The Best Portrayal of Bipolar Disorder was Hidden in a Superhero Movie
The incredible battle between Sentry and the Void. Spoilers ahead for Thunderbolts*!
I was sobbing when the credits of Thunderbolts* rolled. That kind of heavy, shoulder-shaking, snotty nose cry. When my dad asked if I was okay, all I could do was point at the screen, saying, “That. That is how I feel.”
I’m sure you’ve overheard dramatic arguments between a couple who is definitely about to break up where one calls the other “bipolar.” Bipolar has become an adjective to mean someone who can be happy one second, then angry the next. The actual disorder is completely different.
Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder marked by extreme emotional states: periods of crushing depression and bursts of intense energy or mania. It’s not just mood swings. It’s experiencing both too much and not enough, over and over. It’s terrifying, exhausting, and not the same for everyone. And it doesn’t go away—you just learn how to hold it, manage it, survive it. Some days you go about your day as normal. Some days you vanish.
Thunderbolts* gave us a man: Bob. He is awkward and self-deprecating and stuck in the middle of a team of a conflict between superpowered antiheroes. And, as the movie taglines have said, he’s just Bob. But beneath that everyman exterior lies a fractured soul. He’s a man carrying the weight of unimaginable power and an equally overwhelming darkness. He is simply caught between two selves: Sentry, Marvel’s shiny golden Superman, and the all-consuming Void.
Bob becoming Sentry was intentional: he signed up for human experimentation designed by disgraced member of the US government, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. This experiment was supposed to result in a shining protector of the world. The Avengers are volatile, constantly changing and moving and, well, dying. But Sentry would be all-powerful and indestructible.
He was the only subject to survive testing. The experiment seemingly amplified everything about the person: enhancing their strength, their durability, their speed. It amplified what was already there to a superhuman level. That means Bob’s existing mental illness was also amplified, including the depression symptoms and all the darkness that comes with disorders like bipolar. That darkness manifested into the Void.
The Void eviscerates people into pure black shadow. It takes over people and places, conquering anyone in its way and sending them to a dark dimension where they are forced to live out the worst moments of their lives, things that have brought the person great shame, replaying over and over and over. Yelena Belova sees her younger self who had been forced to lured a classmate into the woods to be killed by one of her traffickers. It’s a heartbreaking scene, seeing a young child being forced to betray her friends and herself, and actress Florence Pugh shows such intense emotion as she witnesses something that has haunted her her whole life.
Yelena is able to get out of this shame room, but finds herself in another, showcasing a different terrible moment of her life. The Void doesn't let anyone go easily. It shifts, adapts, sinks its claws deeper. Each room is a prison, custom-built for the soul it traps. While searching for Bob, she sees flickers of him in the reflections of her own worst memories. And finally, she finds him, curled up in the corner of an attic that isn’t hers.
It’s one of the most devastating images I’ve seen in a Marvel film. It’s not flashy. It’s not epic. It’s human. Bob’s pain isn’t played for spectacle. It’s not used to scare us. It’s not even used to inspire us. It’s just there. Real and awful and grounded in something that anyone with bipolar disorder, or any kind of deep psychological fracture, knows all too well: the moment when you realize that your own mind has turned against you, again.
Bob doesn’t run. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t fight. He just sits in the attic, crying. Managing. Surviving.
Yelena kneels beside him. She doesn't offer a pep talk or a lecture. She doesn’t tell him to “snap out of it.” She simply shows up. She anchors him even when things start to rip off the walls, the Void’s way of punishing him for finding strength in the shame.
That’s the kind of depiction that matters. One where someone shows up and doesn’t try to change them, but is just there. He isn’t shamed for his mental illness. He’s helped.
Because so much of living with bipolar disorder is about learning how to sit in the dark with yourself. Not to conquer it. Not to banish it. But to coexist. And, sometimes, to have someone sit beside you without trying to fix you. Someone who sees the crying man in the attic and doesn’t ask why he’s broken, but chooses to stay.
