Don’t expect the Death Throws to show up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe anytime soon — because as far as villains go, they’re actually pretty dire. First introduced in a 1986 Captain America comic, Death Throws were a supervillain team formed by Charles Last: a Marvel villain otherwise known as Ringleader whose main villainous talent seems to be… juggling. Sadly, we’re not joking. Imagine one of the best superhero movies with a villain like that. How can you even juggle villanously?
Anyway, fellow criminal jugglers Elton and Alvin Healey were the first two to join the Death Throws, taking up the monikers of Oddball and Tenpin (like the bowling pin respectively). And before you ask, the answer is yes. Tenpin did start dressing up as a giant bowling pin.
So, imagine Batman villains like Joker, except they’re completely non-threatening and frankly a little bit weird. Knicknack, their fourth member, is maybe slightly more threatening because although he’s still a juggler, he also juggles knives and metal pipes sometimes, which conveniently double as weapons.
Although Oddball had some creative differences with the Death Throws at first, he soon rejoined the team along with another criminal juggler called Bombshell. So, at this point, the Death Throws is a five-strong team.
Their first foray into crime occurred when they tried to use Crossfire, an old associate of Oddball’s to lure Hawkeye and Captain America into a trap. Despite severely outnumbering the two Avengers, Cap and Hawkeye defeated the Death Throws with ease. And just to put that into context, Hawkeye doesn’t even have any powers. He isn’t even one of the good Avengers. And while Cap has the benefit of being a super soldier, five agile, armed career criminals should have been enough to at least subdue him.
But this didn’t happen, and the Death Throws experienced an embarrassing defeat. Sometime after this, the criminal troupe tried to rob a casino in Las Vegas, but Loki ended up defeating them without so much as breaking a nail.
That’s the last we’ve heard from the Death Throws, but with all the Disney Plus shows Marvel is pumping out, could we get a Death Throws Marvel series sometime in the future? Could the wannabe Suicide Squad pop up in a new movie? It’s unlikely, but after Ant-Man characters like MODOK and Spider-Man villains like Spot, we wouldn’t rule it out.
For more on the MCU, be sure to catch up with all the Marvel movies in order before checking out our list of all the Marvel movies ranked, where we crown the best movie in the entire MCU. Maybe you agree with us, maybe you don’t, but it doesn’t matter either way because we’re focused on Marvel’s Phase 5 now.
So, in preparation for upcoming MCU projects, check out our guides on the Loki season 2 release date, The Marvels release date, Deadpool 3 release date, Agatha Darkhold Diaries release date, and Captain America 4 release date.