Editing Marvel Comics (section)

===The Thunderbolts===
In 1993, [[DC Comics]] killed [[Superman]]. Naturally, Marvel couldn't resist hopping on that drastic roster-shaking bandwagon, and followed up in 1996 with the '''Onslaught''' event, in which a demonic entity comprised of the darkest parts of both Professor Xavier and Magneto's psyche ravaged the world and seemingly killed off a large portion of the best known heroes of the age. This left the Marvel Earth vulnerable, uncertain, crying out for new heroes.

And in July of 1997, they got them with an up-and-coming team calling itself "The Thunderbolts". Professing to be new heroes inspired to act by the fallen Avengers and X-Men, they set about proving themselves to the world. Led by the badass normal ''Citizen V'', a self-professed heir to the World War 2 costumed patriot of the same name, the team of the [[giant]]-shifter ''Atlas'', flying sonic construct-generator ''Songbird'', [[Power Armor]]ed ''MACH'' (originally MACH 1, but he kept upgrading the numeral as he improved and revised the suit), flying energy-blaster ''Meteorite'', and super-inventor (who later uploaded his brain engram to a robot body after his original one was killed) ''Techno'' stumbled at first, but ultimately won the love and trust of humanity, being welcomed as true heirs to the legacy of the Avengers, particularly once they took the traumatized electricity-manipulating orphan Jolt onto their team.

And that was when the truth came out. The Thunderbolts were actually a team of ''Avengers villains'', led by the second Baron Zemo, who had come up with the idea to disguise themselves as new up-and-coming heroes as part of an elaborate ploy to set themselves up for world domination. And it worked! ...Unfortunately for Baron Zemo, half of his team had decided that they '''liked''' being heroes, Jolt had never been a villain in the first place, and even villainous psychiatrist Moonstone, aka Meteorite, chose to get whilst the getting was good... though not before beating Baron Zemo to a pulp and chewing him out on how the Thunderbolts could have set them up for ''years'' of profitable scams, if he hadn't blown it like an idiot on trying for something as stupid and unworkable as world domination.

Revealed, and with the old heroes returning, the repentant Thunderbolts find themselves tracked down by Hawkeye; an Avengers member who had actually cut his teeth as a costumed thief, he was willing to give them a chance to prove themselves. And they did; the revived Thunderbolts took in some new members and actually became a legitimate heroic team... until declining ratings saw them axed, and in-universe the Avengers disbanded them.

Afterwards, the Thunderbolts went through a tangle of various bullshit revivals and cancellations, but their current status in Marvel canon as an official, government-supported rehabilitation and outreach program for repentant supercrooks, and not without its share of successes. Ironically, this means that for once Marvel is actually the ''lighter'' of the two big comics universes; the closest analogue to the Thunderbolts over in [[DC Comics]] is Task Force X, aka "The Suicide Squad"; random supercriminals forced to run dangerous missions as expendable black ops agents with the carrot of getting released and the stick of bombs implanted in their brains to blow them up if they refuse or try to escape.
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