Thunderbolts Comics (1996 Series)

The Thunderbolts are a Marvel Comics super-hero team, but the twist is that the team consists of former super-villains! The concept was created by writer Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley and the team first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #449 in February 1997. Marvel ran the series through to issue #81, completely reformatting the series in issues #76 – 81 to try to emulate X-Force. The original team consisted of Baron Zemo (Citizen V), the Beetle (MACH-1), Fixer (Techno), Goliath (Atlas), Screaming Mimi (Songbird) and Moonstone (Meteorite). 

After cancelling the title at #81, the Avengers Thunderbolts, was lauched and continued one year after the events in issue #75. Marvel then launched a second series, New Thunderbolts #1,  featuring these characters and continued from Avengers Thunderbolts and tied into Avengers Disassembled. The series then reverted to the original numbering with Thunderbolts #100. This resulted in a new direction under writer Warren Ellis, who  introduced a new team of villains, including Norman Osborne and Venom, working for the government, tasked with capturing unregistered superheroes.