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Spoilers for all Marvel Cinematic Universe works preceding this one will be left unmarked.

Thunderbolts^* Yes, the asterisk is actually part of the title, and the end of the film reveals why that's there. is a 2025 superhero/spy film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the 36th, as well as Phase Five's final feature film) loosely based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name. It is directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo (BoJack Horseman, The Bear).

Since the death of her sister, Yelena Belova/Black Widow II (Florence Pugh) feels like she's been sleepwalking through life. Mercenary work, espionage, assassinations, it all just feels so empty. At least until Yelena finds that she and three other agents and mercenaries — Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) — have been set up on the same doomed Suicide Mission, along with a hapless civilian named Bob (Lewis Pullman) who somehow ended up in the same place they were all sent to die at. Now, with the help of Super Soldiers Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), Yelena has to try to keep this unlikely group of villains and anti-heroes working together long enough to bring down CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), whose shadowy dealings could very well threaten the world.

Rather surprisingly, on May 5 (less than a week after the wide premiere), Marvel completely rebranded the movie in its posters and social media in a manner that spoils the ending. Tickets continued to be sold under the "Thunderbolts" title, however; and home media and streaming releases continue to use it as the primary title (while the "new" one is included as a footnote/subtitle).

The Thunderbolts^note and Bob will next appear in 2026's Avengers: Doomsday.

Previews: Teaser, D23 Special Look, Big Game trailer, Absolute Cinema teaser, Tickets on Sale Now trailer, Final Trailer, Red Guardian Limo Service Commercial

Thunderbolts* provides examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: At the start of the film, Bucky is now a U.S. Congressman^note Unknown party, from Brooklyn, and seems content leaving his Winter Soldier/Avengers days behind. However, his plan of investigating Valentina for her crimes eventually causes him to take on vigilantism by attacking Valentina's convoy.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • During her initial hearing, Valentina's Overly Long Name causes some confusion for Senator Gary, who calls her "Ms. Fontaine" instead of "Ms. de Fontaine", which Valentina has some fun with. Crosses into Malicious Misnaming later on, where Senator Gary deliberately refers to her as "Ms. Fontaine" to the press.
  • Early on, Bob accidentally calls Walker "Walter", prompting Yelena to correct him.
• Accidental Murder: The scientist in Malaysia, firing ineptly at Yelena, accidentally hits and kills a guard she had tied up. The scientist causes his own death in a similar fashion while struggling with her for the gun.
• Action Dad:
  • Alexei, the Boisterous Bruiser Red Guardian, wholeheartedly embraces his role as Yelena's adoptive father.
  • John Walker is a downplayed example, as he has a son but has become estranged from his family.
• Action Politician:
  • Following up on his campaign in Captain America: Brave New World, Bucky is now a congressman representing a district that includes Brooklyn.^note New York's 7th, 8th, or 9th, assuming Earth-199999 has the same Congressional districts and Brooklyn is the most important part of his district. This doesn't stop him from loading up on weapons and fighting battles against supervillains.
  • Downplayed with Valentina, a middle-aged career politician who still shows off some hand-to-hand combat skills from her old spy days by swiftly taking down the larger Holt when he ignores her orders for a cease-fire.
• Actually Pretty Funny: After Walker tries to reassure her that she's not responsible for her Red Room training, Yelena jokingly calls him "Dr. Phil", which gets a small smile out of Walker and starts a brief Seinfeldian Conversation about the show.
• Adaptational Context Change: In the comics, the name Thunderbolts was chosen by Baron Zemo, reflecting that, as a Nazi, he has a fondness for thunder and lightning imagery. The brainstorming session that led to it also involved the team mocking the names of genuine hero teams like the Avengers, saying that their name should be similar and be "something tough, [...] good bad news", "appropriately self-righteous and have an air of authority", and "crypto-fascist — but friendly". Here it was sarcastically applied to the group by Walker in reference to Yelena's pee-wee soccer team, and nobody actually calls the team that (or even considers themselves a team) except Alexei.
• Adaptational Heroism: This is the first lineup of the Thunderbolts in the MCU, and not only are they anti-heroes instead of villains (though three of them were Anti-Villains in previous works), they're rebranded as the New Avengers at the end of the film. This is in stark contrast to the first Thunderbolt lineup from the comics, which was a group of villains only pretending to be heroes in the wake of the Onslaught saga. Granted, a good chunk of those villains ended up performing a Fake–Real Turn, but still.
• Adaptational Skill: In addition to his Flying Brick powers, Sentry uses telekinesis as his main form of attack in this movie. In the comics his primary attack power was energy manipulation usually in the form of power blasts or force fields.
• Adaptation Distillation: The OXE Group comes from the Ultimate line of comics where it was a holding company fully owned by Valentina.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the comics, the Sentry has long blond hair, while the movie keeps Lewis Pullman's natural brunette shade, with a shorter, but still longer than average haircut. He later dyes it blonde at Valentina's behest for marketing reasons, but is shown to have changed it back to his original look by the end of the film.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Valentina Allegra de Fontaine played a major role in transforming Bob into the Sentry. In the comics, they never even meet.
• Adapted Out: Helmut Zemo was the founder of the first Thunderbolts team in the comics, but he doesn't appear at all in this movie. In fact, nobody from the original comics team does, but he's most notable as the only original Thunderbolt who's been established to exist in the MCU.
• Advertised Extra: Despite being included in the posters and marketing material, Taskmaster is rather unceremoniously killed at the beginning of the movie.
• Advertising by Association: The Absolute Cinema teaser proudly boasts the involvement of the stars of Midsommar, A Different Man and You Hurt My Feelings, the writers and director of Beef, the cinematographer of The Green Knight, the production designer of Hereditary, the editors of Minari, and the composers of Everything Everywhere All at Once.
• The Alleged Car: Alexei's limo, which he uses to pick up Yelena, Ava, and Walker; it's hilariously slow, features disco lights and a smoke machine, and despite Alexei's insistence that it's bulletproof, it doesn't hold up well against gunfire (Walker's shield, which isn't even made of vibranium, notably does a better job blocking bullets).
• Allegory:
  • The Void serves as one for lingering trauma, mental illness, and depression, and the destructive effects it can have on not just the one suffering from it, but also on those around them if it isn't handled in a healthy fashion.
  • A common way that people living with depression describe it is like a kind of complete emotional emptiness, or in other words, a "void" within them.
  • The way that the Void is stopped is not through violence, nor through giving in to the dark impulses that it tries to force Bob into, but instead by the Thunderbolts embracing Bob and pulling him back from it. It's a representation of a supportive network of people pulling someone back from the brink and offering support in one's darkest moment.
  • The dichotomy between the Sentry and the Void - one that thinks he’s a god and one consumed by literal darkness parallels the two sides of bipolar disorder, mania and depression.
• Alliance of the Alienated: The titular team consists of OXE operatives (ex-villains, Blessed with Suck superhumans, tarnished Captain America knock-offs, and former brainwashed assassins) who are low in public opinion for being "second-rate" versions of beloved Avengers with issues of chronic failure and trauma (with Yelena describing it as a deep void). Their boss Valentina exploits this to ensure loyalty, even arranging for them to kill each other as evidence erasure and because no-one would even notice their absence. For a while, they're reluctantly forced to work together to escape the ordeal alive, all trying to backstab each other to save their own skin. However, they start to bond and support each other, and soon they're convinced to take down Valentina's operation head-on as their chance to right each wrong they've committed. Later, when Bob's Void alter-ego manifests, the team takes the initiative to save citizens and Bob himself, succeeding with a group Cooldown Hug that helps remind Bob that he is not alone in his shame. Unfortunately, Valentina manipulates the turn of events by branding them as her new team of Avengers to the news reporters, leaving them in her power once again, though at the price of being their Slave to PR.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Once Alexei learns of Valentina's true intentions at the OXE vault, he immediately rushes over in his rickety limo and dressed in his suit. When he arrives, he screams out "YELENA! IT'S YOUR DAD!" to Yelena, who can only hide her face in embarrassment. He then spends the rest of the movie being an embarrassing dad, much to her chagrin.
• Animal Lover: Yelena is tasked to destroy a laboratory for Valentina and notices an adorable guinea pig while there. Despite reacting with little more than mild annoyance when two people working at the lab end up dead, she makes sure to save the little critter before blowing the place up.
• Arc Welding: Thunderbolts* welds together much of Phases Four and Five (and Three in the case of Ghost). It picks up ongoing and unresolved character arcs and threads for Yelena, Alexei Shostakov and Antonia Dreykov, John Walker, and Bucky Barnes. These threads all then get merged (or re-merged in the cases of Yelena and Walker) with the larger Valentina storyline that's been running through the Multiverse Saga (and picking up from her previous appearance while also further tying back into Phase Three with the revelation that she was Avengers Tower's previously unknown buyer). Even the Fantastic Four get tied in via The Stinger.
• Arc Words: "I'm fine." This is usually said by characters who are Obviously Not Fine, but are just reluctant to open up about their trauma. The final time it's said, however, Bob actually means it.
• Are We There Yet?: Yelena asks this when Bucky is driving the team to the Avengers tower to confront Val and rescue Bob. Bucky and Alexei (who are, respectively, driving and sitting in the passenger seat) yell back that they aren't there yet.
• Armor Is Useless: Taskmaster's helmet does nothing at all to stop a bullet from penetrating her skull and killing her. Granted, it was at point-blank range, but still.
• Arrow Catch: During the fight in the Vault, John Walker catches a knife thrown by Taskmaster that was coming from behind him.
• Artistic License – Law: Upset at the formation of "The New Avengers", Captain America/Sam Wilson files a copyright suit against the former Thunderbolts team. In the United States, copyright protects works of creative authorship and not brand signifiers, so the appropriate course of action would be a trademark infringement case (though the character recounting it could have used the wrong phrase).
• Ascended Extra: After playing relatively minor (though still sinister) roles throughout various projects of Phase 4, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine finally steps in as an explicit villain for this movie.
• Assassins Are Always Betrayed: All of the operatives (John, Antonia, Ava, and Yelena) are tricked into trying to kill each other by Val at the start of the film. Only Antonia ends up dying in the attempt while the others team up to stop her.
• As You Know: Valentina reminds a Congressional committee that the last president turned into the Red Hulk, no doubt something that none of the members have forgotten about.
• Atrocious Alias: The Thunderbolts are named after Yelena's childhood soccer team, which never won a game. It's sarcastically suggested by John Walker to show that the team is a group of losers. While Yelena, John, and Ava hate it at first, Alexei actually loves it and loudly declares it whenever he can.
• Back for the Dead: Taskmaster's first appearance in the MCU since Black Widow concludes with her being killed by Ghost — in her first scene, no less, and with only a single line.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Zig-Zagged. Valentina doesn't directly face consequences for her role in developing Project Sentry and the impeachment proceedings against her seem to grind to a halt, and instead she manages to spin it into her revealing the "New Avengers", consisting of the Thunderbolts team, but Yelena points out this essentially means they own her, as they can drop the truth about Project Sentry at any time and ruin her.
• Batman Gambit: Val deliberately let Mel leak info to Bucky to lure the team into a trap, so the Sentry can kill them.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: In the climax, the Thunderbolts willingly let themselves be turned into shadows by the Void to delve into Bob's shattered psyche and help him battle his dark side to find catharsis.
• Beard of Sorrow: John Walker grows an even bigger one than what he had in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as it's gradually revealed throughout the film that his personal life has broken down after his wife left him and took their infant baby.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: At the beginning of the film, Yelena is deeply depressed about her life and seeks a more "public-facing role", like Natasha's. In the final scene, she is tricked into becoming the leader of the New Avengers.
