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With less than a month to go before release, Marvel Studios has released new trailers for Thunderbolts* to coincide with presales for tickets — and, in the process, seemingly confirmed significant speculation about the movie’s plot (and villain), potentially spoiled the movie’s big twist, and underscored the movie’s similarities to DC’s much-maligned 2016 Suicide Squad movie.

Spoiler warnings for Thunderbolts* follow, just in case you don’t want to know more.

Officially, the new footage released in the US isn’t a trailer per se; it was a promo spot released to accompany the announcement that tickets were available… that, unexpectedly, shows the movie’s villain, who names himself as The Void, and is shown to spread darkness throughout New York City, and transform people into… well, literal shadows of themselves. The Thunderbolts, it’s revealed, are a bunch of villains pressed into service by Bucky to save the day. Watch the footage for yourself:

If that’s not enough spoiler-ish material, Marvel released a separate trailer in India that reveals that Lewis Pullman’s Bob is, in fact, the Sentry — we all knew it, right? — and that he’s introduced by Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as a government-sponsored replacement for the Avengers… and, indeed, “stronger than all the Avengers rolled into one, and soon to be known as Earth’s mightiest hero.” The problem? Well, that comes when we hear the Sentry say, “Why would a god take orders from anyone at all?” Here’s that trailer:

Here’s the thing: we’ve seen a movie where a bunch of morally-ambiguous characters have to save the world from an omnipotent figure who was initially seen as a government operative to counteract the rise of superheroes, only to go rogue as a result of mental instability, with the morally-ambiguous anti-heroes led by a militarized morally-upright leader — oh, and the quasi-good guys learn to be a team and find the good inside themselves while fighting their way through a terrified city setting. That’s David Ayer’s Suicide Squad.

It’s very possible that Thunderbolts* has more twists in the telling that will differentiate (or even simply lampshade) the thematic similarities between the two movies. It’s genuinely surprising to see last-minute promo for the movie that seems to lean into a similarity to one of the less loved superhero movies of the past decade. Perhaps even more surprising when you consider that, just last month, Marvel was seemingly trying to promote the movie as an indie hit in disguise:

Thunderbolts* will be released May 2. At this point, we either know everything we need to know about it, or are very confused about what kind of movie lies in wait.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.