starcat1701

First off, I think it's important to remember that there is a general state of economic anxiety in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Seeing a movie in the theater is ultimately a luxury compared to essentials like gas, groceries, medicine, and the like. Many people are skipping out on watching movies in theaters for this reason. Especially since many theaters are getting more expensive while also providing a worse experience due to low staffing, way too many ads before movies, and aging equipment. All of these issues are exacerbated by the presence of streaming services which make it less important to watch a movie in theaters immediately. I’m going to go more into streaming a bit later.

Somewhat related to this issue is the fact that 2025 has been a great year for movies. Especially this spring and summer. Ironically enough, shunting Brave New World into a February release date, which is not usually a great time to release movies, ultimately seemed to have helped the film. Since there weren’t that many other movies coming out at the time, Brave New World didn’t have to share with anything else in theaters. Meanwhile, releasing Thunderbolts during the more optimal spring/summer release time meant that the movie had a lot of competition. And the competitors were really good - as I discussed before, Thunderbolts had the misfortune of being released right after Sinners of all movies, which was basically impossible to follow up. I think audiences were more likely to watch Sinners twice in theaters than to watch Thunderbolts once. 

But there have been other great movies released around the same time as Thunderbolts. For example, Thunderbolts was a superhero movie sandwiched between a Captain America movie, the new rebooted Superman, and the new rebooted MCU Fantastic Four. By comparison, Thunderbolts was a barely known team from the comics composed of barely known MCU characters (and Bucky in a bad wig). I could see some fans on a budget go to watch Captain America, Superman, and Fantastic Four in theaters and save their money by waiting to watch Thunderbolts on streaming later. But even the elements that were supposed to set Thunderbolts apart from these particular movies were done way better in other recent releases. Thunderbolts was advertised as having impressive practical stunts, but it was followed up by a Mission Impossible movie, the series that wrote the book on extreme stuntwork! Thunderbolts was supposed to be the gritty, woman-led action movie, but it was followed up by a John Wick movie with a new woman lead. There is more creative action in a single minute of Ballerina than in the entirety of Thunderbolts. I’m talking about the gun-knife, the bit with the plates, the part with the ice skates, the grenade bundle sequence, I could go on.

Essentially, Thunderbolts came out during a time of heavy competition, which would have messed with the performance of any movie regardless of quality. But now I’m going to go more into how Thunderbolts’ actual issues as a movie could also explain its poor performance. To begin, I’m going to delve more into the matter of streaming. For a movie to do well in theaters nowadays, it needs to do something to make it worthwhile to watch on the big screen. And we’ve seen plenty of movies lean into that. Top Gun: Maverick for example was one of those movies that was really meant to be seen in theaters because of its impressive dogfights. Sinners obviously motivated audiences to not only watch the movie in theaters, but to specifically seek it out in IMAX. Even looking at other superhero movies, Brave New World made good use of the big screen. That movie features an incredible aerial battle and a finale where Captain America fights the red hulk. Add the creative use of color and other visuals throughout the film and you get a movie that is best watched, at least for the first time, on the big screen. 

By comparison, Thunderbolts doesn’t have much in the way of visuals that would be enhanced by the theater experience. As I’ve gone into before, the colors and direction choices make it pretty unappealing to look at. The main action sequences - Bucky on his bike and the Void taking over New York, are fun. But they aren’t necessarily made better with a big screen, there’s nothing about them that make watching it at home a less satisfying experience. Now, on its own, the fact that a movie’s action sequences look just as good at home doesn’t ultimately mean that people will wait to watch it on streaming. It may have contributed, but I wouldn’t say it was the smoking gun so to speak.

Now I *do* believe that the last-minute marketing of Thunderbolts in which it literally spoiled the “new Avengers” reveal absolutely convinced a good deal of potential theater viewers to wait to watch it at home. Because another motivation to watch a movie in theaters is the fear of missing out, the desire to be part of the conversation about the movie, to be “in the know”. If there’s some big twist at the end, people who watch it as soon as they can rather than waiting for streaming can participate in exclusive conversations. And people waiting to stream the movie have to avoid spoilers online, which can be rather difficult in this age of the internet and social media. This can motivate more people to watch it in theaters just to avoid getting the experience spoiled for them.

