Do you remember when you were a kid and argued on the playground that your dad was better and stronger than another kid's dad? Of course, nowadays, these juvenile bouts of whose dad is stronger likely happen across social media or a multiplayer video game. This innate desire to be the best and to be on the best team is a common reference point we humans tend to revisit from childhood into adulthood.
Given the MCU recent theatrical release of the Thunderbolts*, I had that urge again to compare who (i.e. which team) is better and stronger: The Thunderbolts or The Sucicide Squad?
The members of Thunderbolts are comprised of a kaleidoscope of quasi-criminals and anti-heroes who were coerced in as much as they were manipulated (by a morally compromised S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent – Valentina Allegra de Fontaine) to work together for a common clandestine goal.
Similarly, in the DCEU with The Suicide Squad (2021), a covert intelligence agent (Amanda Waller) manipulated a team of incarcerated criminals to use their combined abilities and superpowers for a different, equally clandestine goal. Members of The Squad were promised reduced prison sentences in addition to the threat of implanted explosive devices in their necks to ensure their cooperation.
Agent Valentina’s manipulative designs were much more subtle on the Thunderbolts than Waller’s on The Suicide Squad, as she appealed to their sense of morality to protect national security as well as their need to just survive against an omnipotent threat (The Void) by combining forces. With that said, this is where the similarity of these teams ends, as I consider who would win in a battle of strength, abilities, and strategies against each other - regardless of their respective reasons for coercion or manipulation to engage in covert activity.
The Anti-Heroes
Team Thunderbolts includes:
Black Widow (Yelena Belova) – A Red Room (a secret Soviet program) trained spy and assassin, and a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant and master martial artist. Expert tactician and highly skilled in espionage and infiltration, with weapons proficiency in firearms, knives, and advanced armaments. Mastery of wrist gauntlet (Widow's Bite) that wields electrostatic blasts, explosives, tear gas pellets, knockout gas, and more.
Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) – Serum-enhanced Super-soldier with superhuman strength, speed, durability, and equipped with a cybernetic arm (energy weapons & EMP discharge). Brilliant strategist, covert operative, and tactician, with mastery of martial arts and expertise in marksmanship and advanced weaponry.
Red Guardian (Alexei Shostakov) – Soviet Union's first and only serum-enhanced super-soldier who has superhuman strength, combat skills, and wields a Soviet-style shield. Skilled test pilot and expert martial artist, he also trained as a former KGB agent in espionage, intelligence, and tactical planning.
U.S. Agent (John F. Walker) – Serum-enhanced Super-soldier with superhuman strength, agility, durability, and he wields a vibranium shield. Heightened speed and reaction time, with Captain America-like fighting style, and military expertise in strategy, leadership, and battlefield tactics.
Ghost (Ava Starr) – Quantum-based abilities via a battle suit for phasing, invisibility, energy absorption, and superhuman speed and agility, with genius-level intellect for technology, invention, and hacking advanced security systems. Skilled hand-to-hand combatant with expertise in firearms and weaponry.
Taskmaster (Anthony Masters) – Modified serum enhancement of his inherent mnemonic abilities with photographic reflexes to instantly copy any physical movement or combat technique, superhuman agility, speed, reflexes, and expert weaponist in sword fighting, archery, and mercenary.
Sentry (Robert Reynolds) – Golden sentry serum enhancement with superhuman strength, flight, telekinesis, photokinesis, telepathy, energy manipulation, and a dark psyche that manifests as The Void (capable of cosmic-level destruction with powers of regeneration, telepathy, and shapeshifting).
To ensure there is an even and balanced battlefield between the Thunderbolts and The Suicide Squad, Sentry/The Void will not be included in this matchup. In a previous article, I discussed how cosmic-level beings like Sentry with his Void powers create a challenging power imbalance in MCU storylines.
This imbalance of power renders Sentry's abilities moot and will not be considered as part of this matchup between the Thunderbolts vs The Suicide Squad.