• Beware the Superman: Once Bob starts discovering and harnessing his powers, he starts to feel so powerful that he isn't beholden to anyone, even the person who gave him his powers — resulting in him attempting to choke out Valentina, who's only saved thanks to a kill switch. When he falls prey to his dark side and becomes the Void, his powers are so vast that no one has the capability to take him on in a straight fight.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The film has one between Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and the Void. On the one hand, de Fontaine is the cause of the team forming by trying to kill them to "get rid of the evidence" of her crimes and is partially responsible for Bob gaining his powers, while also seeking to turn Bob into a new superhero, Sentry, thus leading to the Void gaining powers. On the other hand, the Void is Bob's Superpowered Evil Side, caused by his lifetime of trauma, who becomes the Final Boss, trying to trap everyone in New York in his realm and make sure that Bob is under his control by keeping him isolated. In the end, while the team is able to help Bob lock the Void away in his mind, de Fontaine manages to trick the team into a press conference to rebrand them as the "New Avengers" and stay out of jail, though it's clear that the team now has leverage to keep her in check.
• Big Fish in a Bigger Ocean: Taskmaster may have never lost against unpowered humans in Black Widow (2021), but early into the film, she was killed off when Ghost shoots her in the head because Taskmaster can't mimic or counter superpowers like phasing and invisibility.
• Big "NO!": Red Guardian lets out a slew of these after he watches his daughter Yelena willingly become a victim by entering The Void's shadow dimension.
• Big "YES!": Red Guardian lets out two of these in rapid succession after the group agree to work together.
• Bittersweet Ending: Mostly sweet, but with a few notes of bitterness: Yelena manages to get a handle on her depression and self-loathing now that she has friends and family to lean on. De Fontaine's plans are stopped before they can begin. The Thunderbolts come together as a team, defeat the Void, and rescue Bob. Before they can expose de Fontaine, though, she bullrushes them into a press conference, introducing them as "the New Avengers". This means de Fontaine gets away with her crimes for now. Still, Yelena delights in pointing out that they can expose her dirty secrets any time. Valentina does demonstrate that the world needs Avengers. The Thunderbolts know that there are bad guys and worse guys, and that the bad guys need to have a leash around the worse guys. And Valentina serves as the worse guy with the leash around her neck. Bob brings his Superpowered Evil Side under control, but his trauma still lives inside him. Sam and Bucky's friendship has started to see some friction due to the New Avengers; and in space, new cosmic visitors appear.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: When Mel expresses her discomfort over Valentina's duplicity and ends-justify-the-means experimentation, the contessa expresses her belief that there are no good or bad people — only bad people and worse people.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Taskmaster goes out, courtesy of Ava surprise-materializing in front of her with a gun and popping her in the forehead.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Yelena's monologue at the beginning has her state that she's adrift, like a river, or a leaf, or a leaf floating in a river.
• Break Them by Talking: Valentina's rant about the world being black-and-gray rather than black-and-white breaks what's left of Mel's idealism as she comes back to save her boss from Bob and dispassionately ask for a raise.
• Brick Joke:
  • Alexei offhandedly mentions his dream of his team being on a box of Wheaties. Sure enough, during the mid-credits scene, he is thrilled to see the New Avengers on a Wheaties box.
  • When the group compare troubled pasts, Bob mentions a summer job as a sign-spinning chicken mascot that he got fired from after an incident involving meth. Guess what the team encounters when fighting their way through Bob's Mental World in the climax?
  • Midway through the film, Yelena and Ava ask John if he genuinely likes wearing a helmet, to which he unconvincingly says "Yes". In the credits and stinger, we see that he's abandoned it in favor of a beret.
• Broken Tears: After the team fails to stop Bob once he has become the Sentry, Yelena has a meltdown as her self-loathing and depression comes to a boiling point, snapping at the other Thunderbolts (and verbally ripping herself to shreds as well) before finally breaking down into a tearful confession to Alexei about how she hates herself for her past sins and mistakes and feels as if she has no purpose in life.
• The Bus Came Back: Ava Starr/Ghost makes her first appearance in the MCU since 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster reappears for the first time since 2021's Black Widow.
• Call-Back:
  • During her impeachment hearing, Valentina mentions how, very recently, the President transformed into a giant, red rage beast and smashed up the White House. In fact, the establishing shot of Washington DC shows repairs being done on the Washington Monument, which was hit during Red Hulk’s rampage. Also, in the stinger, the Thunderbolts being "the New Avengers" is causing conflict with Sam, as he's also putting a new Avengers team together.
  • John Walker flashes back to him viewing an online article about his downfall during his brief stint as Captain America. We also see him wearing the black-and-red costume that Val gifted him at the end of that show.
  • Yelena's memories of her Red Room training are understandably similar to her sister's, even taking place in what appears to be the same location.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: After Ghost escapes from the incinerator, several dramatic seconds pass while Yelena, Walker, and Bob wonder if she'll come back for them. When she finally does save them, Ghost claims that she only did it because the elevator is broken and she can't escape on her own.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Valentina candidly scoffs that she knows that she is a bad person, and would rather be the bad person with the leash on the world’s neck that stops even worse people from running loose.
• Casting a Shadow: The Void is able to turn people into shadows and spreads darkness across Manhattan in broad daylight.
• Central Theme:
  • Depression and regret, and learning to handle them with the help of others.
    • Yelena and Bob share a conversation early on in which they discuss the "void" that they both struggle with, with Yelena's advice being to just push it down and fight it. Eventually, however, she realizes that holding it in and pushing it down inside only makes it worse; she only starts to feel better after opening up, and tells Bob that she was wrong about how to cope with it.
    • Yelena has struggled with a feeling of listlessness and emptiness for quite a while, and she finds herself haunted by the things she had to do to succeed in the Red Room. The only reason she is able to have some semblance of peace with herself is that she finally opens up to Alexei in a tearful breakdown, and is able to help Bob come to terms with his own dark thoughts.
    • Walker is in a deep rut after his wife separated from him, taking their son with her, due to his depression over losing the title of Captain America causing him to neglect himself and his family. He gets a bit better after working with the other Thunderbolts, finally feeling more like the hero he wishes to be.
    • Bob is a recovering drug addict, driven to substance abuse by a horrendous home life due to an abusive father that made his and his mother's life constant mental torture. The Void is essentially a superpowered manifestation of his life-long depression. Bob is only able to contain the Void with the help of the Thunderbolts, who embrace him and keep him from going fully off the deep end and giving in to his darkest thoughts.
    • Alexei feels stuck in an unfulfilling job and misses being a hero to the people. He finally finds fulfillment in saving the people of New York from the Void, and getting to team up with people whom he deeply respects, and who do the same for him. These include Walker, the successor to his great rival Captain America; Bucky, whom he calls 'Mister Soldier' in awe; and most of all, his beloved daughter Yelena.
  • To a certain extent - shadows.
    • Starting with the very Marvel logo, which is overtaken by the Void.
    • Yelena fighting in the corridor with the pan up view, with guards she's killing leaving very distinct shadow work.
    • Bob trying to hide away after waking up, mimicking his tendency to try and avoid conflict, be unnoticed i.e. - 'sticking to the shadows'.
    • Valentina trying to keep everything hidden and everyone in the dark about her true intentions, as well as keeping herself off from trusting everyone due to trusting father's enemy, which led to father's death, thus holding her 'heart' in darkness.
    • Main Thunderbolts' trio - Yelena, Ava and John - were all Black Ops under Valentina's employ. Literally 'shadow operatives'.
    • Bob's abilities 'waking up' during night time, as well as him flying away into the dark sky to the safety.
    • The very concept of The Void. The physical manifestation of the humans darkest psyche - depression, self-hatred, fear and many others, represented with Bob's body completely blacked out, with only two red irises seen, likely representing only thing brighter than any other emotion - pain, which is often color-coded with red.
    • Void's Shadow Realm. It shows people their darkest regrets, which doesn't kill them, but keeps them in constant state of mental pain. For many people darkness represents hiding mental anguish or being engulfed in their worst vices/sins. In fact there's a real psychological practice called 'shadow walking', based off of Jungian psychology - facing your deepest repressed bits of self and 'integrating' them into yourself - allowing your 'Ying' and 'Yang' co-exist peacefully to become a full, self-realized person.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • During her visit to Alexei's home, Yelena notices that he has a picture of her pee-wee soccer team on display. She later brings up the team in rebuttal to John citing his college football experience as a reason why he should take command of their alliance, and it is revealed that the team's name was the Thunderbolts; sure enough, Walker referencing this later in the limo leads to Alexei believing that Yelena had named her new team after them, proudly calling them this until Val announces them as the New Avengers.
  • After Yelena brings up the team during the argument, Bob mentions being a "meth-addicted chicken suit sign-spinner". During the team's journey through Bob's memories, they end up getting attacked by a memory of Bob, on meth, in a chicken suit, wielding a sign.
  • During an event about the Battle of New York organized by Valentina for PR purposes, she draws attention to Chitauri handcuffs on display as one of many pieces salvaged from the Battle of New York. These cuffs are later used by Bucky as bindings Ghost can't phase out of.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: John Walker's suit is faded and stained, while his shield is worn down to bare metal and covered in scratches and gouges, signs that he's been neglecting to maintain his equipment. It's gradually revealed that his personal life has fallen apart and he's suffering from depression — inability to properly care for oneself is a symptom.
• Collapsible Helmet:
  • Taskmaster's facemask collapses for a quick face reveal during her only scene, shortly before being killed.
  • Ghost's helmet also automatically comes and goes; she always puts it on right before turning intangible.
• Comically Missing the Point: In The Stinger, Walker mistakes Yelena's comment about a "huge space crisis" as a reference to floor space, which baffles him, since the former Avengers Tower has plenty of room. An annoyed Yelena makes it clear that she means outer space.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames:
  • Despite being given the title by Valentina at the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, John Walker is never referred to as "U.S. Agent" during the film. Even the trailer, which highlights everyone else's codenames, just calls him John Walker.
  • Yelena is never given any sort of codename by either the movie or supplementary material, including merchandise. Her tie-in skin for Fortnite is the only bit of MCU-related material to use the "White Widow" codename at all.
  • No one is referred to by their codenames in the end credits, only their real names.
• Compensating for Something: While Yelena and Walker compare their respective weapons, Yelena and Ava take a moment to tease Walker for his handgun having a longer barrel than Yelena's.
• Composite Character: Valentina Allegra de Fontaine takes on Dark Reign era Norman Osborn’s role of being the benefactor of a new Avengers team filled with ex-villains and anti-heroes.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Loki's Scepter, which was last seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron, is on display in a museum commemorating the Battle of New York.
  • Walker uses Steve's "On your left!"
  • Val has sonic devices that counter Ghost's phasing by keeping her from concentrating. One wonders if they're related to Stane's device in Iron Man, or the larger Stark Industries devices used against the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk.
  • Bucky uses the same disc grenade gun that he employed against Nick Fury's vehicle to blow it up and flip it over.
  • When confronted by the heroes at the Stark Tower, Valentina pours a drink as she talks to them in a very similar manner to Tony Stark when facing Loki.
  • Bucky again uses the same knife drop attack he used against Steve, this time against Sentry.
  • Sentry turns out to be strong enough to Punch Catch Bucky and twist his artificial arm. Bucky is as shocked and bewildered as when Spider-Man did it.
• Continuity Overlap: Thunderbolts* is set not long after the events of the preceding MCU film Captain America: Brave New World. Bucky has won his Congressional run and is now serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives (and Valentina's snide commentary establishes he's only served less than half of his two-year term, thus clarifying the internal chronology). Thunderbolt Ross' Red Hulk rampage is also still recent enough that Valentina cites it during her Impeachment hearing.