Marvel has had a sordid history with depictions of mental illness. Moon Knight was simultaneously a good and bad depiction of Dissociative Identity Disorder. WandaVision has a raw, heartbreaking portrayal of grief, but the show stops short of holding her accountable for her actions, dismissing her holding a town captive as a quirky way of dealing with the hardships of grief. Even Bucky Barnes, whose story is steeped in trauma, receives minimal exploration. He’s a literal victim of brainwashing and torture. His recovery is treated like a checklist item; completed in Wakanda, then vaguely referenced when convenient. We’re told he’s working through it, but we barely saw that work until The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
In most cases, the MCU gestures at mental illness without ever fully engaging with it. Characters are permitted to suffer; briefly, theatrically, and only when it serves the plot. What makes Thunderbolts so remarkable is that Bob’s mental illness isn’t a subplot or a surprise, it’s the foundation of the character. It doesn’t define him, but it shapes everything around him. His disorder isn’t dramatized, weaponized, or cured. It’s simply there. Not a revelation. Not an origin story. Just reality. Relentless, quiet, and deeply human.
In most superhero media, a character like Bob would be a villain by now. In fact, Marvel’s comics have walked that line for years, making Sentry a wildcard, someone whose instability makes him dangerous. But Thunderbolts refuses to flatten him into that trope. It doesn’t say “Bob has bipolar, so he can’t be trusted.” It says: “Bob has bipolar, so of course he struggles. But that doesn’t make him less human.”
Bipolar Disorder is Rarely Portrayed This Accurately, Let Alone This Gently
The media has never known what to do with bipolar disorder. Most of the time, it falls into three camps:
The Glamourization of Mania – Think fast-talking genius types who stay up for days solving crimes, falling in love, and dancing on rooftops. There’s a shimmer to this archetype that masks the reality: mania is often terrifying, disorienting, and humiliating—especially when it ends.
The Villainization of Volatility – Characters who are erratic, explosive, violent. These portrayals lean into stigma, painting bipolar people as dangerous time bombs. Often male, often white, usually meant to be put down or locked up by the end.
The “Healing” Narrative – Stories that suggest stability means total recovery, often through medication alone. These are usually hopeful but unrealistic, implying that one can be “cured” of something that is, for most people, lifelong.
Thunderbolts does none of these. It doesn’t flatten Bob into a narrative device. It doesn’t ask us to pick a side between his light and his dark. Instead, it invites us to sit in the discomfort of someone trying to survive a mind that contradicts itself. Not conquer it. Not “heal” it. Just survive it. Some days better than others.
In one of the most emotionally charged scenes (no spoilers, but you’ll know it when you see it), Sentry doesn't say much. He doesn’t need to. His face does all the work. There’s a kind of grief there—quiet, bone-deep. Not just over what he’s done, but over what he might do. He carries his fear like a wound, but also like a responsibility. And for anyone who’s ever tried to out-think their own disorder, it feels devastatingly familiar.
There is no “fixing” Bob. The film doesn’t try to erase the Void or treat his disorder as something that can be surgically removed. The Void is something to be managed. He can prevent the Void from gaining power by practicing healthy coping skills. And even then, the Void won’t be suppressed forever, just like how people with bipolar disorder are going to have manic and depressive episodes whether they take medication or not. There is no cure for bipolar in the same way that Sentry cannot be separated from Void.
That kind of representation is almost nonexistent in mainstream media, especially in the superhero genre. Mental illness is often reduced to chaos, violence, or a quirky trait. It’s rarely portrayed as a long-term condition with rhythms and relapses, coping and care. Bob isn’t a perfect poster boy. He’s not a tragic martyr. He’s just living with it. That’s what struck me the most. I saw myself on that screen because Bob is just…Bob. He’s just a guy playing the cards he’s been dealt.
And more than that, it was the world around him treating him like he mattered. The film doesn't sensationalize Bob’s disorder. It doesn’t pity him. It respects him. It gives space to his pain without letting it define him. It shows the messy, brutal, often quiet work of mental survival.
When you live with bipolar disorder, you’re constantly negotiating with yourself. You’re always checking: Is this just a bad day, or the start of a swing? Am I tired or am I slipping? Can I trust this happiness, or is it a warning? The Void is a perfect, chilling metaphor for that: a darkness that waits for your guard to lower. And the Sentry? He’s not just the golden cure. He’s the effort it takes to show up anyway, to keep being Bob.
That’s bipolar disorder. That’s survival. That’s Thunderbolts*.