Finally watched Thunderbolts* and I genuinely enjoyed it. Fun team dynamic, decent action, felt more grounded than most MCU stuff lately. But the whole time I kept thinking about how much better they could have done with Sentry's arc.
Think about Spider-Man. This is a guy who has lost everything that ever mattered to him, over and over again, and still kept going. But what if one day he just couldn't anymore. What if the weight of all that pain finally broke him and he stopped fighting the darkness. That alone would be terrifying to watch.
Now apply that to Sentry. Someone who could wipe out an entire civilization without breaking a sweat. A man so powerful that the idea of stopping him is almost unthinkable. That kind of person slowly breaking down and being consumed by depression is not just a villain origin story. It is a nightmare nobody has an answer for.
They did this perfectly with Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. He started as Gotham's best hope, a genuinely good man. Then he lost Rachel and everything flipped. He did not become evil because of some external force. He broke. That transformation hits so hard because you understand it.
Thunderbolts had the perfect character for that story and instead gave us a split personality reveal. Such a missed opportunity. Still a fun watch though. What did you guys think?
TLDR: Thunderbolts was fun but they wasted Sentry's potential. A hero that powerful slowly breaking down and becoming a villain through trauma and depression would have been way more compelling than a split personality reveal.