The Convicts
Team Suicide Squad includes:
Bloodsport (Robert DuBois) – Trained from childhood to be a lethal combatant and a highly skilled marksman and assassin who can manifest weaponry, knives, and explosives from his suit, who has kryptonite weaponry, exceptional endurance and stamina, and is a tactical genius.
Peacemaker (Christopher Smith) – An any means necessary vigilante who believes in achieving peace at any cost, who is a master marksman who has advanced weaponry, combat training, manipulation/espionage skills, and is an aircraft and military vehicle specialist.
Harley Quinn (Harleen Quinzel) – A former psychiatrist turned chaotic anti-hero whose unpredictable tactics are to her advantage. She has enhanced agility, combat skills, an expert gymnast and acrobat, and a weapons master who welds mallets, baseball bats, and explosives.
Ratcatcher 2 (Cleo Cazo) – A legacy who inherited her father’s ability via a special device to communicate with and control rats, who has a high tolerance for harsh conditions, a tactical strategist, and she uses her rat control to gather intelligence and to overwhelm victims.
King Shark (Nanaue) – A demigod and son of the ancient Hawaiian deity Shark God, named Chondrakha - as a humanoid shark, has superhuman strength, regeneration powers, can swim at high speeds, enhanced senses, and teeth and claws capable of ripping through steel.
Polka-Dot Man (Abner Krill) – Projects explosive polka dots from his body due to an interdimensional virus experiment conducted on him, whose projectile dots are capable of emitting lasers, acids, hovering dots for flight, and dots that allow him to teleport short distances.
Rick Flag – An elite combat-trained Navy Seal and leader of Task Force X who is an expert marksman, master tactician, trained in interrogation and psychological warfare, who also has advanced skills to operate military aircraft, tanks, and other vehicles.
The Battle Strategy
As a tactical strategy, the Thunderbolts are likely to leverage their military and super soldier training from Winter Soldier, U.S. Agent, and Red Guardian, with these three leading the charge on the frontline attack. This would give Taskmaster and Black Widow an opportunity to analyze the Suicide Squad's weakness and adjust the team's attack pattern, while joining in the fight with their own targeted assaults.
The Suicide Squad is likely to deploy an array of disruptive and chaotic tactics of Harley Quinn and Ratcatcher 2 to overwhelm the Thunderbolts. As best this strategy could potentially rack up a win for the Suicide Squad; however, it more than likely this strategy would work temporarily, and a more sustainable tactic would be to deploy military tactics and leadership from Bloodsport, Peacemaker and Rick Flag - followed by the destructive forces of King Shark, Polka-Dot Man, and Ratcatcher 2.
Marvel’s Thunderbolts or James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad? 👀#Thunderbolts pic.twitter.com/N4ohvCrgh1
— BLURAYANGEL 🦇 (@blurayangel) May 4, 2025
The Matchup
The Suicide Squad would likely meet the Thunderbolts' super soldier frontline assault with their military might, with Bloodsport, Peacemaker, and Rick Flag. Given the level of super serum on the Thunderbolts, this matchup should reveal that, from a strength and hand-to-hand combat standpoint, the Suicide Squad is likely outmatched. To counter the Thunderbolts' super soldiers' sheer strength and power, Bloodsport, Peacemaker, and Rick Flag would rely on their weaponry skills and firepower.
Bloodsport would likely be first from a tactical standpoint to realize that a strength-for-strength and shot-for-shot strategy against the Thunderbolts' super soldiers would be a losing battle, and he'd advance in King Shark and Harley Quinn to shake things up to rev of the chaos to be disruptive and disarming.
Black Widow would be wise not to take the bait to fight Harley Quinn, so she and Taskmaster would go after King Shark. As long as they could stay away from his reach and those jaws, Black Widow and Taskmaster could find a tactical way to capture or subdue him. Black Widow's knockout gas from her wrist gauntlet had no effect on King Shark as it was not designed for Shark physiology. Eventually, they took down King Shark with Taskmaster's speed, weaponry, and Black Widow's grappling cables. Then, moving on as a tactical strategy, Black Widow and Taskmaster would continue their duo assault to take down Peacemaker, with Taskmaster's sword mastery skills and a neurotoxin from Black Widow's arsenal of wrist weaponry.
