Marvel has passed the baton to a new group of heroes and, unlike their predecessors, they’re flawed and rough around the edges. It’s these imperfections that make the Thunderbolts a breath of fresh air, writes Jess Bacon.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been without a core assembly of superheroes since the Infinity Saga, a slate that spanned 23 films and concluded in the two-part epic, Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). In Thunderbolts*, director Jake Schreier starts to rebuild the foundation of the vast franchise on five fallen heroes labelled ‘dejected losers’ and ‘tragedy in human form’.
Long gone are the classic, morally righteous heroes like Captain America and in his place are Marvel’s new band of misfits, reminiscent of the Guardians of the Galaxy, though these antiheroes notoriously only ‘punch and shoot’ with little to no real superpowers between them. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), a former Russian assassin turned mercenary, fronts the makeshift team that consists of the knock-off Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell); Ava (Hannah John-Kamen), the ghost woman who can walk through walls; Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), a semi-stable former warrior and current congressman; and Yelena’s adopted father figure Alexei – aka the Red Guardian (David Harbour) – a Soviet super soldier past his prime.
As the franchise repeatedly tells us, the Avengers are ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’. The Thunderbolts, meanwhile, are their grittiest alternatives, raw with their own trauma and bound to continue their seemingly never-ending cycle of violence with kill missions set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). They aren’t a ‘group of remarkable people’ as S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) set out to assemble with the Avengers, but highly skilled individuals with achingly ordinary struggles who have been experimented on or exploited their entire lives.
At the start of Thunderbolts*, these rough-and-ready mercenaries are all searching for a sense of purpose and fulfilment as they learn to come to terms with their regrets – usually how many people they’ve killed – and the void they feel inside. This sense of shame helps Yelena relate to Bob (Lewis Pullman), their new acquaintance who Valentina experimented on with a ‘super serum’. Despite the heaviness inside them all, the Thunderbolts’ communal dynamic is light, flitting from physical feuds to witty quips – a departure from the film’s more serious themes.
Thunderbolts* (2025)
The Avengers, back when they debuted in 2008, were the best heroes the world had to offer and each was exceptional. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) was a ‘playboy, billionaire and philanthropist’ bolstered by his ego; Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) a heroic veteran who sacrificed himself to save a city; Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) was a former Russian superspy turned S.H.I.E.L.D agent; Thor (Chris Hemsworth) a literal god. Yet, over the course of their Avengers reign their flaws began to show: therapy sessions were had and redemption arcs played out.
The Avengers (2012)
The Thunderbolts, by contrast, are all at their lowest point when we meet them. Isolated, rejected by their family and friends – if they have any at all – each one is desperate to start over and reinvent themselves as someone better, or at least someone good. Consumed by grief, Yelena is lost without her sister Natasha, drowning her sorrows in the bottom of a bottle and working as much as she can. Ava, who was also experimented on as a child like Yelena, has nothing outside of her work.
Super soldiers Walker and Alexei both struggle, in their own ways, to readjust to life after their ‘glory days’ in the limelight when they served their country; they have now faded into non-existence. None of these characters are role models to aspire to, but in that respect there’s more to root for as they feel even more human. Marvel has grounded Thunderbolts* in the relatable human experiences of grief, mental-health struggles and loneliness, as shown by the film’s literal fight between the lightness and dark with the villain, the void.
Thunderbolts* (2025)
Every Thunderbolt has done horrific things, and they’re initially reticent to form a team or make friends with equally awful people. But, deep down, it’s what they need. It’s this journey from immensely disliking each other, and being forced to work together to escape a mutual threat, that allows them to see their similarities and start to bond, in their own reluctant way.
Bucky, now one of the longest-running characters in the MCU, is in a slightly different position as he’s evolved throughout his 13 years on screen to work through his trauma of being experimented on by the Nazi science division, Hydra, as the Winter Soldier. He’s able to empathise and even help other team members through their situations, as he’s also been in the dark place they’re currently navigating. All of these characters have a harrowing past that has made them into the assassins they are today, but the Thunderbolts are a reminder that we’re all so much more than the worst part of ourselves, as mirrored through Bob’s journey in the film (which we won’t spoil here).
Thunderbolts* (2025)
After the five-year blip in Endgame, the world Marvel is navigating is entirely different to the one in The Avengers (2012) – and Thunderbolts* acknowledges this. These new heroes have grim pasts, but by coming together, their loneliness and trauma have lessened. Yelena admits to Alexei that she ‘needed’ him after Natasha died, and while he wasn’t there then, he promises to be there now. Later, she admits that even this one small piece of connection has made her feel ‘lighter’ than before. It’s this collaboration of lost souls that fuels the heart of this film and feeds the audience’s appetite for heroes who aren’t perfect, but offer a relatable human imperfection.
Thunderbolts* is elevated by its echoes of The Avengers, too. It signposts that this is a new chapter for the MCU, focused around five core characters who will lead the narrative in a different direction. Some shots have been recreated frame by frame, such as the Battle of New York on the street and in the Avengers Tower. In many ways, Thunderbolts* feels like a full-circle moment for Marvel: here, the studio has started to address what it’s like to exist in a world without the Avengers. The A team of heroes have disbanded, but the B team are back in New York where it all started in 2008, and Marvel’s heroes first teamed up against an Avengers-level threat that none of them were a match for. Though the Thunderbolts don’t face an alien invasion as the Avengers did, they arguably confront something far worse: the void, a spreading darkness that reduces anyone to a shadow the moment it reaches them.
Schreier starts to draw threads of the wide-spanning universe – that is set across multiple timelines, universes and planets – back into a cohesive narrative in a way that’s both believable and exciting, which hasn’t been seen to this scale before. It's these echoes of earlier MCU storytelling, where characters would be established as individuals in solo projects and evolve through a series films, that strengthens Thunderbolts* as one of the studio’s most exhilarating movies to date. That’s not to say Chloé Zhao’s Eternals (2021) wasn’t a sprawling spectacle, but when characters have a one-off appearance in an ensemble it’s more difficult to become invested in each one, and to understand how they complement the group as a whole. The Marvels also attempted such a crossover on a smaller scale in 2023.
Thunderbolts* (2025)
Thunderbolts* has kick-started the ambitious task of bringing a disconnected universe back together – as reiterated in the end-credits scene – by introducing a new team of flawed, but great heroes to sit at the centre of the narrative. What better way to move away from the legacy of the original Avengers for good than to replace them with heroes who are their complete opposite? Schreier also raises the stakes with Thunderbolts* by introducing next-level action sequences and death-defying stunts, including Pugh’s impressive jump from the second-tallest building in the world. The new era has been marked with a new tone, energy and level of ambition that furthers what we’ve seen from these characters, and the Avengers, before.
Marvel endeavours to showcase flawed heroes who emphasise that anyone can be ‘super’. Regardless of their past, it’s about what they do next. It’s this inspiring, relatable message that establishes the Thunderbolts as worthy successors to the original Avengers.
WATCH THUNDERBOLTS* IN CINEMAS
