaVision, where grief was a central theme.
01:14Wanda tries combating grief with escapism, which can be comforting, until you let it warp reality.
01:32Instead of watching old sitcoms, Yelena Belova deals with trauma by throwing herself into work.
01:37I thought throwing myself into work was the answer.
01:44This is taken literally in the opening scene, as Yelena jumps off a tower, saying,
01:49There's something wrong with me.
01:50It's not what you think, as Yelena is wearing a parachute.
01:53It's just a...void.
02:07Or maybe I'm just bored.
02:08At the same time, seeing Yelena jump from one of the tallest buildings in the world sums up her current state of mind.
02:15Yelena is falling into an empty void, searching for a purpose.
02:19Lot of work, lot of work.
02:21Many irons in fire.
02:24You feel fulfilled?
02:26Oh, yeah.
02:28Yeah, so full.
02:29So filled.
02:30She's also attempting to outrun her emotionally scarring past.
02:33Not just the sudden loss of her sister, but also the innocent blood on Yelena's hands.
02:38No one here is a hero.
02:40We all have things that we regret.
02:43But I have so many.
02:45In a way, Yelena seems like she might welcome death if it came for her.
02:49That said, when John Walker attempts to put a bullet in her, Yelena instinctively fights for her life.
02:59Ava Starr and Antonia Dreykov soon join the fight, with the latter not being as lucky.
03:04Also in the mix is Bob Reynolds, who seems like the least threatening person in the room.
03:13Oh, no.
03:15Who are you?
03:16I'm Bob.
03:17Of course, the people who go overlooked are often the ones who catch you off guard.
03:21The guns for hire eventually realize that they were each sent to assassinate one another.
03:26Instead, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine inadvertently creates a support group.
03:31The Thunderbolts, as they're tentatively called, find they won't survive Valentina's death trap without each other's help.
03:37Upon escaping, the Thunderbolts still need each other in more ways than one.
03:42So, none of us comply?
03:44So what, do we all just punch and shoot?
03:46I can't think of a worse group of people trying to work together.
03:50Stop!
03:50Come on!
03:51It's me!
03:51John, stop!
03:52Where are you?
03:53Where are you?
03:54Bucky Barnes serves as a counselor of sorts in Thunderbolts.
03:57Few MCU characters have endured more trauma than the brainwashed Winter Soldier.
04:03I am no longer the Winter Soldier.
04:04I am James Bucky Barnes and you're part of my efforts to make amends.
04:10Thankfully, Bucky had friends like Steve Rogers to help him come back.
04:14Yet Bucky wouldn't truly begin the healing process until he entered therapy.
04:18Even after surviving multiple wars, Bucky still found himself trapped in his own version of hell.
04:23I just went from one fight to another for 90 years.
04:31So, now that you've stopped fighting, what do you want?
04:36Bucky managed to escape that void by opening up to others and finally confronting the shame he had been running from.
04:42Why?
04:47I didn't have a choice.
04:48Like Bucky once was, the other Thunderbolts are lost in a sea of isolation.
04:58So you can either live with it forever.
05:04Or you can do something about it.
05:06Despite claiming they work better alone, each needs a helping hand.
05:10None more than Bob, who gained powers after being subjected to Valentina's experiments.
05:15Physically, Bob is invincible.
05:16His mental well-being is far more fragile, however.
05:20You thought you were going to be some great savior?
05:23You can't even save yourself.
05:26Before gaining his powers, Bob endured an abusive childhood,
05:30leading to a lonely adulthood plagued by substance use disorder.
05:33He trades one needle for another, hoping the experiment will turn his life around.
05:38Bob is kicked to the curb until Valentina discovers that the experiment actually worked.
05:42The Avengers are not coming.
05:46Who will keep the American people safe.
05:52Valentina tries to make Bob the new face of the Avengers, dubbing him Sentry.
05:56Instead, she unleashes the Void, the personification of depression.
06:01Bob's quick switch from Sentry to the Void could be seen as an allegory for bipolar disorder and
06:06dissociative identity disorder, showing how easily even the most unintimidating person can
06:11suddenly become a danger to themselves and others.
06:13You don't know what I'm capable of.
06:18Maybe I need to show you.
06:19As the Void, Bob becomes an unrecognizable shadow of his former self.
06:23I am a Void.
06:28Look what you are unleashed.
06:32You can't outrun the emptiness.
06:34His pain spreads across New York, trapping anyone who comes in direct contact with the
06:39Void in shame rooms, as the filmmakers call them.
06:42It's a very subtle shame room.
06:44And as a father, I just thought it was very important to have...
06:47It was originally just a conversation, an argument between the two parents.
06:51And I thought it was very important to have the child there.
06:54Inside, people relive their worst memories on an endless loop.
06:58For Yelena, it's primarily the guilt she's carried since betraying a childhood friend.
07:01For Walker, it's the self-destruction that tore his family apart.