• Contract on the Hitman: The main storyline is set in motion when Yelena is given a contract on Ghost, only to find that Walker has a contract on her, Taskmaster has a contract on him, and Ghost has a contract on Taskmaster. And they're all trying to kill each other in a room rigged to incinerate whoever survives.
• Cooldown Hug: In the Void, Yelena gives one of these to Bob as he is trying to punch his Void counterpart to death, which is what it wants Bob to do. Yelena and the other Thunderbolts hugging Bob and reassuring him he’s not alone is what helps snap him out of it.
• Costume Evolution: Taskmaster's new outfit comes with a noticeably more skull-like white mask, bringing her closer in appearance to Tony Masters from the comics.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • The posters and marketing material feature both Taskmaster and Bob alongside the rest of the team. In the movie itself, Taskmaster is killed before the actual team-up even happens, while Bob (as the Sentry/Void) serves as the antagonist for most of the film.
  • The title itself, in a sense. At the end of the film, the team, along with Bob, are now renamed as the New Avengers, with The Stinger showing that to be the second half of the title of the film.
• Create Your Own Villain: Valentina's attempts at manipulating a mentally unstable drug addict end up creating a supervillain who nearly wipes out Manhattan.
• Creative Closing Credits: The end credits sequence is a montage of news outlets reacting to the New Avengers, with many of them either confused or downright upset with the new lineup.
• Cringe Comedy:
  • From the moment Alexei shows up (in full Red Guardian costume) with his limo in the desert, he's stuck in Amazingly Embarrassing Parent mode. At first he starts yelling at the top of his lungs for Yelena to not go in the vault they'd just escaped from, prompting Walker and Ava to watch in astonishment between him and his daughter, while Yelena can only cover her face in shame. It doesn't get better with the following conversation in the limo, especially when Alexei wrongly concludes that Yelena named their team "Thunderbolts" based on her peewee soccer team, and she ends up flabbergasted again.
  • The mid-credits scene has Alexei awkwardly pressure a random woman into picking up a box of Wheaties with the New Avengers on it, making her very uncomfortable while he tries not to brag too much. He finally resorts to pointing out that he's one of the heroes on the box (which wasn’t apparent before due to him shaving his beard)... after the woman has walked away and dropped it on another shelf.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Sentry casually shrugs off everything the titular team throws at him, breaks their weapons with ease and throws them around like they're a bunch of pillows. Sentry refuses Valentina's order to finish them off on the basis that they're no threat to him, and it's impossible to say his assessment is wrong.
• Curse Cut Short: When Bucky throws a Sticky Bomb at Red Guardian's limo, Walker can only say "Oh, shi-" before it explodes.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: In The Stinger Bob is shown to have officially joined the team but, despite being arguably the most powerful being on the planet, cannot participate in field missions due to the risk that the Void will take control of him again. Additionally, as Walker points out to Alexei, some situations that require the team would still be impractical even with Sentry's powers, such as getting to space — Walker sarcastically asks if they all would ride on Bob's back into space.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Scenes from Yelena's past are shown, such as when she lured a friend out to be killed in order to pass a Red Room test.
  • Bob sees a traumatic memory from Valentina's childhood, where a man who claimed to be a friend of her father's (thus tricking her into telling him where they lived) killed her father.
  • Ava mentions that she spent her childhood being experimented on and turned into a weapon.
  • Bob comes from an abusive home and has a history of drug addiction and mental illness.
  • Humorously averted with Bucky, whose past troubles, such as being captured, tortured, brainwashed and performing assassinations against his will, have been shown on screen before. This film chooses to gloss over them with Bucky making a sarcastic remark about how "great" his life has been, when discussing the nightmare visions they experience in the void.
• Darker and Edgier: Downplayed, since the film still has quite a bit of levity to it from the chemistry between the titular group and the humor that comes from it, but Thunderbolts* grapples with some heavy subject matter in regards to its characters' mental health, similar to WandaVision's exploration of grief. Yelena spends quite a bit of the film Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life and struggling to find worth in herself, the Void is an Allegorical Character for clinical depression, and Bob comes from a history of severe drug abuse driven by an abusive childhood home, just to give a few examples. The film also has a noticeably darker, desaturated color palette compared to other MCU projects, to complement the darker tone.
• David vs. Goliath: The Thunderbolts* i.e. The New Avengers versus the newly empowered Sentry. The battle is so one-sided against the team that all they can do is flee, and end up resolving the entire conflict without the use of force at all.
• Death of a Child:
  • When Yelena is affected by Sentry's power, we repeatedly see a memory of her as a teenager being trained by the Red Room, when her friend Anya was murdered in front of her by her handler, though it's kept offscreen.
  • Subverted with the little girl who vanishes into the Void right after being saved by Alexei, as it turns out she and the other people who've been taken aren't dead, and she's shown to have returned at the end.
• Delayed Until the Final Countdown: The heroes are trapped in an incinerator room with one minute before it activates and kills them all. They manage to disable the defense system around the perimeter so that Ava can pass through the wall and open the door... only for her to seemingly abandon them. Just as they're all bracing for their deaths, the doors suddenly open with one second to spare. Afterwards, John says that he was sure Ava wasn't coming back, and she tells him that she had to, because the elevator was disabled.
• Department of Redundancy Department: In his first scene, Bucky answers questions from the press, repeatedly describing the accusations against Valentina as "worrying".
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Yelena repeatedly talks about how she's been aimlessly wandering through life, taking whatever job is presented to her and spending the rest of her time sitting alone, getting drunk, and waiting for the next assignment.
  Yelena: There is something wrong with me. An emptiness. I'm just... drifting. And I don't have purpose. I thought throwing myself into work was the answer.
• Destination Defenestration: Sentry casually tosses Red Guardian out the window of the former Avengers Tower. Subverted when Sentry pulls him back in, albeit into a wall.
• Deus Exit Machina:
  • Intangibility and invisibility are incredibly useful powers, so the plot keeps having Ava leave the group, end up in situations where her powers aren't useful, or have Val employ counter-measures that nullify them, as to keep it from being a Story-Breaker Power.
  • Sentry's incredibly strong powers are counterbalanced by the fact that any use of them risks bringing the Void back to the forefront, even after the group manages to bring him back from the brink. As such, in the Time Skip following The Stinger, he's part of the team but doesn't participate in any of their missions. Even the "Will Return" Caption at the end credits him as Bob, making it clear Sentry isn't going to be returning to active duty any time soon.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Yelena, Walker, Ava, and Antonia never considered, while disposing of evidence for Valentina, that the final loose end that she would need to get rid of would be them.
  • Bob suggests that he, Yelena, Walker, and Ava climb up an elevator shaft to escape the vault by bracing against each other. It's only when they reach the top that everyone realises that, if anyone moves to open the hatch, the other three will fall to their doom. Bob immediately admits that he didn't think that far ahead when he came up with the plan.
  • Valentina leaps at the opportunity to use Bob for Project Sentry, despite warnings from Mel and very clear signs from Bob himself that he's unstable, and that encouraging him to use his immense power is a bad idea. It takes all of one scene for Bob to start rebelling against her, and despite the killswitch in Valentina's possession, she's nearly strangled when her normal human reflexes pale in comparison to the Sentry's superpowers, and it's only thanks to the Thunderbolts' intervention that New York isn't consigned to a shadowy psychological hellscape.
  • Valentina rushing to declare the Thunderbolts the "New Avengers" in front of the press may have stopped the team from killing (or arresting) her, but by doing it she also trapped herself in a Slave to PR situation where she loses all control she has over the team.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Void and his ability to turn people into shadows is deliberately based on the shadows burnt into walls from the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, equating him to a flying, sapient nuclear bomb.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • The Stinger. The Thunderbolts have no idea what to make of this mysterious ship with a giant "4" on its hull that's just appeared in Earth orbit. The audience, on the other hand, knows exactly who has come a-calling to the MCU Earth.
  • As they crawl up the elevator shaft, they bemoan how they don't have anyone who can fly. Depending on the audience's comics knowledge, they probably realize that the most useless-seeming member of the group can fly; he just doesn't know that.
• Dressing as the Enemy: After subduing some of Valentina's kill squad, Walker dresses in some of their gear to slip away unnoticed (which leads to Yelena shooting at him at first when he approaches her unannounced). Bob and Yelena quickly follow suit, with the three of them sneaking past Valentina and her minions by pretending to be escorting a wounded soldier to the medical tent.
• Driven to Suicide: Alluded to:
  • After Walker touches Bob and relives the moment his wife decided to walk out on him and take their son, Walker wakes up to find that he was standing on the ledge of a ruined elevator, staring down at a fatal drop. After a moment of collecting himself, he steps back.
  • As the Void's darkness envelops New York, Yelena is left staring into it and, calming herself, walks in, unaware that she will survive the experience. This also calls back to the opening scene of the film, where she steps off a building while narrating about her internal emptiness. Except this time, she doesn't have a chute. Or a plan. Just hope.
• Driving Question: What is "Project Sentry"? And why is Valentina so confident it can replace the Avengers?
• Drowning My Sorrows: While inside the Void's darkness, Yelena comes across a past vision of herself in a bathroom, unconscious and with a bottle of vodka in hand. It's left unclear if this was Yelena simply drowning her sorrows, or if she was trying to drink herself to death.
• Early-Bird Cameo: During the film's post-credit scene, The Fantastic Four spaceship is seen entering the Earth's atmosphere, two months ahead of their MCU film debut.
• Either/Or Title: The film does a variant using the asterisk in the title, and the Plot Twist at the end of the film leads to the end credits revealing the second title: *The New Avengers.
• Engineered Heroics: Essentially the heart of Valentina's plan to clean up OXE's dirty business after the failure of the "shredder" plot. By securing Bob and turning him into the Sentry, she hopes to justify her position (as well as claim control of the "Avengers narrative") by setting up all the Thunderbolts as "villains" her new pet superhero can defeat and destroy. However, with the Sentry ultimately becoming the Void and causing an even worse problem, the Thunderbolts are compelled to genuinely save the day (and rescue Bob from himself). She is thus forced to instead spin the Thunderbolts as the heroes she was working on, christening them as "The New Avengers".
• Entertainingly Wrong: John Walker sincerely believes that he wasn't sent to die by Valentina alongside Ghost and Yelena (and the already deceased Taskmaster) and is genuinely still going to get pardoned/forgiven after everything is over, seeing himself as Holier than Thou. While he's completely wrong about Valentina not planning to discard him, he isn't exactly wrong to consider him morally superior. He is a decorated war hero/veteran with three medals of honor, whose worst crime of publicly executing a super soldier terrorist with the shield as he begged for his life, although certainly wrong, doesn't compare to Ghost (former S.H.I.E.L.D. assassin-turned-mercenary) and Yelena (former Red Room assassin-turned-mercenary), who he accurately points out have far more blood in their hands.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite, or perhaps because of Walker having been a neglectful dad, he's the one who punches Bob's abusive dad out cold without a second of hesitation.
  • Despite being far from the perfect hero himself, Walker considers himself Holier than Thou to Ghost and Yelena due to their actions as a former Hydra Agent and Red Room assassin respectively.
