Thunderbolts*, the newest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has a lot of elements that align it with the Avengers movies. (That’s a good thing, in my opinion.) Some of them are broader strokes, like the kinds of storytelling beats that made the Avengers so appealing: It’s a team-up tale about heroes with different styles and interests coming together, learning to get along, and fighting together in a worthy shared cause. Some are more specific, like the fact that the Thunderbolts gang literally winds up fighting in the husk of Tony Stark’s penthouse in Avengers tower.
And some are even more specific, like a character who seems like he was designed in a lab to appeal to a certain sector of fans attracted to men. In 2012, that was Tom Hiddleston’s trickster god Loki. In 2025, 13 years later, it’s Bob.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Thunderbolts*.]
Played by Top Gun: Maverick’s Lewis Pullman, Bob is a seemingly mild-mannered regular guy caught up in the hijinks of the edgy antihero team. When we first meet him, he has no idea how he got into a high-security vault run by unethical CIA director (and secret evil schemer) Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). He wears hospital scrubs and looks generally disheveled, with floppy dark hair and big puppy-dog eyes. Former Soviet assassin operative Yelena (Florence Pugh) takes pity on him, and after she shows him a bit of kindness, he follows her around like a lost dog. We slowly learn that Bob has a darker past than he lets on, and that he’s plagued by depression and nihilistic thoughts.
And then we learn he was one of the human subjects in Valentina’s experiments, which means he doesn’t realize he now has a bunch of unexpected and incredibly powerful abilities.
Bob is many elements that make a certain sector of fan on the internet go feral, all put together for some amazing synergy. Take Loki’s ability to change, in a matter of seconds, from a sniveling wet cat of a man to a cocky god with delusions of grandeur. Toss in some Bucky Barnes circa Winter Solider-era trauma, in the form of lab experimentation that led to him committing atrocities. Add in a voice that could be narrating spicy audiobooks, and you get Bob.
The fact that his name is Bob and that he’s treated like a bit of a punching bag by most of the characters in Thunderbolts* just makes everything about him more appealing. Alpha men are out! Sad, wet-looking losers are in!
I’m not entirely convinced that the executives at Marvel even know the sheer sexyman power they have on their hands. My colleague Austen Goslin argues that the scene where Bob’s shirt gets dramatically shredded, showing off his unexpectedly ripped abs, indicates that at least someone on set knew what was going on. I offer a counterargument: One, that glimpse of abs was probably meant more to hint to us that Bob was once pumped full of some form of superhero-generating serum. Two, the type of fans who are going to be into Bob are less into shirtless Chris Pratt/Evans types, and more into Loki kneeling with a collar around his neck. (Now that’s a production team that knew what it was doing.)
But kneeling, collared Loki didn’t happen overnight. No, it took almost 10 years of fans going gaga for him, with thousands of Tumblr gifsets and Photoshopped edits and who knows how much fanfiction. Yes, his popularity with all sorts of fans and the producers is why he stuck around and went from Big Bad of Avengers (2012) to the whipping-boy star of his own show. But I also firmly believe that much of what fueled Loki’s endurance as an MCU power-player was the fans who wanted to draw his name with little hearts around it. I’m convinced that Bob is about to get the same treatment from fans, though in 2025, that probably means fewer Tumblr memes, and more TikTok fancams and thirst edits, set to 20 seconds of whatever song is going viral this week. Still, I’m here for it. I’m ready. Let the Bob fancams roll in.