Which is why Disney’s decision to spend more money on billboards and bring out the actors to do promo stunts all to deliberately spoil the ending of the movie is probably the first thing I’ll cite as being a huge mistake that probably helped this movie bomb in the box office. Because now the motivation for audiences to watch the movie to avoid spoilers is gone. So now Thunderbolts is a movie that isn’t visually impressive enough to want to watch in theaters on its own merits, and there’s no reason to watch it to avoid spoilers because they decided to spoil the ending on purpose! So it's only reasonable that potential theater viewers who couldn’t watch Thunderbolts on its opening weekend saw that reveal and decided to just wait to watch it at home in a few months. And this isn’t even covering whether the ending that got spoiled was good and exciting or not.

But since you have probably read the many, many words I’ve written about the ending of Thunderbolts, you’re aware that I think it's trash. So now it's time to get into the main takeaway that I hope Disney gets from Thunderbolts losing so much money. The movie performed poorly because it was a bad movie. The movie was ugly to look at, the story only happened because practically every character was being actively stupid, and almost everyone we knew from previous movies was out of character. The actors had little to no chemistry, most of the characters in what was supposed to be an ensemble movie had little to nothing to do and hardly spoke to one another. The movie felt detached from everything that led up to it and the well-established world it was supposed to be a part of. The themes and messaging were shallow and trite, and as I’ve written before, the ending ruins any semblance of meaning the movie tried to have. The ending which Disney decided for whatever inane reason to spoil *on purpose* almost as soon as the move came out!

So I would hope that there is a meeting behind the scenes at Disney where they are somehow able to come to the straightforward conclusion that Thunderbolts did poorly because it was a bad movie! And while issues like the rise of streaming, competition with a healthy summer movie schedule, and the general reduced traffic at movie theaters certainly didn’t help Thunderbolts’ performance, those factors shouldn’t be the focus of the discussion. Mostly because those aren’t things that Disney could change, and there is so much about Thunderbolts’ poor performance that absolutely was Disney’s fault.

While I primarily want Thunderbolts to serve as a teaching moment about quality control and not spoiling your terrible ending on purpose as soon as the movie comes out, there is another takeaway I want Disney to receive from this loss of money. Another reason I think it's important that Thunderbolts bombed, and it's because I think Disney basically pulled a Target with this movie. What is “pulling a Target”? Well, a few months back, in response to the 2024 election in the United States, Target, a homegoods store, decided to repeal its DEI policies as well as agreements specifically in support of Black artists. This came as a surprise to the store’s regular customers since Target was well known for being a company that marketed itself towards a more diverse customer base. It sold clothing and other items geared to queer and BIPOC customers. It partnered with designers who were often Black, queer, or POC. Target was by no means a revolutionary company, it was obvious that the store made these decisions for profit motivated reasons. But even so, it was nice to see. That’s why it came as quite the shock when Target was one of the first companies to publicly see and follow the tide turning towards reactionary values upon the 2024 election. In response, multiple Black organizers including Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant and Nekima Levy Armstrong, multiple Black churches as well as other organizations and many individuals called for a boycott of Target. That boycott has continued at the time of me writing this, and it seems to be working quite well. Target is feeling significant financial losses because of its decision to capitulate to racists.

So what does this have to do with Disney and Thunderbolts? Well, in addition to Thunderbolts just being a bad movie in general, I think it's important to shine a light on the ways in which this movie feels like a huge step back in terms of representation. Representation which has been a clear focus of projects in the MCU in the last few years. These are examples that have been brought up by plenty of other people here, and I’m going to give a non-exhaustive list. The marketing of this movie described it as a departure from recent projects, saying that it heralded a new direction for the MCU. Implying that the previous movies were somehow not up to standard, which was not true. The implication that previous movies centering around Black and POC characters were being somehow “in the wrong direction” while Thunderbolts, with a majority white cast was now “the right direction” is telling. It is implicitly racist messaging that Disney signed off on when using this as a way to promote the film. Thunderbolts also got a bigger promotional rollout in terms of trailers, billboards, and finally its red carpet premiere compared to that of Brave New World, a film with a Black lead, Black writer, Black director, and majority Black and POC cast. This also feels like an act of implicit racial discrimination.