  • Even dubiously moral mercenaries like Yelena, Walker, and Ava are disgusted by Valentina experimenting on someone as vulnerable as Bob.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: Yelena becomes this to everyone even as she also pulls some double duty as The Leader of the "kids" on the team excluding Bucky and Red Guardian. When she sacrifices herself to the Void's "shadow realm" in a desperate gamble to reconnect with Bob, Ava's ready to dive in after her almost out of desperation, and John backs her up in convincing Bucky and an already willing Red Guardian to follow her in.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Valentina's cover-up starts unraveling when her lone wolf mercenaries do the one thing she never could have predicted: they join forces. She also stumbles in her attempts to control Bob by thoughtlessly bringing up his troubled childhood, and fails to consider that he might have moral qualms about executing the Thunderbolts after he's proven that they're no threat to him.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Excluding the prologue in Kuala Lumpur, the whole film takes place over about 24 hours.
• Face Death with Dignity: When it looks like Ava has abandoned Yelena and the others to be incinerated inside the vault, she merely closes her eyes in silent resignation. Then the vault opens at the last second which allows them to escape before being engulfed in flames.
• The Faceless: The Void is flat black and presents no contour or texture, with the tiny pinprick shine of his eyes and teeth being the only discernible features on his face.
• Facepalm: Yelena is pretty much stuck in facepalm mode from the moment her father Alexei shows up in his limo in the desert and loudly calls her name before the dumbfounded eyes of Walker and Ava. She does it later, again, after a sarcastic aside by Walker makes Alexei start to think that she'd given the name "Thunderbolts" to their... Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, based on Yelena's peewee soccer team.
• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • While trapped underground, staring up a broken elevator shaft, Walker confidently leaps out of sight to try and reach the door... only to painfully fall back down seconds later, having not been able to jump high enough.
  • Alexei improvises a Molotov, and tosses it at one of Val's pursuing Hummers. It catches fire... for a few seconds, then the wind blows it out with no apparent damage. Molotovs are typically terrible for use on vehicles, unless used in a very specific manner.^note In fact, if Val's sonic device is inspired by real-world LRAD devices, the car might be outfitted for anti-riot work, and be Molotov-proofed.
  • During the Thunderbolts' ill-fated fight against the Sentry, Bucky sheds his leather jacket while dramatic music swells in the background... only for his onslaught of punches to do nothing, after which the Sentry easily disarms Bucky.
• Fake Arm Disarm: During the hopeless fight between the Thunderbolts and the Sentry, Bob not only catches Bucky's Vibranium arm and casually exceeds his strength, but rips the arm off and smacks Bucky upside the head with it.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Void's mindscape is bad enough on its own, with the Void's victims being forced to relive their worst, most traumatic memories, but when Bob, Yelena, and the other Thunderbolts start trying to escape, the environment starts attacking them at the Void's command; according to Bob, they can't die there, but the pain can only get worse and worse.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • When Yelena and Bob find the mooks that Walker took down, one of them has been conspicuously stripped down to his underwear and Walker is nowhere to be seen. After a quick fight with some more mooks, the duo find that Walker stole a uniform to escape detection.
  • During the climactic fight, Sentry throws Red Guardian out the window, and could just let him drop... but he brings Guardian back in and throws him into the bar. Turns out he's not willing to kill them if they're not a threat.
  • After the climax, when the team tries to capture Val, she stands in front of a barrier, with her usual horde of subordinates nowhere to be seen, calling for an extract, even though she was last seen nowhere near their present location. This could be chalked up to the rematerialization moving people around, but she's smart enough to make herself scarce quickly even if she found herself near the team. When she escapes through the barrier, they follow her... into a press conference. The barrier was a backdrop.
  • When the words "The New Avengers" appear on screen in a manner which historically precedes the words "will return", eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the text is too far to the left for "The New Avengers will return" to be properly centered. Sure enough, the next words that appear are "and Bob".
  • During the songs portion of the credits, Michael Giacchino is credited for The Fantastic Four: First Steps theme music... guess what happens in The Stinger?
• Flat "What": Val says this after Alexei tells her that his superhero name is the Red Guardian, most likely having never heard of him before. Also after Bob tells her "No" when she orders him to "finish the job" and kill the Thunderbolts*.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In her first scene, Yelena leaps into the void off the edge of a building. During the final confrontation with the Void, wearing much the same expression, she once again leaps into the void — this time into the darkness of Bob's mindscape.
  • During Yelena's mission in the opening scene:
    • The location is a secret research lab in Malaysia involved in "Project Sentry", both of which prove very important as the film unfolds.
    • Yelena saves a guinea pig from the research lab. By the end of the movie, Yelena and the rest of the Thunderbolts have saved Bob, who was originally a test subject in Project Sentry, thus also a guinea pig.
    • We actually see the shadows from Bob's little Void episode in the background. The scientist tries to warn Yelena, but she's been in this situation enough to ignore it, even with a gun pointed at her.
  • When Yelena asks for a more "public-facing" role (i.e. being a conventional hero), Val promises Yelena will get one after One Last Job. She's standing alone, on the phone, without lackeys, in a loading bay that's carting away evidence of her shady business, and the last truck leaves Val in a room that's as empty as her promises. Also, Yelena later realizes she is another piece of evidence. At the end of the movie, Val stands alone, on the phone, without lackeys, and leads Yelena and the team right into that public-facing role so they don't expose and/or kill her.
  • When she first arrives in the Vault, Yelena looks through a few documents about the Sentry Project. Included in the folder are a few photographs of strange shadows on the wall, but it's not until the Void's appearance in the film's third act that we find out what those shadows actually were.
  • In order to escape together from the Vault, following Bob's suggestion, the heroes have to extend enough trust to brace themselves against each other to climb up the elevator shaft. In the finale, allowing himself to accept help from others is what allows Bob to climb out of the despair that the Void trapped them in. Turns out the solution really is leaning on other people.
  • When trying to escape from the bunker, Bob suggests to Yelena that they should leave him behind, as he "always makes things worse." Despite both of their best efforts, they do end up leaving him behind, and in the second half of the film Bob — or rather, the Void — very much does make things worse.
  • The Stinger shows the appearance of the Fantastic Four's ship, which indicates that they've made it out of their world and into the main universe, for reasons as of yet unknown, though most likely they're seeking allies against Doctor Doom, as the scene was filmed for Avengers: Doomsday.
• The Ghost:
  • Sam Wilson in The Stinger. While he doesn't appear, the new Captain America's understandably not happy that his attempts to re-assemble the Avengers are being undermined by the Thunderbolts (although, granted, that's Valentina's fault, not theirs). Regardless, Sam's off-screen efforts to get them to cease and desist using the New Avengers name finally culminates with him filing a copyright infringement lawsuit.
  • The Fantastic Four don't appear in The Stinger; only their spaceship, emblazoned with their iconic logo, is seen, and it's not immediately clear if the Fantastic Four are even aboard.
• Glory Days: Alexei is introduced sitting in his apartment watching an old tape of himself as Red Guardian being feted by the Soviet Union with a huge military parade.
• A God Am I: Discussed Trope. Val is understandably concerned when Bob, newly christened as the Sentry, casually refers to himself as a god who doesn't need to answer to anyone. However, as he notes, she did say he was as strong as all of the Avengers rolled into one, which includes at least one god.
• Good Feels Good: Alexei says that he was at his happiest when he was a genuine superhero for the Soviet Union. He also says that he sees flashes of happiness in Yelena whenever she does something heroic, the same brightness that he saw in Natasha, and urges her to pursue something other than clandestine mercenary jobs.
• Goofy Suit: Bob once went on a meth-fueled rampage while dressed in a chicken suit and wielding a massive sign.
• Group Hug: The Thunderbolts give one of the cooldown variety to Bob to stop him from feeling the isolation that is keeping him as the Void, assuring him that he's not alone anymore and they're always there for him.
• Guns Akimbo: Bucky dual-wields a pistol and a submachine gun in an attempt to stop Sentry. It works as well as one would expect.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • At the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Walker seems to have had things finally going well for him. His reputation seems to be improving due to him saving multiple GRC members and helping Bucky arrest the Flag-Smashers, he's found a new purpose and calling as U.S. Agent, and his mental health seems to be on the right track with his wife by his side. Here, it's revealed that the public never truly forgave him for his public execution of a Flag-Smasher, he has severe depression from his failed stint as Captain America and subsequent discharge, his stint in covert-ops under Val's employ hasn't been very fulfilling, and his wife left him and took their infant son due to his many unresolved issues driving a wedge between them.
  • Taskmaster seemed to be on the track to getting her own life back after her brainwashing was broken at the end of Black Widow. Unfortunately, here it's shown she went right back into clandestine military work of her own free will and became an assassin for Valentina. And she ultimately winds up getting unceremoniously killed by Ghost right before the latter, along with the rest of Valentina's "loose ends", realize they've been set up.
  • Bucky effectively gets this as well. Captain America: Brave New World established that Bucky had finally retired from super-heroics for good after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Bucky was pursuing a Congressional run and, as was projected, he ultimately won the election. But trying to prove Valentina's crimes ultimately forces him to abandon that nascent political career and re-embrace the Winter Soldier identity one more time. By the end of the film, Bucky's stuck with it thanks to the Thunderbolts' re-christening as the New Avengers, and his dicey-at-best relationship with Sam Wilson has apparently been strained as a result.
• Hard Truth Aesop:
  • Depression and trauma-induced pain may never truly go away, but that doesn't mean you should simply allow it to dictate your life and succumb to it. Bob flat-out says that he won't ever be able to fully escape his traumatic history of an abusive childhood that led to severe substance abuse, something that gives the Void its power. However, Yelena convinces him that simply giving into the darkness within isn't the answer, and it will only make things worse for himself and those around him; rather, by allowing himself to be vulnerable, and allowing himself to rely on others for help, he will manage to find some form of peace.
  • As support networks are one of the best methods to help deal with depression, both those with depression and without it have to be willing to be vulnerable and open themselves up to others in order for them to find any support. With Alexei's encouragement, Yelena is finally able to open up about her self-loathing and depression to her father, and as she later notes to Bob, while it didn't make "the void go away," it did make it "feel lighter." Yelena and the other Thunderbolts are also only able to help Bob and save him from being consumed by the Void (along with presumably the entire planet) when Bob finally lets Yelena talk to him in their shared mindscape. In other words, receiving and giving support is like a door - you can only get it if you're willing to open yourself up and receive it in the first place.
• Headbutting Heroes: The opening mission sees a Black Widow fighting the Ghost fighting the Taskmaster fighting U.S. Agent... and someone dies.
• The Heart: Surprisingly, Alexei is this. Despite dealing with his own issues, Alexei is also the one most emotionally put together out of the entire team and actually encourages them that they could be more and do better. He’s the only one who never has any hostile interactions with Walker throughout. Granted, a lot of it is him yearning for his glory days. But Alexei does have the emotional sensitivity to help Yelena work through her issues and what has been bothering her, which in turn allows her to help Bob in the climax.
• He Knows Too Much: Under heavy scrutiny from a congressional hearing, Valentina scrambles to destroy all evidence of her illicit deeds. Among the evidence are her covert operatives, who are conned into fighting each other in a room that turns out to be a giant incinerator.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: As befitting a film in part about flawed, broken people wanting to be better than they are, all throughout the chaos in New York following the falling helicopter, each of the Thunderbolts either on their own or work together to save innocent lives — Alexei helps Yelena throw herself through the air to pull a man out of the way of a runaway truck, Ava pushes a woman away from the crashing helicopter, Bucky runs in front of a rolling van about to flatten some civilians and uses his Vibranium arm to flip the van over them, Walker jumps in and holds up a massive slab of cement from crushing a woman (with him quickly being helped by Ava, Yelena, Alexei and Bucky in fully tipping the cement slab away), and Alexei running over and sheltering a young girl from falling cement.
• Hero of Another Story: Possibly. When Bob shows up, he's in some kind of hibernation box. As we learn later, he had a recent Void episode, so he either came down naturally, somebody managed to subdue the Void, or somebody talked the Void into that box.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. John Walker is nearly crushed by a giant slug of concrete as he’s protecting civilians during The Void’s rampage. His allies come in to save him though.
