During Marvel Studios’ CinemaCon presentation in April 2024, a minor change was confirmed to the title of one of the studio’s 2025 films, sparking interest among MCU fans. Without addressing its meaning, Marvel’s Head Honcho, Kevin Feige, revealed that the official title of Thunderbolts now included an asterisk. And the wild speculation about Thunderbolts* began.
Yes, you’ll notice the asterisk on Thunderbolts. That is the official title of Thunderbolts and we won’t talk more about that until after the movie comes out.
-Kevin Feige
As is always the case, speculation ran from absurd to astute, with many deducing a chance in the team’s name as the reason behind the mysterious addition of the symbol.
Now that the film has finally made its way into theaters, we can finally talk about why the asterisk was added to the title and it is exactly what we thought it was: a name change for the titular team of heroes.
After discovering that her Project Sentry was not a complete failure and that Lewis Pullman‘s Bob survived the process, Julia Louis-Dreyfus‘ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine plans to reveal Earth’s Mightiest Hero, The Sentry, to the public in a bid to make herself untouchable amidst her impeachment hearing. As the Thunderbolts arrive at the old Avengers Tower, now owned by Val and known as The Watchtower, in hopes of stopping her and helping Bob, Val reveals an all-new, all-different Bob, one who she’s not-so-subtly manipulated and attempts to use to kill the Thunderbolts, riding herself of the people who made up her CIA wetwork network…only Bob realizes he doesn’t have to play by the rules.
The asterisk tells us there’s so much more to the story.
-David Harbour
After saving Bob and all of New York City from The Void, the dark and powerful shadow of The Sentry that took control of Bob, the team turns its attention to Val who leads them directly to the press she had assembled for Sentry and introduces them as The New Avengers, revealing the meaning of the film’s cryptic asterisk.
With the Multiverse Saga headed toward its conclusion and Sam Wilson assembling his own Avengers, it’s not quite clear what the future holds for Yelena, Bucky, John Walker, Ava and Alexi; however, as promised during the credits of Thunderbolts*, The New Avengers will return with Avengers: Doomsday next up on their docket.
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