Now onto the actual film itself. Much of this movie can be seen as a step back in terms of representation. I’ve touched on some of this before, but it might be useful to see a good deal of it all listed out here. This movie treats its Black characters terribly - Ava, who is supposedly a lead character, is hardly given any lines or anything to do. As for side characters, first of all there are very few of them, and second of all they are all treated terribly by the narrative. The senator Bucky is supposed to be working with in order to take down Val is ultimately betrayed with the “new Avengers” ending. Walker’s ex-wife Olivia and her child are mistreated so greatly by John that she feels the need to leave their marriage for the sake of her safety. Mel, Val’s assistant, is convinced by Bucky to help take down Val. But, again, she is also betrayed despite taking a huge risk by the “new Avengers” ending. And while the treatment of Mel’s character isn’t specifically anti-Black, she is also a woman of color who is disrespected by the narrative. But Mel was originally going to be played by national treasure Ayo Edebiri, meaning that this movie was aiming to be an anti-Black sweep. 

This movie also disrespects Black characters who aren’t even on screen. Despite being the reason Bucky is even alive, the Wakandans who were threatened by Val in Wakanda Forever are essentially forgotten about in this movie, especially with the “new Avengers” ending. Sam, Captain fucking America, is actively erased in this movie even though Bucky, his partner who canonically *loves* him, is one of the main characters. The only references made regarding Sam are Val talking about the red hulk fight in Brave New World while deliberately not mentioning the person who saved the day and John saying “on your left”. A moment which is so agonizingly awful that I wrote a separate rant all about it. I also already wrote about how John’s treatment as some kind of morally grey anti-hero in this movie rather than actually addressing his racist behavior towards Sam feels like a way of capitulating to his racist stans. Sam is only explicitly mentioned in a post credits scene where he is openly mocked. Overall, Thunderbolts feels like a movie that capitulates to the anti-Black backlash that more recent MCU projects have received. 

But I’d argue that Thunderbolts isn’t just a step back in terms of racism. It also has plenty of moments that feel explicitly sexist and ableist. I’ve already covered the ableism in Thunderbolts before, as have plenty of others. But essentially a lot of the messaging around mental health in this movie feels ultimately very shallow and patronizing. As if someone’s problems can be solved with a group hug of all things. Also, the choice of which characters get their mental health explored falls into typical troubling patterns. Again, we see the rooms of John and Yelena but not Ava. This matches disappointing narratives in which white mental health is addressed while the mental health of Black and POC individuals is largely ignored. Finally, Bucky’s prosthetic arm gets removed and used as a prop for a cheap joke *multiple times* in this movie. While Bucky has lost his prosthesis in previous projects, the way in which it is treated has never felt so gross as it does in this movie.

Onto the sexism. Now, yes, it is cool that this is a movie where the main character, Yelena, is a woman. And the Thunderbolts team has *two* women, yay! But, as I covered before, only *white* Yelena receives any actual attention in this story. Now this team could have had three women on it, if Antonia hadn’t been immediately fridged at the start of the movie. Fridging is a sexist narrative trope in which a woman character is killed brutally to provide shock value and motivate another character. What’s even worse in this case is that Antonia’s death doesn’t even motivate anyone, so it is only there for shock value! Not only that, but she dies in a way that mimics her original trauma of being blown up as a child. She gets to say one line, she is not mourned and is instead barely acknowledged. And it seems that she was killed off because fans didn’t like how she was Taskmaster in Black Widow. So, in a movie that is purportedly about redeeming characters and giving them a chance to shine, they kill off a woman because men online didn’t like her. Yikes! And they destroy the suit as well, so now nobody gets to be Taskmaster!

While killing off Antonia feels like the most deliberately sexist story decision in Thunderbolts, there are more. And these are admittedly more my own rather cynical opinions, but this is my essay so whatever. I feel that the way this teamup even happened feels sexist. Because Ava, Yelena, and John are all introduced as working for Val and doing objectively bad things on her behalf. Yelena is literally blowing up buildings, for instance. And in the case of Ava and Yelena, this feels like a departure from their previously established characters. Even when Yelena is working for Val in Hawkeye, she is shown to have an explicit moral compass. She is going after Clint because she was told he was responsible for Natasha’s death, and because he was actually someone who killed a lot of people. And when she realizes that she was misled at the end, she stops trying to kill him. Yelena spares Kate every time she fights her because she understands that she’s ultimately innocent. She even goes as far as to share information about who actually hired her to kill Clint just because she respected Kate enough to let her know. Yelena’s certainly not portrayed as purely good in this appearance, but she’s certainly a long way from her characterization in Thunderbolts. 

