Thunderbolts* Is Finally Bringing Back This Missing MCU Element

The Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn’t really exist without one particular trope, and Thunderbolts* is poised to bring it back after a significant hiatus. The final Phase Five film is set to arrive on May 2, 2025, and it might just reinvent the franchise with a little help from its older formula.

Thunderbolts* brings together an exciting group of anti-heroes, with the likes of Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, and more, as they are forced into a dangerous mission by CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. It’s obvious that Marvel is setting up this crew to be their next big team to carry the cinematic universe forward. Within this idea lies something they’ve missed out on in recent years.

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Thunderbolts Could Be The MCU’s New Avengers

Marvel’s Best Chance To Rebuild Its Heroic Team

With the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie, Marvel is returning to familiar territory: bringing together existing heroes that audiences already know and letting them team up. For most of the franchise’s existence, this role has been filled by the Avengers or associated acts like the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, after Endgame, Marvel has struggled to establish a solid new team, and Thunderbolts* could change that entirely. Everything points in this direction – the premise, the trailers, the characters – all suggesting that this is the closest Marvel will get to the Avengers in the Multiverse Saga.

A team of superheroes working together on a mission isn’t some groundbreaking idea. The trope is synonymous with comic book houses like Marvel and DC, and their respective film franchises. In fact, the MCU and the Avengers are often used interchangeably in conversation. However, the franchise has been desperate for a strong team to carry the Avengers’ torch forward. And with the imminent release of projects like Doomsday and Secret Wars, time is running out.

Why Thunderbolts* Feels Different From Recent Marvel Films

Familiar Faces Give It An Edge Over Past MCU Teams

Thunderbolts* might feel like the first MCU team-up in a long time, but in reality, it’s not. Marvel Studios has struggled in this area lately, with attempts like Eternals and The Marvels failing to deliver the results the studio intended. Movies starring older Avengers in the lead, like Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, have turned out to be duds. And then there are films like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which worked well and made some great additions to the MCU, but we have yet to see anything significant come from them.

So how exactly is Thunderbolts* different from the rest of the post-Endgame projects? For starters, it’s not focused on introducing new characters but rather bringing back familiar ones who have already appeared in the MCU at least once, with only a few rare exceptions like Lewis Pullman’s Bob/Sentry. Characters like Yelena, Red Guardian, Taskmaster, and Val are all established, having appeared since 2021. And of course, there’s Bucky – a household Marvel name who is quite literally older than all the Avengers.

Is Thunderbolts* The Future Of The MCU?

The Team’s Name Could Change Soon

Since most of the characters in Thunderbolts* have already appeared in previous MCU films and shows, there’s plenty of room to expand their stories and establish them as new franchise favorites. The upcoming 2025 movie could easily tap into the same charm as the first Avengers film from 2012. Granted, there’s no Iron Man or Captain America to hold them together, but Thunderbolts* could still borrow from what worked back then. The idea is to bring these characters together as a team, let them make mistakes, clash with each other, and ultimately learn and grow into a force to be reckoned with, even with their lack of powers.

Moreover, the asterisk in the Thunderbolts* title suggests that the team’s name could change by the end of the movie. Some theories speculate that it might become something like Dark Avengers or New Avengers, which seems plausible given how the trailer shows every team member hating Red Guardian’s suggestion of the name Thunderbolts. With Doomsday just two films away, it’s likely that this team could become the “main Avengers” when all hell breaks loose.

Will Thunderbolts* Fix Marvel’s Team Problem?

A True Ensemble, Not Just Fan Service

After Secret Wars, the focus is likely to shift toward X-Men heroes, but before that, Thunderbolts’ teamwork could be crucial to making Marvel’s dream work. The MCU’s decision to revert to its classic superhero team-building strategy has been quite evident from the beginning of Thunderbolts*’ production. In September 2022, David Harbour, who plays Red Guardian in Thunderbolts*, addressed this while speaking to Entertainment Tonight at Disney’s D23 Expo. The Stranger Things actor revealed:

There’s a lot of really exciting work happening on this movie. I also think it’s a unique MCU movie in the sense that you’ve got a bunch of misfits and outcasts and losers and people who don’t really live up to the super in superhero. And also all of us are such cool, interesting performers – I think audiences have some complicated feelings about a lot of us – and I think that’s a terrific thing going in.

This kind of team-up is exactly what the MCU needs right now and has been missing since the end of the Infinity Saga. Crossovers and interconnected storytelling were what truly made the franchise work, but lately, the studio has mistaken that for just flashy cameos. Thunderbolts* could be a breath of fresh air in that regard. Even if they don’t reach Avengers-level status, they could still become something close to the Guardians of the Galaxy, or at least Marvel’s equivalent of The Suicide Squad.

Thunderbolts*

Release Date

May 2, 2025

Director

Jake Schreier

Writers

Lee Sung-jin, Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo