Book Review - Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts: The Art of the Movie

The Artbook Collector
Sep 15
7 min read

September 15th 2025

Back again with another artbook in their long running series, Marvel Studios are this time giving fans a look at the concept art behind Thunderbolts, aka The New Avengers. Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts: The Art of the Movie dives into the team-up of some favourite ‘antiheroes’, as well as the introduction of new fan favourite Bob, and has now joined the collection here so I can give my thoughts on the latest book from the studio.

Available anywhere you buy books, it was published by Marvel themselves on September 9^th, just four months after the movie was released, which is a quick turnaround for the studio as they continue to play catchup. As always the review will be broken down into 5 points; build quality, content, credits, use of space and value, covering everything you need to know before buying!

Build Quality

This is the fourth in the series to come with a slipcase and lithograph prints, offering a little more than just the hardcover book. The slipcase is the same matching size as the previous releases, coming in at 30cm x 27cm and is thick and sturdy, making it more than just decorative. This was a selling point of the books during the Infinity Saga and a welcome return, also coming with fantastic artwork in this case from Andy Park.

The 29cm x 24.5cm book inside comes again with 224 pages, no surprise here, but it does include a better cover then their last two in this format, as it includes artwork on the front. The gloss paper inside isn’t as good as what you find in most artbooks as it is thinner, but it still feels decent in quality. Unfortunately, in this case the binding is a little tight and doesn’t always allow the pages to open fully, putting text and images on the awkward bend by the centre fold. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but does have an impact on some pages. The book can be seen in the top centre below, with the 5 prints surrounding it.

The lithograph prints again don’t do much for me personally, adding little value and not using art that takes up the full card. I’ve said before that they aren’t a huge step up from free giveaways at a local cinema, but at least this time the prints aren’t so dark they obscure the image detail. Some may like them, but it still very much feels like justification to set the RRP at $100 and that will always be a negative for the series while using this format.

My copy also came with pages that have creases and marks that I was not impressed by. This is not due to handling, as the book is not damaged and neighbouring pages are fine. These were put into the book this way and it was clearly an oversight on the part of the team putting it together. It is unlikely to be the only copy like this, though there may only be a small handful, but it should have been picked up.

Content

This book comes with some nice surprises, as well as retuning highs and lows seen before from Marvel too. If you own previous entries to the series, you know what to expect for the most part with its costume exploration, location concepts, keyframes, and insights throughout from the team behind the film. This is what you buy the books for and you won’t be disappointed with what you find here.

The art itself as expected highlights the incredible talent of the people that work on the MCU. As always, I’m not writing this to review critique artwork, but I’m a big fan of the artists ability to take costumes and characters from the comics and give them life for live-action. The location art is highly detailed and you can see how moments of the movie were shaped using the incredible keyframes too. I’m a long-time fan of Director of Visual Development Andy Park, as well as many of the other artists such as Wesley Burt and Aleksi Briclot, so it’s always nice to get more of their work on the shelf here.

A highlight of the book and a return inclusion are storyboards in a handful of spots found throughout. These aren’t always used, but are hopefully going to be on ongoing feature now that they have been featured here and in Marvel Studios' Captain America: Brave New World - The Art of the Movie. They also shine the spotlight on a handful sketches and earlier artwork too, as opposed to just the high detailed concepts we are used to seeing, which are welcome additions.

There is a lot of costume design as expected for the returning faces, as well as for Sentry/ The Void which will be the big selling point for fans. It was really nice to see that Taskmaster gets 7 spreads of concepts, especially after her short appearance in the movie. It’s not the full redemption the character should have though, but it’s something. It was odd though that Taskmaster would get so many spreads, when John Walker gets just one. It is mentioned his suit didn’t change much, but I wasn’t expecting him to get so much less than everyone else.

A surprise was that there is a lot more location art that I was expecting given that the movie isn’t using exotic or alien environments like you get in Guardians of the Galaxy. As the the movie’s focus is on the team, I was anticipating much more of a character art showcase, but I like that they balanced it out.

There is less in the way of unused ideas as some previous artbooks though, you won’t find unused characters, cut ideas or a wealth of keyframes you that didn’t see on-screen. The unused material is in the early iterations of what was used, such as costumes, building designs, or most interestingly the tentacle exploration for The Void, all of which are still fun to see. I was hoping to see more for what could have been for Taskmaster before the role was cut back, but she was only in one unused keyframe outside of the costume concepts.

The text is well written and has some nice insights into the art direction, plot and characters. It boasts interviews from the visual development team, director, actors and more, each giving details that fans will find engaging. This is another thing that Marvel have been consistently good at and is a strong point of the series.

A negative though is the return of continued print quality problems that has been ongoing for a while now. Some of the art here would have been better off not included, as the same problem with dark clothing and backgrounds makes details hard to make out. The print quality overall is inconsistent, as some tones can also look saturated and aren’t clear when placed next to each other. Perhaps the thinner paper used is a factor in the printing process and finished product, but I cannot understand why this hasn’t been addressed by Marvel. With so many books affected, it seems they are happy with this quality and although it doesn’t affect as many pages this time, it’s not acceptable that it happens in multiple books sold at premium prices. They only have to look to the Titan Books rereleases of their older artbooks to realise that a much better print quality can be achieved. While I hope it improves, I’m not holding my breath with the issue being this far down the line. Examples can be seen below.

Credits

This part of the review could be written before the book even arrives, because the artists are always credited on each page and listed in the back too. It’s always done well and should be the artbook standard. Outstanding as always!

Use of Space

Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts: The Art of the Movie highlights another strong and consistent part of their books with the page design. Everything is a good size, the layouts are well organised and the pages are filled. Although the days of the Infinity Saga books having higher page counts are long gone, they do make good use out of the capped 224 pages seen since then.

Sadly, there is image loss due to parts being swallowed in the centre fold and this is made worse the tight binding mentioned before too. It again raises the point that the quality needs to be checked by the publishing team, as this should be avoided as much as possible. Image loss is a problem for many artbooks—though some publishers have begun to minimise or solve it—but there is certainly room for improvement here by allowing the backing material to flex more.

Value

The RRP price of $100/ £89.99 is going to be a repeat problem for these releases, which acts as a barrier to entry for potential buyers. Like before, while the quality of the artwork is great, the presentation problems it comes with, the 224 page cap, and poor lithograph prints make that a tough sell. I’m repeating myself again for these Marvel artbooks, but the jump from $60 to $100 for the slipcase and prints is just too much and not remotely competitive to other publishers like Dark Horse, Titan Books, and others, at full price, each offering a better build quality and print results at lower prices.

As always though, it’s worth noting that these books can be found discounted fairly quickly and shopping around might help you avoid the high price. For example, Amazon UK already has the book on sale at the time of writing this at 38% off. They come down in price quickly, likely an indication they are aware of the sticker shock. A conspiracy theorist might say that this was the plan all along!

Verdict

Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts: The Art of the Movie is your standard Marvel artbook, a wonderful showcase of character, location, and keyframe art, which is not a bad thing and great if you’re an MCU fan and enjoy this series. It does have some print issues and you don’t get as many unused goodies, but the biggest issue here continues to be value for money. It’s a hard book to recommend unless you can either find a reasonable deal or you’re fortunate enough to have Tony Stark money. Unless you are feeling less like Bob and more like The Void without this on your shelf, I’d wait for a price reduction.

You can check out a flip through preview of the book below and if you are interested in adding this book to your shelf, you can order Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts: The Art of the Movie here;