Ava receives similar treatment to Yelena. In Ant man and the Wasp, Ava shares how she worked for SHIELD (implied to actually be HYDRA) doing covert assassinations in order to get help treating her debilitating condition. But she also reveals that, once she realized that she was getting led on with no actual concrete help, she left. She understood that what she did was wrong, and while leaving only when she realized they weren’t going to help her wasn’t evidence of her being an especially *good* person, she clearly wasn't explicitly evil. She ends the movie acknowledging that she did the wrong thing and hurt people, implying she wanted to fix things. There is little to explain why she would want to work for Val in Thunderbolts.

And my issue with Ava and Yelena murdering people for Val isn’t simply the fact that they’re doing a bad thing. My issue is more so that there is little explanation for why precisely they are doing this, other than the fact that they are apparently pretty awful people. There could have been plenty of good motivations for these two to be working for Val that would feel more in character. Maybe they could need the money for something specific - Yelena might feel the need to financially support her other widows who can’t work. Ava might have some device she’s saving up for that could cure her condition (because that whole element of her character seems to have been dropped). Or they could be victims of coercion - Val could blackmail Yelena with threats to get all the ex-widows arrested. And she could also have been threatening Ava’s science dad Bill Foster. But instead Ava and Yelena are working for Val simply because they like having a job? Even though there’s no reason they couldn’t just have a different form of employment?

Ultimately, what *I* think makes this decision sexist is that it puts Ava and Yelena - women who were forced into enacting violence because they were victims of trafficking and manipulation - into the same box as John. Meanwhile, John did all of his awful shit of his own accord! Adding Alexei into the mix makes it even worse, because it paints a picture where the child trafficker *and* his victim are somehow both bad guys who need to redeem themselves. And while I know that the decision to not really go into Ava and Yelena’s motivations for working for Val was a result of lazy writing, the result is that it feels very sexist. I might even go so far as saying it dips into some victim blaming. Thunderbolts basically says “these women who had to compromise their moral values in order to survive their terrible circumstances turned out to actually be bad people because, when given the opportunity, they decided to just do the same thing for a living. And they’re just as bad as the men who did terrible things despite having no history of manipulation or coercion.” Now, was this messaging intentional? I have no idea. But this is what happens when writers don’t put the proper care into what they’re writing. Impact is more important than intent after all.

Other bits of sexism that I’ll just go ahead and throw in there is to reiterate the miserable treatment of Olivia. She is of course the victim of both sexism and anti-Black racism in the form of misogynoir. Her pain of losing her relationship with her high school sweetheart husband who revealed himself to both her and the world as a monster. Of losing Lamar, who was also clearly her friend as well as John’s. Of enduring harassment because of her husband’s actions, being neglected after giving birth to her child. Feeling unsafe enough that she had to leave their marriage. None of that is covered at all, and instead all of this is treated as reasons to feel bad for John of all people. That is textbook misogynoir because Olivia is receiving a lack of empathy because of her status as a woman and a Black person. 

Even Val’s treatment feels like sexism. In previous projects, Val was teased as a threatening and compelling villain. She was coming after Wakanda, the most powerful nation in the world. She was recruiting all sorts of people for some nefarious end. And the fact that she was a villainess was cool! The MCU really hasn’t had a good list of women antagonists, let alone villains. But in Thunderbolts, we don’t even learn what Val’s ultimate goal with her hirelings even was. What ever happened to her “when things really hit the fan” line towards John in Falcon in the Winter Soldier? In Thunderbolts, Val is ultimately a bumbling fool who creates all of her problems. She fails to kill off Yelena, Ava, and John. She accidentally unleashes Sentry, and her “new Avengers” idea was a really dumb choice that shouldn’t have worked. She only got away with things because everyone else was somehow even stupider than her. She’s just not a compelling villain anymore which is really disappointing! After Wakanda Forever, I was looking forward to seeing her be a thorn in our hero's side for multiple movies. But now there’s just no good way to take her seriously.