07:05Even Valentina has buried trauma, having witnessed her father's death.
07:10Although there wasn't enough time to spotlight every character's shame room,
07:13director Jake Schreier says that Alexei's would have been the gulag,
07:16and Ava's was an orphanage where she was virtually invisible.
07:19I think her journey is kind of understanding forgiveness, not just within yourself,
07:25but forgiveness of the situation, letting your guard down.
07:30And it's okay to rely on other people and be relied on as well.
07:34They considered a few shame rooms for Bucky, including a memory from Boy Scout camp.
07:38The Void is one foe the heroes can't shoot at or punch.
07:42You have the wrong people.
07:43We have all done bad things.
07:45Running is an option, although that will only delay the inevitable as the Void causes further harm.
07:51Yelena realizes that the only way to stop the Void is from within.
07:55Joined by her fellow team members, they find that Bob is also a prisoner of the Void.
07:59For him, two moments stand out.
08:01The abuse he faced at the hands of his father, and the day he signed up for the experiment.
08:06Bob might have initially seen the experiment as an easy fix.
08:09Of course, there isn't a universal end-all cure for mental illness.
08:13While antidepressants can certainly help,
08:15many people require a balance of medication, therapy, self-care, and a strong support unit.
08:21We can't stop going alone.
08:27No one can.
08:29But we can find a way.
08:32Together.
08:33Bob finds his support group in the Thunderbolts,
08:36who understand that the Void can't be overcome alone.
08:39It's sort of a physicalization of many of the different shades of our own personalities
08:43that maybe we don't get to see personified.
08:45Even when Bob summons the strength to stand up to the Void,
08:49trying to use physical force only makes the enemy within stronger.
08:53The more punches Bob throws, the more the darkness consumes him.
08:57It isn't until the others pull him back that Bob can see the light again, breaking free.
09:01Uh, Lewis, what's it like to get a group hug from a bunch of superheroes?
09:05Is it even describable?
09:06It's not describable, and we got to do it many, many, many times.
09:10Ugh.
09:10This is only the beginning of Bob's recovery, however.
09:13The Void hasn't been entirely defeated, either.
09:16As Valentina mentioned, the Void is stronger than all of the Avengers combined.
09:20He's invincible, all-powerful, stronger than all of the Avengers rolled into one.
09:25The same can be said about depression, which even Earth's mightiest heroes are vulnerable to.
09:30That's those little brave baby steps we gotta take to try and become a whole again, try and find purpose.
09:37You can't merely snap it out of existence, but it can be managed.
09:41In the post-credits scene, we see Bob coping over a year later.
09:45This has makings of team that can raise to glory.
09:54Bring light from the darkness.
09:56While Bob acknowledges that the Void still exists, he's in a good place with his friends in his corner.
10:01Since his debut in the comics, the Void has been linked to mental illness.
10:05The filmmakers reached out to Paul Jenkins, who co-created the character for Input.
10:09Director Jake Schreier also drew from his personal experience, telling Variety, quote,
10:14That character was always based on a friend of mine who has gone through a lot of this stuff,
10:19and would have these very high highs, and would always bring in this very self-destructive quality underneath it.
10:24He really needed to learn how to exist within the middle of that, and be okay with being himself.
10:29Those are the things that people worry about, that there is really a kind of exciting visual opportunity
10:34to dramatize what it feels like to be stuck in those places, or to feel trapped, or to need to find a way out.
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10:56Although Bob is the most powerful member of the Thunderbolts, or New Avengers as they've been rebranded,
11:02he's in the most dire need of saving.
11:04Why do we need each other?
11:07Okay, that was really good.
11:09We are the Thunderbolts!
11:11Can't call ourselves that.
11:12God, thank you.
11:13Ironically, his friends are vastly underpowered by comparison.
11:17Some of them don't even have powers.
11:19Perhaps more than any other MCU movie,
11:22Thunderbolts shows you that you don't need super strength, flight, or an expensive suit to save the day.
11:27Okay, so if we are telling an internal story, and we know that in traditional comic book terms,
11:34as everyone says on the internet,
11:35how the heck are they going to beat that guy?
11:36And it's like, well, they're not in the way, in the normal way.
11:39By simply lending a hand to someone in need, anyone can be a hero.
11:43Even the so-called outcasts who feel detached from the rest of the world.
11:47It's also a reminder that asking for help is one of the bravest things a person can do.
11:52Everything that Yelena needed to do, which was accept that she wasn't feeling right,
11:57and that she needed help, and that she needed to ask people for help,
11:59was something that I, you know, was definitely in need of doing.
12:05There's a bit of the void in all of us, but that means there's also a sentry.
12:08He's such an intricate character because, in many ways, his biggest Achilles heel is himself, you know.
12:15And so, what does the future look like for a guy like that, with that much power,
12:21but with also that kind of soft spot?
12:24What did you think of Thunderbolts? Let us know in the comments.
12:27Why, you got some place to be?
12:29I love that guy.