Thunderbolts* Ending Explained: Where This Leaves the MCU Ahead of Doomsday

This article contains Thunderbolts* spoilers.

The Thunderbolts are here!! Yes, after many Marvel movies that didn’t hit the mark, our first Marvel movie of the summer has arrived and, as our reviewer put it, “Marvel’s shaggiest movie in ages proves to be a good time.” Another way to put it is this isn’t your daddy’s Avengers. Instead this is a ragtag group of villains and antiheroes trying their best to make amends for the horrors of their past by helping stop their one-time-almost teammate and supernatural mind-f#*k, Bob (Lewis Pullman) A.K.A. The Sentry A.K.A. The Void.

It’s intimate, thrilling, and well put together. And like any Marvel movie coming out post-Endgame, it has a lot riding on it. So put on your lil hero hat, grab some vodka, and let’s break down the ending of Thunderbolts* and how this film sets up what could be a BONKERS Avengers: Doomsday!

A Marvel Ending That Asks: What About Bob?

To really dig into the ending of Thunderbolts* we need to talk about Bob. Played by Pullman in a role that was originally written for Steven Yuen, Bob meets Yelena (Florence Pugh), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) in the bowels of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s mountain lair. While the three villains—plus a quickly dispatched Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko)—have been sent into a trap to kill each other and tie up loose ends for Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ spymaster, it’s unclear why Bob is there.

Throughout the film we also learn he was a test subject for a super soldier serum called the Sentry Project. As the only survivor, he’s deeply valuable to Valentina and ends up in her grasp after he helps his new pals escape her clutches. Soon she’s mommy-issued him into becoming the telepathic, telekinetic superhero she needs to control the country and its ever-growing superhero business. But she didn’t take into consideration that Bob is clearly a manic depressive and maybe a mutant—more on that later—and soon he transforms from the golden-haired, golden-suited Sentry to a ravenous negative-space wraith, the Void, sucking people into his darkness on the streets of New York, leaving nothing more than burnt out silhouettes in his wake.  

Now that we’re caught up on Bob, we can join the Thunderbolts in their third act battle to save New York City by helping their new friend. It’s clear that Yelena and Bob connected during their time in the mountain over their shared mental health struggles and it’s the brave former Black Widow who steps into the Void in order to save him. In a moment that feels more akin to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness than a gritty espionage film, she finds herself in a maze of her most shameful moments. Yep, in a change from his comic book powers this version of the Void drags people into their worst moments. As she crawls through the surreal and terrifying house of cards that the Void has built, she manages to find Bob who is hiding in an attic where he has to constantly watch his father beat him and his mother as he tries to protect her. 

While Bob agrees to leave with Yelena, the Void tries to stop them. Just as things are looking hopeless, Red Guardian (David Harbour), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), Ghost, and U.S. Agent show up and help the pair escape. The theme of community support being vital to overcoming a mental health crisis is clear here. Although Bob almost loses himself by embracing the Void and succumbing to the darkness, his friends pull him back from the brink. Soon the Void’s shadow vanishes, returning all the New Yorkers to the streets where they were enveloped by the blackness.

It seems like this team’s journey is over. All that’s left is apprehending Valentina, right? Alas, she’s smarter than they give her credit for and instead they walk into a PR trap. Behind a construction barrier, Valentina and her assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan) have assembled the press, and the former claims that her top secret project all along was creating the team who just saved New York, which she dubs “the New Avengers.” While it takes the antiheroes by surprise, Yelena instantly realizes it also gives them leverage and she lets Valentina know, whispering “we own you now” as they all silently agree to go along with her little scheme and take up residence in Avengers Tower as the city’s newest crime-fighting team. 

Where Does the MCU Stand After Meeting the New Avengers?

The end of Thunderbolts* doesn’t just set up Marvel’s next movie, it also establishes a new status quo for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. The MCU has had multiple hero teams active at the same time before thanks to the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as the two opposing Avengers squads fighting each other in Captain America: Civil War, but we have yet to delve into the reality of having different Avengers teams simultaneously recognized by the public and the government. However, this is a long-standing tradition in the comic books.

With the reveal that Valentina has her own team with the New Avengers and Sam Wilson is fighting them in court for the copyright to the O.G. Avengers name, we wouldn’t be surprised to see other Avengers teams emerge in the lead up to Avengers: Doomsday, which will see the introduction of Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. 

Ever since the introduction of characters like Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) and Eli Bradley (Elijah Richardson), fans have been waiting for the Young Avengers, which feels like the team we’re most likely to see appear next. The most recent hint of their existence was in Daredevil: Born Again where the father of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) told Matt Murdock that his daughter was in Los Angeles with her friends.

Many viewers made the connection to the fact that Kate Bishop has an aunt who lives in Hollywoodland, and that one of her famous recent comic arcs took her there. So if Kamala is in LA with Kate after their meeting at the end of The Marvels, then there’s a chance that Wiccan (Joe Locke), Stature (Kathryn Newton), or Eli’s Patriot might have found their way there too. The fact that they’re in Los Angeles also raises another question: could the Young Avengers be merged with the West Coast Avengers in the MCU?

With Vision and Wanda currently out of commision, the usual lineup of that team might not appear. So it would make sense that the Young Avengers could take on that mantle, especially since they’re getting older and—well, less young—by the time they’d get their own movie. Conversely, this group has at times been rumored to debut in the MCU as The Champions, an oddball ‘70s comic book team recently reimagined as cool teens.

When it comes to other teams that we might see in the lead up to Doomsday, there is also A-Force, the all-female Avengers created by G. Willow Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, and Jorge Molina. If that were the case, it could be a good home for She-Hulk, Shuri, Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and other women who aren’t currently on the main Avengers roster. The end of Thunderbolts* also gave big Dark Avengers and Dark Reign vibes, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see a more obviously “evil” group of characters brought together by another of the MCU’s big bads, although Valentina’s new heroes definitely already fill that space to a point.

When it comes to weirder Avengers teams that we might see, there is of course the ’90s West Coast Avengers offshoot Force Works, which could potentially become a part of Marvel’s animated / live-action crossover plans, or the more recent Savage Avengers who were a rugged group featuring antiheroes like Elektra, Wolverine, Venom, and the Punisher. 

So why would Marvel want to introduce so many new teams of heroes? Well, there is currently a power vacuum in the MCU post Thunderbolts*, and as it heads toward its next massive event movie in Doomsday you can expect the franchise to lean into the 2015 Secret Wars series by Esad Ribić and Jason Aaron—and its many spin-offs—that saw the Marvel’s sprawling comic book multiverse condensed into a single planet, which was then split into different warring realms by the villainous Doctor Doom.

If that’s the case then it would make a lot of sense that each of those locations would have a hero team of its own to defend them. This plotline is actually something that’s already been partially seeded throughout the MCU with the introduction of secret lands and their protectors: Asgard in Thor, Wakanda in Black Panther, Ta Lo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Madripoor in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, just to name a few. 

We’ll likely know more when The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in July—which thanks to Thunderbolts*, we know ends with them traveling to another dimension, seemingly adding to the above theory—and we get a true look at the future of the MCU. But it’s safe to say that there will be a lot of fracturing among heroes when they most need to stand together.

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