I might even say that Yelena and Bob’s relationship feels pretty shaky in this regard. Now if their dynamic had occurred in a better movie, I think I would have maybe given it more grace. However, in this particular movie, I just can’t bring myself to provide a more generous interpretation. It feels like the movie is saying “you know what every depressed woman needs? Some grown ass man to take care of!” Because as Nicque Marina has said multiple times, Bob is barely a character. He is a sad white man who the fandom can’t wait to infantilize more than the narrative already does. And Yelena’s story now seems to be tied to some random guy we know nothing about. This relationship seems to supersede any others she could have had with other much better defined women like Kate or Antonia. It feels like they took a well realized woman character and just *had to* tie her story to some guy. Again, if this had been done better or been in a better movie I wouldn’t have minded it, but on top of everything else this movie has done I just can’t help but see this move as cynically, casually sexist.

And *finally* I’m going to tear into the “new Avengers” ending once more, this time from a political angle. Because if people are out there calling Sam conservative for having the audacity to visit the White House as Captain motherfucking America, I can talk about the *actual* conservative messaging in Thunderbolts. Because this team of “loveable” misfits end the story working for the actual CIA. The United States Central Intelligence Agency. The government agency responsible for some of the country's most egregious acts of imperialism. I’m talking about deposing democratically elected governments and political assassinations. And that’s just in real life. In-universe, Val was actively heading the CIA when she tried to overthrow the sovereign African nation of Wakanda, when she hired the members of the Thunderbolts to assassinate people and blow up buildings, and when she experimented on Bob to turn him into a living weapon. And the conclusion of this movie argues that, by going along with Val’s plan and working for her publicly, calling themselves the “new Avengers”, the Thunderbolts are doing a good thing. This is a win for them. Even if people in-universe don’t necessarily like it, they just don’t know the whole story! What matters is it makes Yelena and all of her dumbass friends she just met happy! See, Thunderbolts says that it doesn’t matter if you are helping your employer commit terrible crimes. All that matters is that you are personally fulfilled. This is a deeply conservative message, essentially saying “fuck you, got mine!”. The CIA deposes governments and experiments on US civilians? Who cares as long as it doesn’t affect you personally, says Thunderbolts!

Now if only a few of these things had happened in Thunderbolts, I wouldn’t have gone this hard on the movie. But the sum total of all of these parts paints a pretty dark picture. It feels socially and politically conservative on all fronts, in a way that feels like an active step back from the messaging that was prioritised in multiple years worth of movies and shows. And it's conveyed in a pretty insidious way. We aren’t having characters saying sexist jokes or racial slurs. Instead we’re seeing erasure, narrative mistreatment, and unfortunate implications that simply were ignored or actively encouraged by the writers. So when people notice these problems they can’t easily point to one obvious thing to convey their point. That makes these obviously regressive narrative issues harder to call out and discuss at large.

Now when I say “pulling a Target”, I’m not trying to imply that Thunderbolts bombing is exactly like the situation with Target. The Target boycott is the result of many people putting a lot of effort into organizing, while Thunderbolts flopping doesn’t seem to be the result of any intentional boycott. Target is also losing way more money for a longer period of time, while Disney making one poorly performing movie is probably not going to hurt the company’s bottom line for very long. When I use the term “pulling a Target” I am more referencing the general pattern - a company learns that appealing to a more diverse customer base makes it more money, so it features more representation to appeal to that audience. This works well for years, which is why it is surprising that this particular company used the regressive societal implications of the 2024 election as an opportunity to roll back their progressive policies and representation. This rollback then backfires terribly, losing the customer base they were cultivating while also failing to gain the reactionary customer base that they were capitulating to, since those kinds of customers had already written off that company years ago. Cue executive panic behind the scenes, line goes down, ect. Turns out there’s no “go woke, go broke” there’s just “be racist cowards, get fucked assholes”.

So that’s my likely idealistic wish for what executives take away from the poor performance of Thunderbolts. That this sudden turn away from diverse representation is not only craven and cowardly behavior, but ultimately is also financially disastrous. Because the kinds of viewers who would be pleased by such a reactionary decision aren’t watching Thunderbolts because it has a woman lead. And because those kinds of viewers have written off all of the MCU as woke trash years ago. And the weird loud online John Walker stans didn’t actually equate to actual tickets purchased! So these kinds of decisions only served to alienate the fanbase that Disney has been actively cultivating for the last few years. Add the fact that these regressive narrative decisions seem to have also had a negative impact on the overall quality of the story, and you get a clear message. Thunderbolts was a genuine, multilevel fuck up that should never be repeated!

