Full spoilers follow for Thunderbolts.
Load out and lock in, Marvel fans, because Thunderbolts is now in theaters. The latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe reshuffles the MCU’s status quo in a big way in the third act, setting up a new Avengers roster that will presumably be a major part of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars. We spoke with the film’s co-writer, Eric Pearson – who's worked on everything from The Consultant to Thor: Ragnarok to The Fantastic Four: First Steps – to dive into all the little details – and big spoilers – in Thunderbolts.
Thunderbolts Origins
As Pearson – who shares a writing credit with Joanna Calo – explains, the core idea of Thunderbolts started with Florence Pugh’s Black Widow character, which then led to the inclusion of David Harbour’s Red Guardian, who was also in that 2021 film, and Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost from the Ant-Man and the Wasp side of things.
“It was always the idea to follow Yelena Belova as the lead of this, which brought in Alexei [Shostakov aka Red Guardian],” Pearson tells IGN. “Ghost, [I] just always wanted to use her.”
Laurence Fishburne’s character Bill Foster from Ant-Man and the Wasp, who has ties to Ghost, was also in an early version of the script.
“There was a version where Bill Foster was involved for a bit as part of the Ghost storyline, and there was a version at first where he was not involved and we brought him in I think in the second draft,” says Pearson. “But yeah, it was always [mostly] the same team from the beginning.”
The informal team, which is informally called the Thunderbolts, also includes Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, and by the end of the film, Robert “Bob” Reynolds. The latter character is new to the MCU; altered by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to have superhuman abilities, he becomes the Sentry – who Valentina intends to be a replacement for the Avengers.
Sentry: The Original Replacement Avenger
One major difference in earlier versions of the script was that Sentry wasn’t always in the movie, and in fact Russell’s John Walker was intended to fill the role of, as Pearson puts it, “the punching villain” at the end of the film.
“Valentina, as part of her manipulation of him, had convinced him that his super-soldier serum needed upkeep,” recalls the writer. “She was actually implanting this time bomb in him that was going to go off at some point. … And so he, in his own way, hulks out and becomes someone that they have to fight.”
Wyatt Russell’s John Walker was intended to fill the role of 'the punching villain' at the end of the film.The only problem was that another Marvel movie was also in the works at that point that also featured a character hulking out: Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World.
“It just didn't feel right [to do that],” says Pearson. “My goal … was ending this Marvel movie with a hug, not a punch. They were going to never win a fight against a Hulk character, so they were going to have to eventually just talk him down.”
And so entered the Sentry, whose adventures Pearson remembered reading while in the Marvel Writers Program. And with the Sentry of course also comes his dark side, which is known as the Void. In the film, this dark persona is activated, attacking New York and turning everyone in his path into shadows.
“If that's just heroic ambition and self-esteem on one side and depression and self-loathing on the other side, it works the same way,” says Pearson of replacing John Walker as the antagonistic force with Sentry. “And if we do that, then Bob and the Sentry and the Void are pretty much all of our characters' emotional journey wrapped up into one entity. … He was the ultimate person that they couldn't defeat in any physical way and needed to find an emotional solution for.”
The New Avengers… and the Other Avengers?
In the climactic moments of Thunderbolts, Yelena and the team willingly go into the shadow realm to stop the Void and, through the power of empathy and that good old group hug that Pearson promised, they help Bob undo all the damage he caused. This happens just in time for the team to stumble into a press conference held by Valentina where she dubs them the New Avengers, confirming a theory we at IGN posited earlier this year.
During the closing credits, we see a bunch of fun magazine covers and the like which question the validity of these “New Avengers” before a mid-credits scene where Red Guardian tries to convince a fellow shopper to buy a box of Wheaties that has the team’s picture on it. (His dream, realized!) And then the post-credits scene is set 14 months later, where we learn the New Avengers are having difficulties securing the rights to their team name because of interference from Sam Wilson, aka Captain America. Cap doesn’t show up, but Bucky mentions him by name. This would seem to indicate that Sam is working on forming his own team of Avengers, just as ex-President Ross had asked him to lead back in Brave New World.
Interestingly, the post-credits scene was not written by Pearson. As is often the case with these things, it became a post-production endeavor (in fact, Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier has confirmed that it was shot on the set of an upcoming production in the past several weeks, presumably Avengers: Doomsday).
“I'm super jealous of it because it's so fun and it's so great,” Pearson says. “And one of my favorite moments in the whole movie is just Wyatt Russell: ‘I don't know what any of these buttons do. Nobody labeled them.’ It just cracks me up.”
The Arrival of the Fantastic Four
The post-credits scene ends with a moment fans have been waiting for for a long, long time: The New Avengers get a notification of an approaching spacecraft, and we see a ship with a big “4” emblazoned on the side. The Fantastic Four have finally arrived in the MCU!