• Hidden Depths: Contessa had a traumatic past, same as her "shadow ops" operatives, and she briefly uses martial arts skills on Holt that one would not expect from a CIA director and politician.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Valentina gasses up a reluctant Bob by saying that he's all-powerful, invincible, and more than a match for the Avengers combined. Unfortunately, this bites her in the ass soon after, as Bob-as-Sentry turns against her as he questions why a god needs to answer to anyone.
• Holier than Thou: Walker touts his decorated military career, stint as Captain America, and happy family life as reasons why he is morally superior to the other team members — never mind that both careers ended in disgrace and his family left him soon after the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Although to be fair, he’s certainly correct that out of him, Yelena, and Ghost, his (known) actions are objectively the least terrible.
• Homage: The newspaper shots and magazine covers shown during the Creative Closing Credits invokes a number of known Anglospheric art and visuals:
  • The team is laid out in one cover looking like the cover of Queen II (but is probably better known as the image of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" music video). Also doubles as a reference to famous comic artist Alex Ross and some of his more notable covers such as Kingdom Come.
  • In another, the team is portrayed in the same pose as Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze.
  • Yelena is portrayed in the post of Rosie the Riveter.
  • Alexei/Red Guardian is portrayed hovering and clutching a building not unlike how King Kong clamps over the Empire State Building.
  • In the image portraying Alexei giving a flower to a little girl, the rest of the team is laid out in a way reminiscent of the cover of The Beatles' Abbey Road.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen:
  • Red Guardian served as the Soviet Union's Captain Patriotic Super-Soldier as a response to Captain America. In the present day, he is a drunk mess who immigrated to the US, desperatly seeking his glory days and working as a limousine driver without the prestige he is hoping for. He also learns over the course of the movie that he is mostly forgotten by the public.
  • John Walker a.k.a. US Agent is a decorated veteran who briefly served as the second Captain America in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier before being stripped away from that role thanks to publicly killing a terrorist. It's shown he didn't take his fall from grace too well, falling into depression and being left by his wife who took their son with her, now doing shady assassin jobs for Val like the rest of the group.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: A shockingly touching example from John Walker the U.S. Agent. In the first act he is happy to be The Bully to poor Bob, constantly demeaning him and making him feel small, to the point where Bob is baffled that Walker considers himself Captain America. Yet after some Character Development and Fire-Forged Friends bonding during the Journey to the Center of the Mind when the team encounter Bob’s abusive father, John punches the bastard out cold the moment he insults Bob. Soon afterwards Walker is first after Yelena in giving Bob a Group Hug to prevent him giving into the Void's influence.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: As Bob seemingly overcomes the Void and starts pummeling him in his Battle At The Center Of The Mind he starts turning into the Void himself because the Void is a literal manifestation of his own depression and self-loathing, physically "beating" the Void is in reality giving into his self-hatred. Yelena realizes what's happening and yells for Bob to stop, and that this is what the Void wants.
• Ignored Epiphany: When touching Bob shows her a memory of accidentally causing her father's death, by telling his killer where he lived, Valentina is visibly horrified and taken aback... only to shrug it off moments later and proceed as though nothing had happened.
• Ignored Expert:
  • While making a plan to escape from Valentina's kill squad, Walker tries to shut down Yelena's idea to start with an explosion because it could cause unpredictable complications; Yelena ignores him (and Walker, not having a better idea, goes along with her plan), but Walker is proven right when the explosion damages some electrical wiring, ruining her plan to exploit the kill squad's night vision goggles.
  • Mel provides Valentina with Bob's past and psychological profile, which is basically a laundry list of reasons why giving him godlike power was a very bad idea, but Valentina ignores her, which has serious consequences in the third act.
• In Name Only:
  • Of the characters in the film, only Bucky, U.S. Agent, Ghost, and Taskmaster have been members of the Thunderbolts in the comics^note Though Natasha Romanoff did infiltrate the Thunderbolts disguised as Yelena for a time., with the latter two being themselves In Name Only adaptations of their respective characters; even there, they weren't members at the same time and all came from vastly different iterations of the team, none of which were the original iteration. Meanwhile, the plot is based on The Sentry's own miniseries rather than any Thunderbolts storyline.
  • This also works for the film's secret second title, as none of the characters present aside from Bucky (as Captain America) and Sentry are members of the New Avengers.
• Innocently Insensitive: After hearing about Walker's wife and son, Ava asks how he managed to maintain a family life along with his black ops work. Since Walker left out that his wife left him and took their son, she's unknowingly picking at a shameful emotional wound.
• Instant Expert: The Sentry has only had his powers for a day, but he overpowers and defangs the Thunderbolts*, including the Winter Soldier and the Red Guardian and a Black Widow.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Valentina says that the four agents will never escape the vault or be able to work together. Her assistant promptly shows Val the security cam video of them working together to escape the vault.
• Inserted into Historical Footage: When Yelena arrives at Alexei's house, he's reliving his Glory Days as Red Guardian, watching a recording of himself at a parade in the Red Square, waving next to Brezhnev. The actual footage is taken from a parade that took place on May 1st, 1981.
• Invincible Villain: Fitting his status as an Allegorical Character representing depression and mental illness as a whole, the Void can't be beaten; every attempt Valentina and her forces make to subdue him fail miserably, while the Thunderbolts don't even try to fight him (having lost badly to the much less malicious Sentry earlier). The Void is only "defeated" when Bob finds comfort in the team and accepts that the Void's darkness is a part of him, something to be mitigated by a loving support system.
• I Resemble That Remark!: When Bob calls him an asshole in response to Walker casually threatening to throw him back into the incinerator, Walker aggressively slams Bob into the wall for the (entirely accurate) remark.
• Irony: When Sentry fights the team, he throws Alexei, who's kind of an alcoholic, into a bar.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: John Walker is more of a jackass than his previous appearance, to the point where even Bob calls him "an asshole", but he’s ultimately still a man who desires to do good; he saves his teammates several times, he stands up for Red Guardian when Yelena lashing out at him and puts his life on the line to protect innocent civilians. When entering the Void, he not only encourages Bob in his fight against the Void but is the second one to hug him and praises him for doing good.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Played With at the ending of film. Valentina indeed does not receive her comeuppance for her previous actions throughout "The Multiverse Saga", like tricking Yelena into trying to kill Clint Barton, or nearly dooming the world to The Void, and is rewarded with good press for organizing the New Avengers. That said, it's clear to the titular team (and the audience) that this was a last-second Hail Mary on her part to keep herself in power; and that she only did so because her initial plan of "Sentry as her personal superpowered henchman and Avengers replacement" failed and with the Thunderbolts now seen as heroes (plus having physical evidence of what she did to Bob plus OXE's other crimes), she has no choice but to play ball. It's even highlighted in Yelena's final interaction with her in the movie. Val is clearly infuriated and worried by the following comment but continues to (albeit very forcefully) smile and look pleasant for the gathered press.
  Yelena: [smirks and whispers into Val's ear] We own you now.
• Kill It with Fire: Valentina's backup plan for eliminating Yelena, Walker, Ava and Taskmaster is to incinerate them all in the OXE vault along with all evidence of Project Sentry.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The Thunderbolts, a group of anti-heroes who at their strongest are slightly-above-regular human strength, go up against the Flying Brick, Physical God, Superman Substitute Sentry. One one-sided thrashing later, the Thunderbolts wisely decide to cut and run.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: After defeating the Void and restoring New York, Bob is shown to have completely forgotten everything that happened since the Sentry emerged.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • As early as Sunday of the film's opening weekend, Marvel started using the New Avengers name in advertising, even changing billboards to use the new title. Scrolling down to the end of this very page can end up giving away the new title too, given that the page has to include Alternative Titles that can link to it as well.
  • For anyone who hadn't seen Captain America: Brave New World released three months earlier (and missed its extensive marketing campaign), Valentina spoils the film's climax in one of the opening scenes, reminding the Congressional committee in charge of her impeachment hearings that Thaddeus Ross transformed into a raging red beast and destroyed part of the White House before resigning as President.
• Leitmotif:
  • As the camera pans out to reveal that the Watchtower is actively being built around Stark Tower, a brief, twisted snippet of Alan Silvestri's Avengers theme plays.
  • As the mysterious ship in The Stinger slowly turns to reveal a "4" on the side, a snippet of Michael Giacchino's Fantastic Four theme plays.
• Lethally Stupid: Valentina thinks she can control the highly powerful, mentally unbalanced Bob with nothing but a few nice words. She nearly dies as a result of this misguided belief.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Yelena, John, Ava, and Taskmaster get into a four-way scrap in an underground vault, only to discover that Valentina has ordered each of them to kill one of the others to cover up her loose ends. Taskmaster is the only fatality before things calm down enough for the group to realize that they've all been played.
• Load-Bearing Hero: Walker holds up a giant piece of debris to protect innocent civilians from being crushed during The Void's rampage, despite it being too much for him to handle alone. Fortunately, his allies come to support him.
• Logical Weakness: Ava's ability to become intangible requires concentration, so anything that disrupts that concentration (like sonic weaponry) puts her out of commission.
• Logo Joke: The film begins with a new take on the classic "falling comic pages" logo for Marvel Studios, in the style of the 2013 logo, with panels featuring the Sentry, until partway through the logo, dark shadows begin to take over and engulf the logo, and each orchestra section or instrument in the normally-bombastic fanfare starts to fades out one by one, leaving the logo barely visible against a black background as the music is reduced to a droning silence.
• Lonely Bachelor Pad: Alexei lives in a modest apartment that's turned into a pigsty as he's depressed and lonely. It is a far cry from the large and tasteful home he lived in while in deep cover with Melina, Natasha, and Yelena.
• Love Redeems: One of the film's Central Themes, as best showcased with the ultimate showdown against the Void; Depression, loneliness, and self-loathing is not a foe you can beat down with your fists, metaphysically or literally — only love and freely-given kindness can heal and save one's soul from such an insatiable, seemingly invincible monster.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: John Walker and Taskmaster both wield circular shields like Captain America's and use them to block blows, blade strikes, and bullets.
• Lucky Charms Title: The asterisk is part of the title. This is because the group eventually gets dubbed "The New Avengers"; the closing credits also rename the movie *The New Avengers. And, yes, the new title also has the asterisk.
• Malicious Misnaming: After being corrected on her surname in a hearing (it's "de Fontaine", not "Fontaine"), Senator Gary refers to Valentina as "Ms. Fontaine" to the press later on.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: At the end of the film, thanks to her publicly taking credit for forming the New Avengers, Valentina has saved herself from impeachment, a stint in federal prison, and the wrath of her former operatives... and managed to put herself at the mercy of said former operatives who, while not inclined to kill her, make it clear that they own her now, which visibly takes the wind out of Val's sails.
• Mêlée à Trois: How the protagonists have their first encounter in the trapped bunker: a Mêlée à Quatre entirely engineered by Valentina. She sent Yelena after Ghost, Walker after Yelena, Taskmaster against Walker, and Ghost against Taskmaster. This results in a rather chaotic four-way fight with multiple opponent switches.
• Memetic Mutation: In-Universe, the second post-credits scene has Walker becoming aware of "nasty memes" being made on the internet mocking the Thunderbolts (or rather, the New Avengers).
