The Blue Team of Ian, Brent, Raph, Donovan, Brandon, Kris and Jamal are back at it to talk about Marvel’s conclusion to Phase Five, and the unexpected tentpole of what’s to come, Thunderbolts*. Spoilers abound as they discuss the nuances of the film as well as the team’s comic book origins, who the heck Bob is, how Marvel subverted our expectations in more than one way and how they made us care about these particular characters through the exploration of mental health, the joy that is Florence Pugh, Pullman and Russell: TNG, the father daughter relationship between Alexi and Yelena, how MCU Contessa is basically just Victoria Hand, where we rank this in post-Endgame movie releases, the thoughtful dickery that is John Walker, Congressman Bucky, and tons more*.

*Okay fine, we address the asterisk and how even that has multiple meanings.

We also start with thoughts on this year’s Free Comic Book Day and FBCD in general, discover a new library of comics you can read from the library via the Comics Plus app, and we conclude with some recent reads!

And here’s the video version:

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You can also follow Comic Timing on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/comictiming.bsky.social, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ComicTiming/, and on Instagram at http://instagram.com/comictimingpodcast. And please, if you can, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts; it helps attract new listeners! Finally, you can join in on the conversation at our Comic Timing Fans group on Facebook, which is a great place to hang out and talk comics.

Follow Ian on Bluesky, and on Instagram at http://instagram.com/i_am_scifi. Brent posts regularly to YouTube on his channel, BK’s Bullets and can be found on Bluesky; Raph is on Twitch at RaphDoesStuff, Instagram, and Bluesky. Kris is lampbane on Bluesky, here’s the article Kris wrote about the comic book industry in 2020, and you can check out her various other works at http://linktr.ee/krisnaudus. Donovan is on Bluesky, writes for DC’s blog and The Batman Universe, and check out his podcast, Questions: We Don’t Have Answers. Brandon is on Bluesky and Twitch, and will be running a panel at Kaiju Brooklyn on May 31st! And finally, Jamal is https://bsky.app/profile/jamaligle.bsky.social, https://www.instagram.com/jamaliglecomics/ and of course https://jamaligle.com/.

Thanks for listening, we’ll catch you next time, and as always, there’s always time for comics!