Stereotypes & Tropes

The link in the heading above is a guide to quite a few harmful stereotypes and tropes to be mindful of when writing characters of color by writingwithcolor. I highly recommend you read through their content.

Below is a list of things we see most often in the Sam and Sambucky tags as well as links from sources talking about similar situations in other spaces:

Infantilization of white characters (At PoC’s expense): Bucky being framed as a helpless child who can't think for himself and that always being Sam's problem.

Black Man, Protecting his Traumatized White Wife: Sam always comforting and being concerned about Bucky when the comfort and care is never reciprocal, and when 'caretaker' Sam's only role/purpose in the story.

Writing a Comedic Black Character: Sam being over-the-top funny and saying things that are wildly out of character. Those incorrect quotes that frame him as joking but he's really mean and hateful, sometimes even violent, toward Bucky? Yeah.

Sam being sexually aggressive: why do people insist that Sam is the top in the relationship? That he's a dom, that he's rough in bed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with top!sam, but insisting that he's no-doubt aggressive and dominant in bed? Nah. Same goes for hyper sexualization.

Size Difference: Describing or drawing Sam as bigger or taller than his white partner when canon clearly depicts otherwise.

Villainizing Black Characters/Actors: Sam is always wrong, Sam is unfair, Sam is a bully, Sam is violent. Mackie is a misogynist. Mackie is homophobic etc.

Writingwithcolor also has this search engine that finds anything on their blog.

Resources for writing Sam as a well rounded character:

A lot of the time Sam is written without any depth or nuance. In many fics, he only exists to prop the white dude up. Very rarely is he written as the caring, badass, heartthrob that he really is. Be mindful of Sam's role in your story, is he always chasing Bucky's affection, are you using Sam as a reader insert to lust after Bucky? Do you diminish/ignore Sam's skills and knowledge to make the white dude look good/smart? Do you consider his trauma and mental struggles as well when you write about Bucky's and how Bucky leans on him for support? Remember Sam's POV does not equal a Sam-centric story.

Below are a bunch of links on how cool Sam really is to help you shape his character in your stories:

From the 2019 samwilsonbirthdaybang:

MCU Wiki (link updated by me since Sam is now Cap) Marvel Wiki A folder full of Sam meta Complete Badass (reblog) NCO (non-commissioned officer) and why

Sam Wilson Meta: A Timeline

Sam Wilson's USAF Rank

Sam Wilson is a US Special Forces Pararescueman, and a PTSD counselor. 

Sam's role at the VA was a peer counselor, not a therapist. here's the difference.

A compilation of Sam Wilson’s personality traits

Sam's PTSD

Sam's age & Riley's death

More badass Sam Wilson

Resources for drawing/coloring Sam:

Here's a hint: he's not beige or grey. Too often do we see art of someone who is supposed to be Sam but he's one shade darker than the white dude. These posts go into detail with some great advise:

Creating Black Characters

Whitewashing & Colorism

Coloring gifs of poc

Y'all can't draw or color Black ppl to save your lives.

Color picking

Color theory & darker skin

Some examples of whitewashing skin tone: this, this, this, this and this. Loads more examples on whyaretheywhite!

Here's a visual:

see where this dude's skin tone is on the color picker:

compared to Mackie's skin tone?:

Look at the difference between those two shades! Remember whitewashing doesn't only refer to the lightening of skin, it also includes drawing Black characters with European facial features, and not incorporating the appropriate hair texture etc.

Additional resources & reading:

How to write fic for Black characters: a guide for non-Black fans

Colourblindness

White Authors and Topics to Avoid/Tread Carefully

Physical Descriptions:

Dark skin reactions to cold weather Skin color changes due to health Describing skin tone Skin tone & food comparisons: it's weird. stop it.

Dehumanizinig Sam

Antiblackness in it's many forms

It's not preference, it's racism.

Antiblackness: Even more examples

It's not shipwars, surprise, it's also racism.

More Stereotypes

Interracial Relationships

For now that's it. I might add useful articles I come across to this post as time goes on. Please also add your own resources but fuckery will be blocked.

These resources are by no means exhaustive, they are just what i have used as references throughout the years. You will do yourself (and a multitude of Sam fans) a massive favor by being introspective about your role in this fandom and how it affects Black fans and other fans of Sam Wilson. Go and read the rest of the articles/posts on these blogs and apply the context to the Sam and Sambucky fandoms, the similarities are stark.