Pearson explains that this was not always how the team were supposed to land in the so-called Sacred Timeline.
'This connection came in much later.' -Eric Pearson“Well, because when they started shooting Thunderbolts, I was actually in Burbank writing Fantastic Four and checking in on how Thunderbolts was going because I was just like, ‘How's my baby? Is it walking? Is it running?’” he laughs. “And everybody was saying that Thunderbolts was going really great. And from being in the Fantastic Four room, I knew that it felt very far at the time from the Thunderbolts world. So this connection came in much later and probably has some link towards what they're doing next in... Sorry, I shouldn't say probably, I'm doing total conjecture here, but just based off of how they architect these things, I'm sure that there's going to be a next step in a movie coming out soon.”
Considering that the stars of FF (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach) have already been announced by Marvel for Avengers: Doomsday, it’s not that hard to piece together where this is all going…
Burning Questions
Now that we know the Thunderbolts are actually the New Avengers, it makes perfect sense why the team will be major players in Avengers: Doomsday. They all got directors chairs in the big Doomsday cast announcement after all (aside from poor Taskmaster, of course, who doesn’t survive Thunderbolts). Since Sam Wilson doesn’t appear to have actually formed a new team of Avengers yet, the New Avengers will presumably be the first line of defense against Robert Downey, Jr’s Doctor Doom. And the Fantastic Four too, maybe? That’s just the tip of the helicarrier when it comes to questions we have after Thunderbolts, however.
What Was the Point of Making Bucky a Congressman?
Bucky being revealed to be a US congressman was one of the weirder beats in Brave New World, and the payoff in Thunderbolts doesn’t help matters. He trips over his words in a press interview and his political responsibilities don’t stop him from getting on his motorcycle and firing explosives at O.X.E. vehicles… so why was he even part of Congress to begin with?
In the drafts of the film Pearson worked on, it turns out Bucky had a different day job.
“That happened after me,” he explains. “That was a Kevin [Feige] idea from what I understand, because it was all the same scenes but Bucky was, he was kind of a lobbyist a bit, or a better analogy would be like when you hire an old baseball player to shake hands at a car wash. Like politicians were using him as a way to propagandize, so you're meant to meet him [and be like] ‘Oh, this is humiliating, what a terrible fall for Bucky.’ And then you're like, ‘Oh wait, he's actually infiltrated this world of politics and commerce because he's investigating Valentina and he's got this congressman who's an ally to him and they're working together and then he goes on the hunt.’”
As for whether or not he’s even still in Congress when he’s part of the New Avengers? We have no clue.
Why Is Sam Wilson Feuding with the New Avengers?
Clearly Sam Wilson is not getting along with the New Avengers and is trying to take the copyright for the team name from them. Bucky says he tried to get through to Sam but that the conversation didn’t go well. So why is Sam being a jerk about this? Doesn’t he want to build a team of superheroes? He and Bucky have worked together many times in the past, so what is his problem with the New Avengers when Bucky is on the roster? Hopefully Doomsday sheds some light on this front, because as it stands it feels out of character for Sam to act this way without a good reason.
Will There Be Two Teams of Avengers in Avengers: Doomsday?
Will we see two distinct teams of Avengers in Doomsday? Avengers and Avengers with a Z, maybe (but hopefully not)? The main plot of Thunderbolts takes place after Brave New World since Valentina references Thaddeus Ross becoming Red Hulk during her impeachment hearing, and the post-credits scene is over a year after that. What was Sam doing all that time? Will he recruit the likes of Falcon, Thor, Ant-Man, etc. to make his own team that is separate from the New Avengers, and will they battle Civil War-style before they eventually unite to face Doom? And where do the X-Men fit into all this!?
Do We Already Know How The Fantastic Four: First Steps Ends?
We’re only a few months away from The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is arriving on July 25, 2025. Since the F4 are coming from an alternate reality in the multiverse and not the MCU’s Sacred Timeline, this indicates that ship has just made a reality-hopping journey. Yet wouldn’t that really only make sense as the end of First Steps? The F4 changing realities is probably the end of the film or a post-credits scene of its own. If so, we basically already know how First Steps ends. Or do we? Is Marvel playing a trick on us, and is there more to this tease than it seems?
We asked Pearson if the FF are going to be the linchpin of the MCU moving forward.
“The fans are the most important part of the MCU,” he responds. “Like what they react to and what they love helps dictate so much of what's going on. Fantastic Four … they're all of great importance. And then there is the Sue and Reed at the head of it as the most brilliant mind in the universe and the most caring heart in the universe. They're certainly going to steer the car for a bit, but the universe, the multiverse right now is pretty big, so I don't want to calculate any weight on their shoulders.”
What did you think of Thunderbolts? Let’s discuss in the comments…
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