• Metaphorically True: At the press conference after the Void's defeat, Valentina announces that she's been working in secret to bring about a new era of protection, and that it's thanks to her hard work that the Thunderbolts/New Avengers protected New York, which is sort of true, but omits some important details: the "new era" she was trying to create became the threat the Thunderbolts saved the city from, and they came together thanks to Val's "hard work" in trying to kill all of them and make herself the untouchable last word in America's defense. Since Valentina had to be so vague with her claims, Yelena can smugly point out that the newly christened New Avengers "own [her] now", since they can reveal the truth if she steps out of line again.
• Misery Poker: The 'Bolts play a brief round of it while ascending the OXE vault's elevator shaft, comparing each others' childhoods.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The touching scene of Red Guardian helping comfort a lost child during the chaos in New York is cut horrifically short by the Void abruptly stealing her away.
  • Right after the tense emotional talk between the Thunderbolts in Bob's childhood room and right before the heartbreaking confrontation with the Void in the Malaysian lab, there's a hilariously out-of-nowhere scene of the Thunderbolts suddenly being attacked by an iteration of Bob wearing a chicken mascot costume and wielding a giant sign all while tweaking out on meth.
• Mundane Boss, Superhuman Dragon: Valentina de Fontaine is the Big Bad of the film and is the completely mundane director of the CIA, but she's backed by Bob, a.k.a. Project Sentry, a Superman Substitute with powers that appear to have been derived from the Super Soldier Serum, but possesses a Superpowered Evil Side in the form of The Void that goes out of control in the film's climax.
• Musical Nod: At the end of the film, as Valentina publicly spins the protagonists as the New Avengers lineup, Alan Silvestri's Avengers theme plays in a canned marching band style, symbolizing her hijacking of the name for shallow publicity to save face for her screwups throughout the film.
• My Greatest Failure: Part of Bob's power is some sort of telepathic ability that forces people to relive their darkest memories. For Yelena, it's various Red Room trials where her success meant brutal punishment or death for other candidates. For John, it's him being too busy dwelling on his failure as Captain America, driving his wife to leave him. For Valentina, it's when she accidentally caused the murder of her father.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The original Sentry miniseries ended with Sentry (with the help of Charles Xavier) erasing the Sentry from the minds of everyone in the world to stop the Void. At the end of the movie (at least until some time before The Stinger), Bob loses his memories of being Sentry. It's also shown in the stinger that Bob is still reluctant to become the Sentry for fear that he might unleash the Void again, as was his entire reasoning for doing so in the comics.
  • Also in the original miniseries, Sentry was close friends with the Fantastic Four, especially Reed. Reed was the only one spared the mind wipe, and was given a way to bring back the Sentry if there was a need, making it fitting that the Fantastic Four are referenced in The Stinger.
  • The Sentry's Silver Age-esque sobriquets as "The Golden Guardian of Good" with "the power of a thousand exploding suns" show up as market research for Project Sentry.
  • The film reveals that Valentina has purchased the former Avengers Tower and renamed it "The Watchtower", a nod to The Sentry's home base in the comics which temporarily fused with Avengers Tower during his time as a member of the New Avengers. This provides Foreshadowing on three fronts: that Val is actively working on Project Sentry from within the building, that the Void will cover it in shadow during the climax (thus making the tower resemble its comic counterpart), and that the protagonists will end the movie as the New Avengers.
• Neck Lift:
  • During the big fight between the Thunderbolts and Sentry, the latter grabs Ghost by the neck, and Ava seems unable to escape even with her intangibility power. Sentry then drags Walker into another Neck Lift with his free hand through telekinesis.
  • Not long afterward, once Sentry starts questioning Valentina's orders, he grabs her by the neck and flies her against a wall, clearly threatening to kill her.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Alexei takes a swig of vodka then tosses a flaming bottle of Molotov cocktail on the pursuing caravan.... and nothing. Armored vehicles don't care for a bit of burning vodka.
• Never Trust a Title: Invoked. There's a reason the film's title officially includes an asterisk: it's actually about the formation of the New Avengers, which ends up being the true title displayed during the credits.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Taskmaster is seen with the titular group during the confrontation against Valentina in the teaser trailer, even though in the final film she was killed off in the beginning and never made it that far. The same trailer showed the group going up in the elevator without her, leading to (correct) suspicions that she had been added into the confrontation scene manually..
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Val's attempts to cover up her shadow ops end up turning her lone-wolf operatives into a team bent on destroying her. And accidentally released the Void, which Val didn't even know about. In the long run, she's forced to create and back the New Avengers just so the 'Bolts don't kill her, and they can expose her at any time.
• No Body Left Behind: The Void is able to turn people into shadows splayed across the ground, though the victims aren't dead and are returned to normal once the Void has been subdued.
• No Endor Holocaust: Once the Thunderbolts are able to help Bob soothe his inner turmoil, the people he turned into shadows as the Void return no worse for wear. Physically, at least.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Once Bob manages to overpower the Void during their Battle At The Center Of The Mind, he begins furiously pummeling the utter daylights out of his Superpowered Evil Side. Unfortunately, as Yelena quickly realizes, this is precisely what the Void wants, as the darkness begins consuming Bob with each punch he throws before she and the other Thunderbolts all give him a much-needed Cooldown Hug.
• No-Sell:
  • Sentry completely shrugs off everything the titular team throws at him during their "fight". As The Void, he's shown to seemingly be far more invincible as none of what the OXE agents throw at him do anything whatsoever before he turns them into shadows.
  • When Alexei sees a little girl about to be crushed by a large chunk of falling debris, he immediately runs over to her so he can shield her from it. Said debris does nothing to him.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Bucky manages to capture the Thunderbolts* and Alexei offscreen.
• Oh, Crap!: Right as the Thunderbolts cheer Bucky's appearance for taking out the pursuing OXE Humvees, he shoots another homing mine that hits the back of their limo:
  John Walker: Yeah! Hahahahahoh shit...
  [BOOM]
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Mindy, one of the players from Yelena's peewee soccer team. Nearly every time the team is discussed, someone will mention that Mindy did a poo at midfield.
• Only Sane Woman: Mel to Val and her OXE organization. She points out that trying to rush Bob, a disposable test subject with severe mental illness, to make the Sentry without any kind of prep or testing mere hours after they tried to kill him is a bad idea, but gets ignored by Val, so she contacts Bucky to make him aware of the situation. Technically, there was the doctor in the opening, but he did not survive long enough to matter.
• Painting the Medium:
  • The opening Marvel Studios Logo Joke gradually turns black and the music turns discordant, representing the Void taking over Bob. The opening scene is about Yelena's depression and suicidal ideation, which the Void is a literal manifestation of.
  • In the end credits, the Thunderbolts* title is ripped off the screen to reveal The New Avengers underneath it.
• Papa Wolf: For all his faults, Alexei clearly loves Yelena deeply, and when he finds out her life is in danger, he immediately drops everything and goes to help her.
• Parental Neglect:
  • In a flashback, John Walker is shown so busy moping over his failed career as Captain America that he ignores his crying son. This led to his wife leaving him and taking their child.
  • The film reveals that Yelena and Alexei haven't had much contact since they reunited and that she resents it because she desperately needs emotional support. Alexei apologizes and says that he kept his distance because he's barely functioning in his own life and he thought that she wouldn't want him being an anchor around her neck.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In the opening scene, Yelena is depressed, and watches Val's staff die (from her actions) without caring much. She does blow up the place, but adopts the lab's guinea pig on her way out the door.
  • During the group's falling out scene, Walker stands up for Alexei against Yelena. Makes sense considering his own failures as a father. Earlier, he also comforted Yelena she shouldn't feel guilty about the things she did as a child assassin due to her age and not knowing any better.
  • After Bob turns on the team and becomes Sentry, during his subsequent fight with the group he flings Red Guardian out a window... and then promptly drags him back inside to slam into a wall instead of dropping him to his death, making it clear that he doesn't actually want to kill any of them even though he's against them now. Even more notable because he didn't even meet Alexei prior to the fight.
• Plot Armor: Although the seeming death of a child Alexei had just saved at the hands of the Void is genuinely shocking, once Yelena, and later the rest of the Thunderbolts, follow suit, it becomes clear that the process is unlikely to be lethal or permanent.
• Poor Communication Kills: Just barely averted on the villain's side; after learning that one of the candidates for Project Sentry survived, Valentina orders Holt not to use lethal force on the team because there's a person of interest she wants taken alive. However, she fails to specify which of them she wants alive, resulting in Holt's team filling Bob with lead when he goes to distract them. It's only thanks to his powers awakening that he survives.
• The Power of Friendship: The Final Boss (The Void) is defeated when Bob receives a Cooldown Hug from his friends, affirming that he has their love and support that enables him to control his dark urges.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: In the comics, Sentry's Watchtower was his old headquarters, revealed to have been cloaked on top of Stark/Avengers Tower without anyone realizing it. Here, the Watchtower is instead what Val renamed Stark/Avengers Tower after she bought and renovated the building.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: As revealed in the vault scene, John and Antonia now have upgraded versions of their shields that can now ricochet like Steve Rogers and Alexei Shostakov's shields do when thrown. They're still not made of vibranium, though, as shown by the large number of scratches in their surfaces, and are nowhere near as indestructible in the process.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Subverted. When Taskmaster is shot in the face by Ghost, the initial impact leaves a clean hole until some blood drips down their face after they fall to the floor, though it isn't much blood.
• Psycho Serum: Once again it is brought up that the Super Serum and its derivatives tend to amplify one's inner self for good or evil. Mel tries to point this out to Valentina, saying that Steve Rogers was The Paragon before becoming Captain America, but is it really a good idea to put their hopes in a washed-up junkie who's barely functional on a good day such as Bob?
• Punch Catch: At the end of the fight in the Watchtower, Sentry catches Bucky's metal arm effortlessly. Then said arm starts getting red hot (reminder: at this point, it's made of vibranium). Then Sentry just disarms Bucky and throws him away.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: What The Void, being the physical manifestation of Bob's depression, is doing at the end, quite literally letting his darkness take over and bring down with it everyone and everything around him.
  The Void: You can't outrun the emptiness.
• Pyrrhic Victory: While Val, through some quick political maneuvering, manages to avoid prison, it isn't quite a Karma Houdini. She unwittingly makes herself a Slave to PR and winds up under Yelena and the others' thumbs. If she gets out of line, refuses to play ball, turns against them, or outlives her usefulness, they have enough evidence that they can still have her thrown in jail.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The team really isn't one. Rather, they're mercenaries who've been thrown together because they share a common foe. Oh, and Bob.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Both an arrogant Val and eventually a despondent Yelena deliver this to their teammates. Val's is mostly shallow and annoying, only managing to annoy a reaction out of Walker, but Yelena, being Everyone's Baby Sister, The Heart, and The Leader of the "kids" on the team, manages to shock Ava and John with the utter brutality of her cutting remarks.
• Redemption Rejection:
  • Briefly. Despite being very abrasive and insulting towards Bob, Walker undergoes some character development in the middle portion of the film. When he encounters Bob again, he tries to appeal to his friendly nature and talk him down. It doesn't go well.
    John Walker: Let's not do this, Bob.
    Bob: It's Sentry now.
  • During and after the credits, the public reception of the New Avengers is decidedly mixed. The post-credit scene in particular discusses boiling tensions between the team and Sam Wilson, as given that Bucky is seemingly leading a team consisting of several assassins and a disgraced would-be Captain America funded by an impeached CIA director, it's pretty understandable why Sam Wilson and the other heroes of the MCU would be pretty antagonistic towards this new incarnation of Avengers.
• Repurposed Pop Song: The teaser trailer is set to a remix of "Where is My Mind?" by The Pixies.^note  The same remix was used in Malignant The Big Game trailer followed up with a remix "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship.
• Retcon: The Watchtower as depicted in this film doesn't appear to match its look when it briefly appeared in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where most of its exterior appears to be made up of glass walls, while its appearance here appears to more closely resemble its original look with some modifications.