To match Harley Quinn’s chaotic battle tactics, Ghost's unpredictable phase power would certainly be a match for her and possibly get Quinn off balance for once. Not to mention Ghost's genius level intellect could be a perfect counterbalance to Quinn's psychotic criminal mind. Ultimately, it's likely Quinn may come out on top with a strategy that she previously deploys a host of remote bombs that she could detonate in random patterns that take out Ghosts as she phases in near a bomb.
At this point, there are losses on both teams, but Suicide Squad still has Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher 2 on the field. With a series of well-placed laser dots and explosive dots, Polka-Dot Man could do so damage to the Thunderbolts team, and a ravaging swarm of a million rats could certainly take in toll on the team as well.
With King Shark subdued, Ghost down, and the remaining Thunderbolts, Winter Soldier, U.S Agent, Red Guardian, Black Widow, and Taskmaster weak from battle and being ravaged by Ratcatcher 2’s rats – it’s not looking good for the Team Anti-Heroes. At this point, Winter Soldier and Black Widow manage to battle through the horde of rats to team up to take out Ratcatcher 2.
Bloodsport and Quinn would be on the defensive to protect Ratcatcher 2, while Polka-Dot Man would continue his halt of dot explosives as cover for his team. U.S. Agent and Taskmaster would likely be the first casualties to succumb to the rat swarm, as they are the weakest of the super soldiers.
Individual skills at play
Hand-to-hand engagement is inevitable after Winter Soldier successfully takes out Ratcatcher 2 and destroys her device with his cybernetic arm. That leaves Winter Soldier vs Bloodsport, Black Widow vs Harley Quinn & Polka-Dot Man, and Red Guardian vs Rick Flag.
As an expert on espionage, Black Widow would have already infiltrated covert government files on each member of the Suicide Squad, and she’d quickly make mental mush out of Polka-Dot Man, who has deep emotional trauma and scars from his abusive mother. Polka-Dot’s demise and mental breakdown would leave Black Widow time to fend against Harley Quinn all on her own, without his array of explosive dots.
Both remaining teams of the Thunderbolts and the Suicide Squad would quickly realize, they would need to work together within each individual matchup to win. Red Guardian and Winter Soldier would trade off using Red Guardian's shield to block weapons and explosions from Rick Flag and Bloodsport. Harley Quinn lays down defensive fire with her chaos weapon of choice to help Bloodsport and Rick Flag when they are threatened.
With the intensity of battle coming to a heightened, evenly matched maelstrom, until Winter Soldier blocked enough firepower from Bloodsport to get close enough to effectively use his cybernetic arm to overpower him and take him out did the Thunderbolt began to take the upper hand in the battle.
Clearly, at this point, Rick Flag and Harley Quinn are no match for Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Red Guardian. Red Guardian and Winter Soldier easily overpowered Rick Flag. As Quinn, the consummate schemer, had already plotted her escape plan with a hidden mini helicopter, she used to suddenly whisk away, escaping defeat.
Winner and Loser MVPs
Excluding Sentry from this matchup between the Thunderbolts and Suicide Squad pits these teams as evenly matched, as it was understandably a toss-up if the Thunderbolts could win with their organizational and tactical skills or if the Suicide Squad could prevail with their highly unpredictable and chaotic fighting style.
Ultimately, it was the combination of their advanced power and tactical skills that won the day for the Thunderbolts. However, given this was a toss-up matchup, some MVPs stood out and were critical advantages for both teams.
Harley Quinn's chaotic battle style and psychotic ferocity are Team Convict's MVP as she kept the Suicide Squad in play by keeping the Thunderbolts off balance. While Team Anti-Heroes' reluctant leader, Winter Soldier is MVP - as his super soldier strength as well as his tactical organizational skills facilitated the win for the Thunderbolts (aka The New Avengers)!