John Proudstar
| Thunderbird | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975) |
| Created by |
Len Wein (writer) Dave Cockrum (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | John Proudstar |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations |
X-Men United States Marine Corps |
| Abilities | Superhuman senses, strength, speed, stamina, and sturdiness Trained unarmed/hand-to-hand combatant |
Thunderbird (John Proudstar) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Thunderbird was briefly a member of the X-Men. An Apache, Thunderbird possesses superhuman athletic ability. He was a short time member of the "Second Genesis" group of X-Men gathered together in Giant-Size X-Men #1 as he died on their second mission.
Thunderbird was created by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum for the new X-Men, specifically to be a member of the team who would fail the entrance exam. Having already decided that the previously introduced characters Sunfire and Banshee would fail the exam, Wein and Cockrum felt it would be unrealistic for only older characters to "flunk out", and set about creating a new character to fit this role. After developing Thunderbird, however, they decided that they liked the character - his costume in particular - too much to write him off after only one issue, and decided to keep him on.
The character debuted in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975). While working on the first issues of the regular series, the creative team realized that having Thunderbird as a regular character was problematic. According to Cockrum, "...we created him as an obnoxious loudmouth, and we already had an obnoxious loudmouth in Wolverine. So one of us decided to kill him off after all, just for shock value."Chris Claremont, who scripted the story, confirms that it was Wein who decided to kill the character, and added, "He figured there are two ways to do this. One, you spend years, if not decades, building up a relationship between the audience and a character, building the emotional bonds between them so when something happens to that character the audience is devastated. Or you do it right off the bat, when no one is expecting it." The story culminating in Thunderbird's death appeared in X-Men #94-95.
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