• The Reveal:
  • It turns out that Valentina was the one who purchased Avengers Tower back in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
  • The reason why there's an asterisk in the title is that the Thunderbolts end up being the nucleus for the New Avengers.
• Revealing Cover-Up: Valentina's attempt at covering up Project Sentry ultimately results in her lone-wolf mercenaries teaming up against her and unleashes the Void on New York.
• Riddle for the Ages: Played for Laughs in that the audience never does find out for sure who actually was the sponsor of the West Chesapeake Valley Thunderbolts soccer team, as Yelena and Alexei continue to insist it was different local businesses all the way to the end of the film.
• Robbing the Dead: After killing Taskmaster, Ghost immediately starts taking some of her gadgets and weapons. Yelena and John call her out on it... before the latter starts taking some too.
• Rule of Cool: An In-Universe example during The Stinger. When the Thunderbolts get their first look at the Fantastic Four's ship, Walker admits that the mysterious vessel actually looks cool.
• Rule of Symbolism: During the chaos in New York from the Void destroying a helicopter and it crashing through the surrounding construction work, as the Thunderbolts are each helping save innocent people, Walker helps hold up a huge slab of cement while his useless, folded shield is placed under his left arm... making his folded shield look akin to the shield of a medieval knight. Coupling that with the pulverized cement obscuring his uniform, and he looks like a black knight helping save an innocent (which is quite befitting of his personality). Also, the slab is initially too much for Walker, and he starts to falter the longer he holds it up... until first Ava followed by Bucky, Yelena and Alexei all come in and work together to shove the slab away. In other words, much like the film's Aesop regarding depression, a huge weight on your shoulders can be impossible to carry on your own and will crush you with enough time, but with the help of others, that burden can be properly handled and isn't insurmountable.
• Running Gag:
  • Yelena and Alexei have multiple arguments over who actually sponsored Yelena's awful pee-wee soccer club (Shane's Tire Shop or Dimitry's Elite Industrial Lighting and Electronics), and the bickering only gets more intense each time the topic comes up.
  • Similarly, Mindy, Yelena's teammate who once did a poo in midfield, keeps getting brought up.
  • Holt, Valentina's henchman, really wants to use lethal methods to subdue Bob and repeatedly asks if he can throughout the film. He spent a lot of time preparing for lethal!
• She Cleans Up Nicely: In The Stinger, the titular team now have much cleaner outfits and are more well-groomed compared to how disheveled they were for most of the film, due to publicly being declared the "New Avengers" and being funded by Val.
• Ship Tease:
  • Yelena and Bob both get a lot of this between each other over the course of the film, starting most obviously with her helping support him against Walker and Ava during the chaos in the OXE vault. Following that, there's Yelena giving Bob some (admittedly terrible) advice on how to handle his depression, her saving his life when they're all falling down the elevator shaft, the fact that her tying Bob to her back with curtains to keep him close during a gunfight against a bunch of Mooks attacking the vault looks more than a little like the two are dancing, Bob performing a Heroic Sacrifice to help her, Ava and John all escape from OXE, and her being the last one to attack him as the Sentry while also being the first one to enter the Void to stop the madness... and Bob first bringing her to him after she begs him enough.
  • There's some ship tease between John Walker and Ava Starr; the most obvious example is how when Ava temporarily leaves Alexei's limo and is then stuck on the trunk thanks to the OXE Humvee having a Power Nullifier on hand, John immediately grabs her without hesitation and pulls her through the back window back into the limo. Additionally, most of their Snark-to-Snark Combat throughout the film comes across as quite flirtatious, both of them immediately begin Robbing the Dead following Taskmaster's death and an unofficial armistice has been declared, she's the first hero shown helping support Walker against the massive slab of cement during the chaos in New York, and Walker immediately jumps in and starts shooting at the Sentry when he grabs her in a Neck Lift.
• Shooting Superman: While Holt and his goons shooting Bob the first time made sense as nobody knew he was superhuman, the second time in New York where they did know and he also clearly got a power upgrade as the Void, it seems insane that Holt just shooting at him with an assault rifle from a long distance in a helicopter would have any effect.
• Shout-Out:
  • Walker, Yelena, Ava, and Bob climbing up the elevator shaft appears to have been inspired by how Pacha and Kuzco extricated themselves from a similar predicament.
  • As part of his traumatic superpower re-awakening, Bob starts flying, rapidly rising up into the night sky until he is above the clouds. He then faints, and falls back down to the ground at escalating speed, leaving a light trail and finally causing a crater, resembling nothing as much as a meteorite.
  • During the desert chase, Yelena shoots her pistol at Val's pursuing Hummer, and it blows up. She's briefly confused, then we learn that it was actually Bucky. Like in Saving Private Ryan. Given that Captain Miller was the one shooting, this foreshadows how Yelena ends up the team leader.
  • When Bucky turns up to rescue the Thunderbolts, he rides up on a motorcycle in black leathers and sunglasses, snatches a shotgun from one of the OXE agents, and chambers a new round while spinning the gun around.
  • Bucky takes out the last Hummer by mooring its tow cable into the road, causing it to flip vertically like the Joker's semi in The Dark Knight. And then he flips Alexei's limo the same way.
  • During the Battle in the Center of the Mind in the film's third act, the various Mind Screwy ways in which the Thunderbolts are searching through the Void to defeat them and save Bob (i.e., sudden Gravity Screws, jumping through mirrors into new entire time periods and generally operating on dream logic) are quite reminiscent of the Mental World portions of Being John Malkovich.
• Sigil Spam: In the stinger, we see that the New Avengers use their version of the "A" logo more liberally than the original team, with each New Avenger having at least one "A" clearly visible on their costumes and the door to their ready room being emblazoned with the "A" symbol. Among the first team, only Steve Rogers ever wore a small Avenger "A" on one of his pauldrons.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Valentina believes that there is no "good guy and bad guy", but only "a bad guy and a worse guy".
• Simple Solution Won't Work:
  • While trapped in Valentina's vault, Walker and Yelena wonder why Ava doesn't just phase her way to freedom. She points out that she can only maintain intangibility for about a minute, and without knowing what direction to take, she runs the risk of re-materializing inside solid rock and dying.
  • Bucky's initial plan for the group is to have them testify against Valentina, bringing her down through legal means. Finding out about Bob, the power he possesses, and that he's in Valentina's custody quickly kiboshes that plan, and the team has to resort to a direct assault to try and stop her.
  • Val actually had the foresight to have a kill switch made and installed just in case Sentry went rogue. Unfortunately, all that does is take Bob, who can be reasoned with, out of the driver's seat and bring out the Void, who has all the power and no desire to negotiate.
  • When an anomaly is detected in space, Alexei argues that the Sentry should just fly them up there. Bob apologetically tells him he still doesn't have the control to use his powers without risking the Void emerging, with Walker adding that there's no way for him to feasibly fly while carrying five people, even if he did.
• Slave to PR: Contessa Valentina becomes this by the film's finale when she stops the rightfully angry Thunderbolts from breaking every bone in her body at the last second by luring them in front of a staged phalanx of cameras and reporters, then triumphantly declares them The Saviors of New York and "The New Avengers". Since they know that the disaster of unleashing Bob was Valentina's doing, not to mention how she tried to silence them through death, Yelena smugly whispers "We own you now..." into the Contessa's ear even as the crowds cheer and the cameras flash, knowing that because the good name of establishing The New Avengers is the only thing that will keep her out of jail, Valentina can no longer callously use, defame, or dispose of the Thunderbolts like she so casually used to.
• Smug Snake: Contessa Valentina has been established as this in the MCU, but this movie showcases just how smug and overconfident she really is. She treats an impeachment hearing as an insulting inconvenience, callously tries to have her numerous human assets terminated, and then decides that she can manipulate a mentally unstable Physical God into doing her bidding, all with an obnoxious smirk on her face. As the movie goes on, it becomes evident just how out of her depth she has gotten. Most of what she does is out of desperation, she hastily tries to get rid of evidence to avoid prosecution only for this to backfire when the Thunderbolts team up, her attempts to manipulate (and then kill) Bob result in the Void taking control, and even when she tries to claim credit for the formation of the New Avengers, Yelena informs her that this means that she is permanently beholden to them to keep their mouths shut.
• Soft Glass: Downplayed; in the Void's mindscape, one of the attacks it uses against the Thunderbolts is to shatter some glass doors and fling the shards at them. While the heroes' faces are scratched up, the cuts aren't as numerous as they'd likely be in real life.
• So Proud of You: When Yelena finally cracks and cries over how worthless she feels, Alexei gushes that he only sees her as an amazing woman and that he's proud of her no matter what she feels about herself.
  Alexei: Yelena, when I look at you... I don't see your mistakes.
• Spoiler Cover: Besides the poster, the DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K, and all the streaming thumbnails have *The New Avengers written under Thunderbolts*
• Spoiler Title: The asterisk in the title hints at a major twist at the very end of the film. Despite this, after the film's first weekend, Disney began to openly advertise the movie under the secret title of The New Avengers.
• Stating the Simple Solution: After Walker fails to jump out of the elevator pit and Ghost says she'd just walk her way into an ocean of dirt and suffocate, Bob suggests they crabwalk their way out of the pit. It works.
• The Stinger:
  • In the mid-credits scene, Red Guardian proudly admires his picture on a Wheaties box in a grocery store as a member of the New Avengers, awkwardly trying to impress the lady next to him. She politely picks up the box... and then puts it back on the shelf farther down the aisle.
  • In the post-credits scene, as the Thunderbolts debate about how they're seen as unworthy successors to the "original" Avengers, they detect the arrival of a mysterious ship in Earth orbit — a ship emblazoned with a familiar "4"...
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: The Void goads Bob into attacking him, as doing so only means its influence over Bob grows.
• Stupid Evil: When pressed by her secretary Mel whether she wants to be a good person who makes the world a better place, Contessa Valentina candidly scoffs that she knows she's a bad person, and would rather be a bad person who holds the leash that stops worse people from killing everyone, most importantly herself. This self-defeating cynicism compels her to reason that the only way to maintain the nihilistic status quo is to have the leash on an unstoppable god who is so emotionally stunted and desperate for validation that he has nothing to live for but the sense of purpose that following her orders will give him. Valentina failed to take into account that actual human beings with souls who are not sociopaths like her like to look upwards for hope and meaning in life, and when a god like Bob who already has nothing left to lose can now fly into the light whenever he wants, what reason, if any — even your ultimately useless kill-switch — does he have to continue to be an obedient dog on your flimsy leash?
• Suicidal "Gotcha!": The film opens with Yelena talking about how pointless her life feels, while standing on the edge of a tall building in her sweats. She then throws herself from the rooftop... only to open a parachute to land on top of another building to do espionage work there.
• Superhero Packing Heat: Yelena, John, Ava, and Bucky all wield firearms. Alexei also carries a pair of pistols in holsters at the small small of his back, however he never uses them. Yelena, John, and Ava take a moment to compare their pistols to pass the time, and the two women make fun of John's .45 with extended barrel.
• Superhero Speciation: Averted. As Yelena points out, the entire team is composed of people who just "punch and shoot", including three super soldiers with similar powers and skill sets. Ghost has some more utility, but rarely is with the main team.
• Super-Soldier: Bucky, Alexei, and John have all taken variations of Erskine's super soldier serum. Alexei and Barnes even compare the serums they received.
  Red Guardian: What kind of super serum did you get?
  Bucky: I dunno, regular, Hydra.
