Everything We Know About Thunderbolts*

Marvel had a rough year in 2023. Many of its properties underperformed, and they lost their big villain due to Jonathan Majors being fired. Looking forward to their upcoming slate, comic fans have been excited about some of the studio’s projects over the next few years. Will these films help Marvel regain control? The upcoming Thunderbolts (or Thunderbolts*, as we’re told to write it, asterisk and all) film has been one that fanboys have been hoping to see since the MCU started. With some recent news about the property coming up, it seems like the right time to break down what we know about the production.

Who Are The Thunderbolts?

The team first appeared in Marvel Comics in 1997 in an issue of The Incredible Hulk. They seemed to be a new group of superheroes that had arrived on the scene and gained acclaim very quickly. The reader was informed that the group was actually a group of supervillains led by Baron Zemo. They were posing as new heroes to gain the trust of other hero teams and S.H.I.E.L.D. to gain access to all their secrets. This would allow them to sell them to the highest bidder. Eventually, some team members felt they should try to become heroes, and the group would fall apart. As for the name of the team, it was said to be inspired by a Thomas Randolph poem: “Justice, like lightning, ever should appear to few men’s ruin, but to all men’s fear.” The idea was, “Our hope is that we can be that lightning — that justice.”

Other versions of the team would appear throughout the years, but the version that the MCU seems to be leaning toward was a government-funded strike team. It would be filled with reformed supervillains looking to reduce their imprisonment sentence or redeem themselves for their past crimes. This is comparable to DC’s Suicide Squad. In the past, it has been led by characters such as Norman Osborne, Black Widow, and Hawkeye, and they’ve had run-ins with Captain Marvel.

MCU Team Members

For the MCU version of the team, we have seen Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, appearing in multiple projects to recruit team members. She first appeared in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to ask disgraced Captain America replacement John Walker to join her team. We would then see her show up in a post-credits scene in Black Widow to put Yelena Belova on Hawkeye’s trail, saying he was responsible for her sister’s death. Then, in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, she is revealed as the new head of the CIA. This puts her in the perfect position to run the team in the future.

Louis-Dreyfus told Entertainment Weekly, “This movie’s a real opportunity for me to really explore the Val character. You really get to know what she’s made of, and even a lot of her backstory. She’s in it to win it. You’re going to see her entire plan unfold. It has a lot of mystery to it and there’s some twists and turns that you don’t see coming, which are the best kind. There’s a lot of suspense, which is very groovy.” She added that her character is “about four steps ahead all the time, or at least she thinks she is until she’s not. All of these characters have worked for her under certain circumstances, so she would fancy herself as a bit of a puppet master, and she’s very power-hungry. She’s a user of anti-heroes. She definitely sees herself as the leader, the organizer of this group, but I’m not sure they see her as such. Her intentions aren’t necessarily pure. You’ve got hero, you’ve got anti-hero, you have villain…is there such a thing as an anti-villain?“

So, who will we see on the team? As mentioned, John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) have already been recruited to the team. Some other familiar faces will be joining them. Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Task Master (Olga Kurylenko) from the Black Widow film will be showing up alongside Yelena. I’m sure she has some issues with her fake father that she would like to work out. Then, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from Ant-Man and the Wasp will be joining the group. With her phasing abilities, it should add some fun to the team. In a team leader role, we may see Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), The Winter Soldier, returning from Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The team dynamics should be interesting. The talk is that the Thunderbolts will be brought together to take on the powerful character The Sentry.

Who Is The Sentry?

Back in 2000, then publisher for Marvel Joe Quesada announced that they had discovered a long-lost Marvel character that the company had completely forgotten about. He pre-dated Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. Stan Lee was interviewed and said he remembered the character being created by a couple of writers, but they never did anything with the character. Marvel said they were bringing him back into their current continuity and pushed him almost as Marvel’s version of Superman. He could fly, had super strength, and had a giant S on his belt. When his first miniseries concluded, fans discovered the whole thing had been a lie. Part of the character’s story was that this hero had disappeared, and no one in Marvel continuity remembered him. This whole thing had been a marketing ploy to introduce this new character.

On the surface, he seemed like a wholesome character like Superman, but it was revealed he was mentally unstable and threatened to destroy the entire Marvel Universe. The story was well received, and the character was believed to have a short shelf life. However, he was brought back for numerous Avengers storylines and became a compelling character in Marvel comics.

In the upcoming film, Steven Yeun was cast as the character. He had been very vocal about how excited he was to play the character and has been a fan of the MCU since it started. When the strikes happened over the summer of 2023, it was revealed that film production would have to be pushed back until they were over. Once those ended, it was put back on the schedule, which now caused issues with Yeun’s schedule. He had to drop out but hopes to return as another character at some point in the MCU. The role has been recast, with Lewis Pullman being linked with the part.

The Bear breakout star Ayo Edebiri also had to leave her role due to scheduling conflicts. Geraldine Viswanathan of Drive Away Dolls will now be taking her place in the unidentified role, which is said to be the “right hand woman” to Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

Rumored Plot

Industry scooper Daniel Richtman hears this is the plot synopsis: “Yelena, US Agent, Ghost, and Taskmaster are sent by Val to kill someone in a vault. They realize they’ve been set up and were meant to die on this mission. So they team up against their boss to take her down.” The teaser trailer seems to match that description.

By the way, if you’re wondering if Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, previously played by William Hurt, has anything to do with this team, that doesn’t seem to be the case, despite his nickname matching the team’s name. Harrison Ford is playing Ross in Captain America: Brave New World, but if he makes an appearance in Thunderbolts, we don’t know about it yet. That said, Thunderbolt Ross (in Red Hulk form) has led a version of the team in the comics, so he could have a future with the Thunderbolts… depending on how things for him in the Captain America movie.

Whatever is going on in this movie, David Harbour has hinted that it will have a major impact on the MCU. He told ComicBook.com, “There is a bomb drop thing we add to the universe, which will be very exciting for the movie to do at the end of this particular phase that we’re ending. … Our characters are going to interact with something that we don’t really understand, and it fundamentally changes the course of the way things expand.“

Teaser Trailer

A trailer for Thunderbolts was shown at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con, and we have a description of what appeared on the screen: “The Thunderbolts trailer opens with Yelena coming to find Red Guardian, who is a mess and thinks she works for DoorDash. She recruits him – and like everyone else on the team, they drift without purpose. You can tell Yelena is still a killer. The trailer moves to her at odds with the U.S. Agent and the others, but they unite to find out who is trying to kill them. Scored by The Pixies “Where is My Mind,” the Comic-Con crowd is going nuts. “The are bad guys and worse guys.” It appears as if Julia Louis Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is the villain.”

The trailer includes a moment where Yelena is shown jumping off a tall building, and as it turns out, that was the second tallest building in the world and Florence Pugh apparently performed the stunt herself.

The teaser trailer has made its way online, along with a poster:

Trailer

An extended trailer was unveiled at the first-ever edition of D23 in Brazil:

When Can We See It?

Well, we will be waiting a while before we get to see the team in action. The film has been shooting (in IMAX format) throughout 2024 – and in late June, David Harbour (who has been working on the final season of Stranger Things simultaneously) took to social media to confirm that his work on Thunderbolts has wrapped:

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A post shared by David Harbour (@dkharbour)

The official release date has been set for May 2, 2025. It will be preceded by Captain America: Brave New World, which comes out on Valentine’s Day.

Are you excited for Thunderbolts? What do you think of the direction of the MCU? Let us know in the comments.

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