Thunderbolts* starts a new era of Avengers with a band of misfits
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It has been a while since the MCU was without Team Avengers after the endgame. New characters are getting standalone films and series, and previously introduced characters are getting their sequels. Still, they are not bringing the same success as the Avengers. So Marvel makes a bold move with Thunderbolts*, a film about antiheroes teaming up with broken minds and blurred morals.
Unlike the Avengers, who stood for unity and justice, the Thunderbolts come from betrayal and chaos, controlled by the ruthless and manipulative Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
The film opens in Malaysia, where Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) carries out a secret mission, unaware that she's helping Valentina de Fontaine cover up the illegal Sentry project by the O.X.E. Group.
Set against a world of hidden experiments and government lies, the mission soon unravels when Yelena and her team (Ghost, U.S. Agent, and Taskmaster) discover Bob, a powerful superhuman kept captive.
Once known as Sentry, Bob isn't a typical Marvel hero. He's unstable, dangerous, and raw, unlike the carefully built characters the MCU usually introduces over time.
Sentry's character is the most daring gamble Marvel has taken in years. Introduced with no prior backstory, Bob represents a volatile yin-yang duality. On one side, the golden, near-invincible Sentry and the other one apocalyptic Void from the other side, born from his fractured mind and depression.
His internal war is not just physical, but existential. This duality symbolizes how unchecked trauma can birth both saviors and monsters within the same soul.
The film shows conflict between heroism and horror through its villain, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
She coldly manipulates everyone around her and doesn't hesitate to sacrifice her team to stay in control. Like DC's Amanda Waller, she uses superpowered operatives as tools for political power, not justice.
Both women work in a gray zone, but while Waller follows orders from the government, de Fontaine's cruelty comes from a childhood betrayal that still haunts her. This pain ties her to Bob and to every Thunderbolt she controls, revealing the trauma that drives them all.
Each team member has a messy past, from killing to betrayal, which makes their teamwork untrustworthy.
But that's the heart of Thunderbolts*: They aren't noble heroes, just survivors forced to work together. Their path to redemption feels real when they jump into the Void to rescue Bob's consciousness. That moment shifts them from outcasts to something that looks like a family.
But even as the Thunderbolts earn their freedom, de Fontaine still comes out on top.
In a cold move, she twists the story and rebrands them as the "New Avengers" to save her public image. This shows how powerful people can rewrite the truth to keep their hold on power.
And then comes the cliffhanger, in the post-credits, a mysterious spacecraft marked with a '4' appears, hinting at the Fantastic Four's arrival and suggesting that Bob's otherworldly abilities may be connected to a broader cosmic truth.
In Thunderbolts*, the MCU introduces not just a new team but also a new ethos. One where trauma breeds power, morality is ever-shifting, and the future of Marvel superheroes may lie not with the pure but with the broken.