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Thunderbolts*: 5 big takeaways from the first trailer for the Marvel Studios movie

It's been shown at SDCC 2024, and we think the first teaser for Thunderbolts* is offering some clues about the 2025 movie

Features by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Wed Aug 14 2024

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After its debut at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 — where we were in the room! — the teaser trailer for Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* has since been leaked online. Given that it’s now a little bit less of a secret than before, we figured it’s safe to share our five big takeaways from the trailer — but be warned, everything that follows is technically a spoiler, at least until Marvel releases the trailer officially.

Florence Pugh's White Widow is not okay

If there’s a moral heart of Thunderbolts*, it might be Yelena Belova, the White Widow. She explains in the trailer that she feels as if there’s something wrong with her, and that she feels as if she’s lacking purpose. Could it be that she’s going to find that purpose not in being a mercenary, or looking for revenge — although she got over that in the Hawkeye miniseries, surely — but in being an unlikely hero?

David Harbour's Red Guardian, meanwhile, is just fine

Who doesn’t love an unwitting buffoon? Certainly not Marvel Studios, who have enjoyed leaning into that archetype with Thor, Drax, and now the Red Guardian, whose endless self-belief and self-mythologizing provides much of the humor in the trailer, and suggests that he’s going to go from being the breakout character from 2021’s Black Widow to being the breakout character in this movie, as well. (Congratulations, David Harbour.)

Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier is in trouble

This might be reading into things too much, but it certainly looks as if Bucky Barnes is headed into some kind of congressional hearing at some point in the trailer. He’s a man who knows a lot about the shadier history of the MCU, so it could turn out to be a big deal if he’s about to talk… and, let’s be honest: there might be a lot of people who’d want him to keep his mouth shut, even if it means taking care of him permanently. Could the Winter Soldier be the catalyst for the team’s formation, albeit unwillingly? After all, the Thunderbolts are a team of mercenaries…

Bob’s your… something

Who is Bob? Actor Lewis Pullman wasn’t saying anything on stage at SDCC 2024, not even going so far as to reveal the last name of his character — but the trailer makes clear that Bob isn’t just an everyman: while he’s not shown to be bulletproof, it’s heavily implied, not least by the fact that we see him seemingly healthy while wearing clothes with bulletholes through them. He’s rumored to be the Sentry, which would make him one of the most powerful characters in the MCU… and maybe a bigger threat to the MCU than anyone might expect, in the long run.

Someone just made the worst mistake of their career

The primary takeaway from the trailer — beyond the feeling that this is the new team of broken anti-heroes who want a family, to take up the slack left behind by the Guardians of the Galaxy — is that the Thunderbolts is a group that is brought together by accident, after someone (purposefully left unclear, but very possibly Julia Louis Dreyfuss’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine) brings them together with the express intention of killing them in one fell swoop. But why? And who benefits from the whole thing?

The trailer does exactly what it should: offer a taste of the flavor of the movie, and get audiences asking questions and wanting to know more. For now, the biggest question is: when will Marvel release the trailer officially?

Thunderbolts* is set for a May 2025 release.

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.