Thunderbolts* pits the team against The Sentry and his darker half, The Void, in what proves to be a moving tale about mental health. The MCU now has its own Superman, with Bob's story set to continue in Avengers: Doomsday next year.
However, The Sentry wasn't always the movie's big bad; in an earlier draft, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine was going to manipulate John Walker, after transforming him into her U.S. Agent in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, turning him into a "time bomb."
Talking to Screen Rant, Thunderbolts* writer Eric Pearson shared details on what would have been a full-blown villain turn for Walker.
"The original drafts of this had John Walker as the punching villain at the end. The idea was that part of Val's manipulation was that she had told him that his serum was wearing off, and she was doing these medications to keep him going. In reality, he was a time bomb; a Hulk kind of thing. There was going to be a bit of a 'Sun's getting real low' moment because from the beginning of this, it was like, 'I want to end our third act fight with a hug.'"
"That version was kind of fun, but ultimately didn't work and didn't feel right tone-wise. I had already kind of layered in the whole Breakfast Club thing, so I was like, 'I want someone that they can't beat in a punching fight and that they have to connect to in an emotional way.'"
"But back in the Marvel Writers program that I did in 2010 or 2011, I'd read the Sentry comics. In the comics, it's like the golden God of Good vs. Pure Evil. But I was like, 'What if it's heroic ambition and self-esteem versus self-loathing and depression and loneliness?' He's basically the entire journey for our heroes rolled into one entity. So, I put him in, and he fit so perfectly. Then it was all about finding and defining the Void space and stuff like that."
Pearson later explained that the comic book storyline revealing that The Sentry had existed since the Golden Age and erased everyone's memory of him was a "fun comic book idea that's not going to translate into this movie very well."
Despite that, "We took the memory loss, the duality of his character, and the fact that he was an experiment gone wrong. You want to just take as much to honor the comics, and then fit it into the movie world in the best way."
The comic book version of U.S. Agent has often swung between hero, anti-hero, and villain status, and seeing him transformed into a near-unstoppable being by Val certainly would have been interesting. However, it raises the question of what would have come next for John, particularly if he'd have lived to fight another day courtesy of a group hug.
Ultimately, it sounds like this was a very early idea and one which didn't take into account The Void, for example. The Sentry feels like the better choice of villain, and Walker is now free to do his thing alongside the other New Avengers.
Thunderbolts* is now playing in theaters.