  Red Guardian: Hydra? Oh, fancy.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In a nice aversion of the ubiquitous Traveling at the Speed of Plot, Alexei learns about Valentina's plot to kill Yelena at the Vault and rushes to warn her... in a slow limo, from Washington DC to the wide expanses of the US desert. Naturally, he's about a day too late when he finally finds her.
  • While the group is being chased by a military convoy, Alexei quickly creates a Molotov cocktail and tosses it onto the windshield of the leading car behind them. It sets the hood aflame... and the armored vehicle then promptly keeps driving without issue, as not only is the driver a soldier who was likely trained to not panic in such a situation, but military AVs are designed to be bulletproof and can easily withstand a bit of fire. Alexei is visibly disappointed it doesn't work.
  • Val is a world-class Chessmaster, but even with all her power, she can't keep the balls in the air forever. Trying to cover-up and exploit the situation just makes things worse for her, starting with bringing the team together and giving them a reason to come after her in the first place.
• Take That!:
  • Bucky only responds to interview questions about the impeachment process for Val in the opening by repeating variations on "worrying" and trying to avoid answering at all, in a way that seems to be a dig at certain US politicians saying they are "concerned" or "disappointed" in actions of others in the government instead of voicing their constituents' anger or other emotions openly.
  • During the Creative Closing Credits montage of articles showing the public's mixed-to-negative reception of the New Avengers, the one positive article is written by David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and author whose centrism and outlandish opinions have made him the subject of Contempt Crossfire from both sides of the political aisle.
• Taking the Kids: It's revealed midway through the film that Olivia left John and took their infant son, due to him being a neglectful parent by sulking over his failures as Captain America when he's supposed to be taking care of him, and constantly leaving for covert ops missions for Val as U.S. Agent.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: Red Guardian and Yelena have never been members of the Thunderbolts in the comics. Similarly, they and Ghost were never part of the Avengers, either.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Although they were trying to kill each other just moments before, and still aren't on remotely good terms, the four survivors of the Vault must join forces to get back up the disabled elevator. Lacking any better plan, they stand back-to-back, lean on each other and move in tandem in order to climb up the elevator shaft, squabbling all the while.
• Tele-Frag: Discussed and Averted. Ghost's power to turn intangible cannot last more than a minute. So, when she's down in a bunker deep below a mountain, she's not going to try to escape by phasing through the walls for fear of ending up re-materializing inside solid rock.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Alexei tells Ava, Yelena, and Walker not to panic about being chased by armed military vehicles, as their car is bulletproof. One of these vehicles proves him wrong by shooting at the back of their car, shattering the rear windscreen, though it was likely rated for small-arms instead of .50 caliber rounds.
    Walker: WHAT HAPPENED TO BULLETPROOF?!
    Alexei: It's bulletproof-ish!
  • Valentina smugly gloats that having the Sentry under her control makes her totally unimpeachable. While he does make short work of the Thunderbolts in a fight, Bob quickly demonstrates that he is not under Valentina's control, refusing to kill them as ordered and wondering why he should have to listen to her at all.
• There Was a Door: When the Thunderbolts ram their car into the side of the Watchtower and attack the guards, Val notes that the door was unlocked, and complains about ruining the new drywall.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Yelena says "This is not good" when she sees Bucky about to fire a disc grenade at the limo that she and the other Thunderbolts are riding in.
• Time Skip: The post-credits scene takes place 14 months after the New Avengers are formed.
• Took a Level in Badass: While Ghost in Ant-Man and the Wasp was already a noticeable step-up from her counterpart in the comics, by the events of this film she's an incredible Stealth Expert and martial artist. She can weaponize her abilities to keep up with Taskmaster, Yelena (the two of them being graduates of the infamous "Red Room" and some of the best spies/assassins on the planet, the former even being cybernetically enhanced into having Super-Reflexes) and John Walker (a highly decorated and experienced combat veteran who's also a bonafide Super-Soldier). And even succeeds in killing Taskmaster.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: While not as aggressive as he was in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (and still an Adaptational Nice Guy compared to his incarnation in the comics), Walker is a lot grouchier and more bitter here compared to how friendly he was at the start of the show. It's later revealed that this is because he's still depressed over his failed stint as Captain America, which led to his wife divorcing him for being a neglectful father to their infant son.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • The initially amoral, mutually antagonistic, and selfish 'Bolts eventually come to care for each other. Especially for Bob, whom they initially treated as a liability. They also come together to save the people of New York without any hesitation, or even any rousing speech to motivate them extrinsically.
  • Walker in particular stands out as he’s the most antagonistic to Bob throughout the first half of the film, even almost attacking him after being called "an asshole", yet he ultimately serves as a big brother figure to him in the second half, encouraging him in the fight against the Void, being the second one to hug after Yelena and sincerely praising him for "doing great in there" following their escape.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The Cast Announcement for Avengers: Doomsday over a month before the film's release all but spoiled that most of the Thunderbolts and the Sentry would make it out of this film alive. The absence of Olga Kurylenko from the announcement also all but spoiled that Taskmaster was likely going to die, although there was also enough ambiguity to leave her fate uncertain.
  • After the opening weekend, marketing for the film was updated to replace the Thunderbolts* branding with The New Avengers, giving away the ending of the film. This wasn't just limited to social media either, as physical advertisements were also updated, including billboards and building posters.
• Uncertain Doom: Holt and the helicopter pilots, whose Void shadows crashed in fiery explosions, thus their survival after the Void was stopped being an open question.
• Unflinching Walk: A variation: Yelena announces over the phone that the job is done, then stops herself and glances over her shoulder to make sure the building behind her explodes; once it does, she continues walking nonchalantly.
• Unimpressive Progress Reveal: While climbing up an elevator shaft, the team starts bickering with each other after what's implied to be a large amount of time. Yelena gets everyone to shut up, then glances up at the seemingly-endless tunnel ahead of them, then down to show that they're only a few feet off the ground.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In the climax, Yelena inexplicably steps into the Void's shadows and is voided in turn, despite no-one having any way of knowing what was the shadows were actually doing. While the other Thunderbolts assume she's dead, Ava rationalizes that she wouldn't have done that without a reason and resolves to go in after her, the rest of the team in tow. It then turns out that the shadows are non-fatal pocket dimensions, and the team is able to save Yelena and Bob from the Void.
• Villainous Valor: For as smug and scummy Valentina is, she faces her impending death at Sentry's hands without fear.
• Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Although Bucky dresses appropriately for a congressman, he has scraggly hair and an unkempt beard which shows that he hasn't been completely been able to shed his espionage past, which he demonstrates at Valentina's gala as he quickly takes note of where surveillance is and makes sure to speak with Congressman Gary in a blind spot.
• Wham Line: At the end of the film, Valentina lures the Thunderbolts into an impromptu press conference, allowing her to get away with her former plans by rebranding them as her new team:
  Valentina: For years, I have been working secretly to develop a new age of protection. Today, the citizens of the United States needed that protection, and thanks to my hard work, they got it. Ladies and gentlemen... meet the New Avengers.
• Wham Shot:
  • Alexei the Red Guardian saves a little girl from a falling slab of concrete; she warmly smiles back at him, then abruptly explodes into a cloud of black smoke. This is exceptionally jarring as it is the first onscreen child fatality (or so it seems at first) to occur in the MCU's 17 year run, showing that truly nobody is safe from the sheer apocalyptic threat of the Physical God that Valentina unleashed upon the MCU.
  • After the title card is revealed, it's ripped up for the other title, The New Avengers.
  • In The Stinger, the Thunderbolts watch the live satellite feed of the mysterious ship that's just appeared in Earth orbit. The Watchtower systems magnify the footage... and the ship's maneuvering reveals that there's a familiar "4" emblazoned on the hull.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Yelena saves a guinea pig from a research lab in Malaysia, but it's never seen again after she blows up the lab, and it's not clear what she did with it afterwards. It does feature in one of the magazine covers during the closing credits though, so we can assume it's alive and well.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Upon touching Bob's hand early on, Yelena sees a memory of how she lured a fellow Black Widow named Anya to her death when she was a child. When she goes into the Void, this memory replays, but this time, Yelena tries to stop Anya being shot. In return, Anya bitterly tells her that it’s too late, and then attacks her.
• What You Are in the Dark: None of the heroes are ordered to save anyone during Void's rampage nor are they aware their teammates will help; all just jump in to protect people on instinct. Walker in particular likely would've been crushed by a giant piece of debris and had no idea any of his allies would come and save him.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Thunderbolts* spends a lot of time paralleling the structure, iconography and details of The Avengers, with the key difference being that the characters are decidedly less heroic. Part of this is deliberate in-universe, because Valentina is trying to set up the Sentry as a successor to the Avengers — and when that plan goes south, she publicly christens the Thunderbolts as "the New Avengers" to save her own ass.
• "Will Return" Caption:
  THE NEW AVENGERS AND BOB WILL RETURN
• Wipe the Floor with You: When the Thunderbolts crash into the lobby of Avengers Tower and brawl with OXE operatives, Walker takes one down by pushing his head into the side of a truck with his shield and dragging his head against it.
• Wrecked Weapon: Sentry bends John's new shield like it's made of putty and melts down his handgun to show just how much stronger he is than Walker and every other Thunderbolt. Surprisingly, in the Stinger, Walker is still using the bent shield rather than get a replacement or a repair. It appears to have become kind of a trademark.
• Writing Around Trademarks: In-Universe; The New Avengers' logo is an "A" that looks very similar to but still distinct from the original Avengers' "A". Red Guardian also attempts to his own take by calling the team New Avengerz, thereby avoiding (at least, by his own reasoning) any copyright issues with Sam Wilson, who is said to have filed for the Avengers name. The rest of the team is suitably unimpressed, and Yelena exasperatedly cites the "z" as a sign that they're a lackluster team of Avengers.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Val constantly adjusts her plans to keep ahead of setbacks. She originally intends to kill several of her operatives in an incinerator but finds out they escaped along with a successful Sentry Project test subject. She then tries to manipulate the Sentry into killing the Thunderbolts but Sentry refuses and is killed with the killswitch. Unfortunately, the killswitch doesn't work, Sentry becomes the Void, and is rescued by the Thunderbolts. With the Sentry project having almost destroyed New York and a group of angry super-powered killers out to get her, Valentina quickly spins events to hastily set up the New Avengers and come out as the hero. Deconstructed as Yelena points out this essentially means they own her, as they can drop the truth about Project Sentry at any time and ruin her. Not to mention, the people of New York are confused by the new heroes and it has attracted the unwanted attention of Sam Wilson, who files a copyright suit and the New York citizens are siding with him.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: In The Stinger, Alexei suggests the New Avengers get around Sam Wilson's copyright by calling themselves the "Avengerz". He's wearing an outfit with that logo already, and says he had more made for the whole team.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The film's central theme. Your past mistakes needn't stop you from doing good in the present. Alexei also says that this is why he and Yelena need each other, so they can see themselves through each other's eyes, unclouded by their own self-loathing.
• You Are Not Alone: When Bob literally tries to beat himself to death while pinning down his self-loathing personified in the Void, the Thunderbolts holds him back and as one lovingly hug onto him, showing him that he is a good person deserving of kindness and the right to forgive himself of his past mistakes and failures.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When Valentina declares them the "New Avengers" in front of the press (to salvage the whole fiasco and save her own neck), the heroes themselves are left staring dumbfounded, not quite sure what to make of the whole thing.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Facing impeachment for her various misdeeds, Valentina desperately tries to scrub any and all evidence related to her black ops activities. This includes eliminating her own covert operatives (Yelena, Walker, Ghost, and Taskmaster) by manipulating them into a place where they'll either die fighting each other or be reduced to ash along with a lot of other incriminating material when Valentina has the whole place incinerated.